The good corporate citizen
Being a good fit
We identified earlier that that ‘misfits’ in society might be those who are running a different set of memes from everybody else, or who are running the same memes at different strengths. These individuals can’t of course warp the rest of society to fit their particular vision, unless they are sociopaths like Hitler or Stalin.
Organisations are also memetic constructs, and so the same arguments about 'fit' apply here too. The person who will integrate best into an organisation will be the one whose personal memes are the best fit with the corporate memeplex. That’s why we use techniques like psychometric testing and interviewing to test the personal qualities and cultural fit of candidates, why we run training programmes to embed the desired memes, and why we hold up role models to reinforce them.
When we considered culture shock we saw how it results from attachment to the set of memes that a person was raised with and the rejection of the memes that predominate in the culture they are now living or working in. The same problem can occur when a person changes jobs, and so once again we can see that porosity to new memes matters: no new hire is ever a perfect fit, and if a person has an extremely strong personal immune system they will resist taking on any new programming. And that’s where I think that the notion of a ‘poor corporate citizen’ comes from - it’s people who can’t or won’t accept the organisation’s memes.
Becoming a better fit
You may find yourself reading this and thinking: ‘A good corporate citizen? That’s not me. I’m just not happy here.’ It’s certainly happened to me in the past. If that is the case, try to identify the memes that you are so resistant to, and analyse why you find them so troublesome. The chances are that a corporate meme is working against your beliefs or habits.
If the offending concept is a strategic or tactical meme that you see the value of and genuinely aspire to, then a little bit of mental retraining is in order, and you may have to actively weed out some of your current beliefs, using techniques we will get to in due course.
If, instead, the trouble is some piece of bureaucracy that is irritating you, the right course of action depends on whether or not the meme is sensible. If, say, it is inconsistent with other memes in the company, then you should point this out as tactfully as you can and try to get it changed. If it’s something that is perfectly rational but that you just don’t like, then all I can say is ‘Get over it’.
If, however, you find yourself in an organisation that has a strategic meme, such as a set of values, that genuinely contradicts your beliefs, then change jobs as soon as you can. Unless you are the boss (and not always then!), you can’t change the corporation on your own, and you will be much happier working for an organisation that believes in what you believe in.
Why nurses have more friends than lawyers
As we saw in the article on culture, particularly in the 'self or group' section, Anglo-Saxon societies are predominantly selfish in nature, with employment seen as a transaction rather than a duty. But even within these societies, there are large numbers of people who choose to do work that is socially valuable but very poorly paid.
At one end of the scale we have natural ‘givers’ - people like nurses, teachers, social workers, garbage collectors and hospital porters who keep society going but earn so little that they often have trouble putting a roof over their head. At the other end of the scale we have a smaller number of ‘takers’ - bonds traders, bankers, management consultants, lawyers and venture capitalists who earn vast amounts but whose contribution to society is dubious at best, unless they earn so much they can become philanthropists later in life.
This is so striking that I hereby propose Farncombe’s Law of Inverse Social Worth, which states that the amount a person contributes to society is inversely proportional to the amount they get paid.
How can this happen in well-regulated societies? If we start with the premise that salaries are set by the market, then the people who best fit with the capitalism memeplex will tend to be better paid. But why are the ‘givers’ willing to take such low salaries? Sure, in some jobs the intrinsic skill levels are so low that they attract people who couldn’t earn more, but that is not the case with teachers and nurses.
The reason, I think, lies in the roots of altruism. Some argue that altruism is genetic, others that it is memetic. You may have noticed that ‘givers’ tend to value contact with other people, and are likely to be more focused on relationships than on tasks. These people-facing roles provide ample opportunities for direct transfer of their memes to other people, and in turn the memes reward the giver with feelings of pleasure and satisfaction when such a transfer happens.
Of course, others recognise the social value that these givers create and therefore are more likely to be receptive to the memes they carry. A person who is a natural giver would have a wide circle of friends and acquaintances and their meme set (including the altruism meme!) is therefore more likely to spread.
Consider the Salvation Army. Nearly 5 million volunteers freely give of their time, often in dangerous and unpleasant situations, to help the needy. This action is consistent with their governing memeplex, and (although they are not aggressively evangelical), the people they help are exposed to the Salvation Army’s memes.
So how does this theory help us in business? I think I would say that takers are primarily motivated by money and power, but that givers are not. If you have an aggressive, internally competitive organisation you may find that a person who is inclined to be a giver may not see a promotion as a reward: he will pine for the loss of the relationships he had, and he is unlikely to feel at home among the sociopaths that usually inhabit the upper levels of any organisation. So, above all, ask your givers what they want from your organisation, and recognise that it may well be things that you do not value yourself.