Over the last couple of days, I have gotten involved in a couple of conversations on LinkedIn about authenticity, courage and bringing your whole self to work. I am profoundly ambivalent about this.
Let me start with the parts that I agree with. I have spent over 20 years working a variety of environments and in that time period, I have got to know myself fairly well (but probably not as well as the people around me). I crave environments that fit my interests and my personality. I have less and less interest in pretending to me things I am not to please others. So the notion that work should be a place where I can express who I am is appealing.
All good right? Well, not so fast. There are 5 concerns that I have with this authenticity stuff.
Firstly, I don't actually believe there is a single authentic self. As individuals we have personalities and traits. But we are inconsistent. Our behaviour may depend on the context we operate in. We grow and we change. We are neither infinitely malleable nor are we set in stone. We are at once the irresistible force and the immovable object, if we're going to get zen koan about this. As George Bataille* said: “I myself am war”. Part of growing is both understanding what we are not but also expanding the possibilities of what we are. When asked to bring my whole self to work, perhaps my answer is: "which one?"
Secondly, I don't think you should bring all parts of myself to work. There are things that I do at home, sometimes naked, that should not have a place at work. Less messily, there are things inside myself that I do need to keep a lid on for the sake of workplace effectiveness - esp. around those that I have power over (we'll talk more about power in a moment). Now I do think we need to get more open about issues like mental health so I am not advocating some kind of "stiff upper lip" approach to emotional repression. But I think we do need to navigate these issues with some care. Incidentally, one of the main promoters of this stuff is Mike Robbins. If you go to his website you are presented with a weird dissonance of content and form. Mike talks about authenticity and vulnerability but he presents us with a series of carefully posed photographs of himself and his family. Where is Mike in his underpants? Who do we believe? The Mike of the words ("be authentic") or the Mike of the pictures ("carefully curate your image to the world at all costs")"? Which one is the authentic Mike**?
Thirdly, our workplaces are mostly not safe spaces and under no circumstances should we pretend that they are. Asking people to bring their "whole selves to work" can sound like either an excuse to try and suck more discretionary effort ("I don't want to work this weekend" "Well Tina, are you really bringing your whole self to work?") or an invitation to be hurt. The answer is sometimes given: "Well people just need to be brave". And the answer to that has to be: You go first over the top of that trench brother. Real bravery has consequences and most of us just don't have a lot of it. Another answer is: "People should leave toxic workplaces". Well, yes they should. But that's a big ask for people. In my post-redundancy chats, one group that has come up a few times are mothers with young families in toxic workplaces. They stay in toxic workplaces because they are offered the option of part-time or flexible hours or working from home. And they know they will struggle to find similar deals elsewhere so they put up with the nonsense in exchange for money and the love of their family. BUSINESS IDEA: If you are 1. not dickheads and 2. have flexible work policies then SHOUT THIS TO THE ROOFTOPS because there is a vast reservoir of talent out there waiting to rush into your arms. Ultimately where I am going with this is that we need to pay as much attention to structures and power as to individual agency. We can't leave crappy structures in place and then blame individuals for not being brave enough to change them alone.
Fourthly, lets talk about power. You know who do generally get to bring their whole selves to work? The people in charge. They get to lose their tempers and to say inappropriate things and to be difficult to work with and to indulge their fancies. They justify these behaviours to themselves in terms of "I may be an asshole but I get results" or "I pay their wages" or, simply, "I do this because I can". And by "they", I sometimes mean "me". The people with the responsibility to create psychological safety are those at the top and this means their actions as much as their words. Otherwise we're back to the dissonance thing again.
Finally, isn't this all a bit middle class? I am not saying that working class people do not take pride their work or yearn to express themselves more through their work. But this idea that work should be an expression of who you are fits in with the workism of the modern middle classes. It is like Catholics demanding that mass be said in their native language rather than Latin. Yes, it's more inclusive but its still a dogma***. What happens if you just want your job to be, like, a job? That should be OK. If you have other outlets for yourself then that's fine. Heck, if you don't want to grow at all then that is also acceptable - lots of people do not grow as people.
So what I do suggest then? Here are three suggestions:
If you see someone getting beaten up for not fitting in then defend them.
If you are sometimes not the change you want to see, don't feel guilty. Just try a little harder next time.
If you have power then try to be less of a dick occasionally.
I'm not sure if any of the above is authentic but it is definitely something.
*A pervy librarian I definitely do not have anything in common with.
**SPOILERS: Both and neither.
***Sorry if I offended any Catholics there. Feel free to replace that analogy with another totalizing belief system if that makes it easier.