As a mom of six daughters (two teens, two pre teens, and two toddlers), I have lots of past experience dealing with clique behavior/mentality and some to look forward to (NOT!) . It seems to be a fact of life that if more than 3 or so women are involved in ANY activity, cliques soon form. Bonding with like minded and similar interests individuals is a good thing, its only when it becomes a superiority exclusion thing that its a bad thing. And then it can become a bad bad BAD thing.
This is an excerpt from an article on workplace cliques...if you replace the word Company with digi community...well I bet you get the gist
"We all enjoy the camaraderie of people we share an interest or characteristic with, but when cliques become too exclusive, or destructive to those outside the group, the company suffers. ."
Depending on how entrenched the "clique culture" is, and how much influence you have on the environment and individuals involved, you may have a long, protracted battle on your hands to make your workplace as open, productive and objective as you'd like. It's been our experience, though, that anyone in the company who uses any one of these suggestions will improve the situation at least a little bit, and at least temporarily. Changing the situation permanently will take persistence and a more concerted effort.
It saddens me to see how firmly entrenched cliques are in the digital community. The two sets of standards that apply depending on who the person being talked about ...if she is in the 'IN" crowd, oh we must pity her, we must be understanding, we must make sure she is ok"...however she is NOT in the IN crowd....watch out poor thing....she is trashed, folks without any real knowledge of the situation make judgments, she is often shown the door and its clear she should never darken the step of the digi community again. And we (collective we) pat ourselves on the back and say it was for the good of the community.
But how often is our behavior JUST? Fair is not realistic. But we can and should always strive to be just in our dealings with others. Whether they are friends, customers or simply people we encounter in our journey through life. How often do we speak against injustice or do we close our eyes and shut our mouths for fear of ostracism and alienation? Is our behavior how we would like our children to behave because as all moms know...kids do what you do not what you say. I realize no one really cares what I think or how I feel but as a mom I want my kids to be able to look at my behavior and be proud of me.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Good article! Excellent posting. Thanks for sharing this. It's sad that cliques form, but the pack mentality is prevelant in our DNA.
I loved reading your post - and you are so right. I don't think this mentality can be changed, though, it's too dominant. It seems that where ever you go there are people that strive to be more popular and more dominant than others - and there are always too many of those who want to hang around the popular people, not wanting to say or do anything that can be taken as the "wrong" behaviour/thing to say. And they always defend whatever the leader does or says.
I think, as you said, the only thing to do is for us as parents, not to follow this pack mentality and by doing that, installing in our children that it is not the "right" behaviour. You should always think for yourself, never let others think for you. And you should always do what you know is right - not what others tell you to be right.
Ok - I'm filling up your comments section, better stop :D Thanks again for a thought provoking post!
Great post, thanks so much for making me think. I've started cutting back on how much time I spend in forums because of the hostility. You have a great blog, have a great day! :-)
I totally agree. I really wish you'd have stopped by yesterday, the post was much better and kinda along the lines of yours today. I think that the only way to make a difference is to continue to call attention to it. However, just like high school, the "cool" kids are not going to think there's a problem. Thanks for stopping by today.
i so love this......and it's one reason why i don't even venture to any of the "bad" blogs or open my mouth (I guess make my fingers move) when controversial stuff is going on...so much better just to observe or sit under a rock ...the world is happier that way :) LOL
Great article and I agree with what is being said there. I hate how you have all the trashing going on in these blogs. I have been on the end of some of it and it hurt terribly.
Hate the bad blogs and don't go there anymore. Trashing someone is not the way to help chance things.
Post a Comment