Incest 0000i-xiv FM 1 - William L. White

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t h e i n c e st u o u s wo r k p lac e
The effect of this isolation on workers is that all of their professional
needs must then be met inside the organizational family. Lacking outside
feedback and stimulation, stagnation is almost inevitable.
As the number of outside transactions decreases, the nature of outside
relationships changes. Relationships are reduced in number to those
essential to the survival of the system; the leaders of closed systems become
quite adept at politically or personally seducing valued outsiders.
Before the system approaches a further acceleration of closure, organizational
leaders have usually strengthened ties with key outside sponsors
and protectors. Outside relationships take on a highly manipulative
quality. Leaders of closed systems begin to see the outside world as
either gullible or hostile. People and institutions are to be used, manipulated,
or attacked. When closed systems break up amid media exposure
of breaches in ethical and legal conduct, it is sometimes surprising to
find a long list of political and public figures who had continued to support
these organizations long after they became isolated from the wider
community. Political seduction and political intimidation are common
ways closed systems relate to their external environment.
5.6 Homogenization of the Staff
As an organization closes, members begin to look more and more like
one another. This “sameness” may be based on age, sex, race, or lifestyle
but almost always entails the selection of staff members with homogeneous
value systems—values that reflect a high degree of congruence
with the organizational dogma.
Closed systems tend to keep out or expel that which is different. People
in closed systems who are the only anything—only women, only
people of color—are in high danger of becoming isolated, scapegoated,
and extruded from the organization. Scapegoating escalates the closure
process by eliminating those people who are most likely to inject new
ideas and change into the organization. Sameness is reinforced by selecting
only prospective employees, consultants, volunteers, and board
members who share similar value systems; it is ensured during the latter
stages of closure when almost all new staff members hired are from the
professional and social network of the current staff. As the professional
and social worlds of organizational members shrink over time, this homogenization
may be intensified by the recruiting of new employees and
volunteers primarily from the intimate family and social networks of the
staff—particularly the family members of the inner circle.