1. Prologue
At our year-end party, the results of the "in-house cafe banner design" contest were announced.
The result was "common-sense-level?" — an assistant manager, not a rank-and-file employee, won.
2. Introduction
The "common sense" that we know so well and take so much for granted is actually formed over a very long time.
Differences in common sense reveal themselves differently depending on the group and the place. Based on common sense, other people often get labeled clueless or lacking in basic concept.
Organizational life runs on that common sense. Things like: clock-in time, clock-in check, workflow order, path for deliverables, vendor meetings, file names, directory names, how many days in advance to apply for personal leave, how many vacation days a new hire is allowed to request, what time a rank-and-file employee should go home — and so on.
And organizational culture turns out to shape the granular details of daily life: where your indoor slippers go, elevator jokes, the timing of brushing your teeth after lunch, the intensity of jokes, the scope of informal speech, the timing of surfing the internet, the spot for smoking, the order of greetings at clock-in and clock-out, how far you have to go to return a greeting, how far you have to go to actually respond, who you're supposed to consult for lunch menu picks — things like that.
Vague as it is, all of it settles at the line of "common sense," the line of "not making anyone uncomfortable." And once you raise a concern about that common sense, or let your discomfort show, the eyes of the other members of the organization will inevitably turn on you.
So if you just match that common sense, you can get through social life without trouble. You can become a "grown-up" member of the organization. Which is why, rather than an immature "why does it have to be this way?", you're supposed to have the acquiescent and "grown-up" thought of "ah, so this is how it's done."
At the last year-end party, in one of the Ignite sessions, there was this
impactful line: "Don't show your true feelings to a client."
Technically, "don't show your true feelings" could be considered a violation of common sense. But for an organization member who has to wrap up a project safely, nothing could be more common-sensical.
But a thought suddenly came to me.. if I follow, in a common-sense way, what I myself just posted above.. I can't shake the feeling that "don't show your true feelings" isn't just a matter of dealing with clients.
So what, then, is that common sense?
When you look up "common sense" in a dictionary, it's defined as "knowledge that people generally have, or should have;
general knowledge along with comprehension, judgment, and discernment."
But,. as we all know too well.. the reality of common sense is not exactly that common-sensical, is it?
…? The word repetition gets confusing. The conclusion is: common-sensically speaking, reality is not common-sensical. At least for the individual. Among people in professional life, how many actually live by their own common sense? Seen from another angle, common sense sometimes looks more like the mob psychology of a group, or the violence of the dominant clique.
At this point, readers' reactions may split. Refreshed, or offended..
If you're critical of "raising questions about common sense," please try searching "what is common sense?" on the internet. You'll see that this is not a personal attack on those who find the question uncomfortable — it's a concern that most organizations inevitably have to wrestle with.
We've clearly seen it. We know it. It's just one of the many things we brush off without really noticing.
3. Preface
Talking about common sense, why "violence"?
The reason I borrow a word like "violence" to re-orient our understanding of common sense is this:
common sense is usually perceived not as "something to improve" but as "the obvious bare-minimum decency" we're supposed to uphold.
In other words, unless each member of the organization deliberately pays attention, common sense tends to stop at "rationalization of the past for the sake of the present" rather than at "improvement."
People belonging to any organization, for no particular reason, close their mouths or bend their thoughts just so as not to irritate others. Because they might incur the displeasure of someone with privilege or power.
So common-sense-based criticism of unreasonable behavior can only provoke an even more sensitive reaction.
Whether they admit it or not, ordinary people, without realizing it, often criticize others to justify their own problems, or to psychologically soothe their own anxieties.
To put it more precisely: they, too, used to know it wasn't right, but couldn't show that outwardly, so in the end they rationalized it and accepted it — and that's why other people's questioning makes them uncomfortable, and so they become more aggressively critical.
For example, the reason someone reacts especially sensitively to another person's behavior or attitude is / not so much because the other's behavior is the direct cause, but / because a version of themselves they dislike, or the image of someone close to them, is being projected onto that person, and the emotion erupts — something like that.
In the workplace, a good example is a person who is especially critical and sensitive toward their boss's irresponsibility, yet is indifferent toward their juniors, or who, despite being meticulous at work, puts their family-life role on the back burner.
As for more everyday examples, take the habitual violent jokes thrown around in groups. At the common-sense level of such jokes, the target and the surrounding bystanders, in order not to ruin the mood, typically laugh it off or carry on with another violent joke. The interesting part is, the more severe a person's violent joking tends to be, the more easily, ironically, they get excited or upset over a small emotional exchange — so the usual response to violent joking doesn't circle back to the original speaker but gets passed on to another nearby target, or the person themselves accepts it, and the cheerful mood wraps up in a game of pass-the-parcel. Since everyone involved in the conversation has silently agreed, at the common-sense level, to be "grown-up," the mood ends cheerfully at the common-sense level.
4. Body
The point of this post is:
"Deference to superiors should be kept at the common-sense line."
I've taken a long detour just to say that.
The announcement of the result was made at the common-sense line. The process, too, proceeded at the common-sense line, and the reason no one has raised an objection until now is precisely because it took place at that perfectly common-sense line.
The reason I've walked around and around to say this is to make clear that I'm not trying to belittle or attack the result as "uncommon-sensical" just because it fell outside my own common sense.
Because I don't think this result came from hatred or envy — I think it's a result woven from the tangled overlap of each person's common sense and kindness — I'm worried the question itself might be read as something narrow or inflammatory.
What I want to say is: even if it's a warm "agreement" among people who care for each other, the result of a publicly-framed event inevitably affects organizational culture or the organization's sense of "common." I think the decision-makers, or those in equivalent positions, need to understand this.
A moment everyone laughed through, had fun with, and nobody felt any need to object to — that common sense —
started, if I recall correctly, with something as small as choosing the uniform. Cost-wise and work-wise, nothing we'd have chosen would have become an issue, so there was no need to bring it up. Then, through countless small daily moments I'm not aware of, it came all the way to the year-end party result. For most people except one, cost-wise and work-wise, any choice would have been fine, so there was probably no comment.
You might remember the somewhat aggressively-titled book "Confucius Must Die for the Country to Live." What the author points out, I think, is not that different. What I want to be understood is that this is not a celebration of rationalizations for being rude, inflexible, or cold-hearted.
If the statement "don't show your true feelings to a client"
really applies only to clients, then I'd hope the definition of "grown-up" in our organizational culture
won't be trapped in this "common sense": "work life is just like that," "in organizational life, don't do the amateurish thing of showing your true feelings," "why stir the pot," "they said they've already tried it," "just do your own job," "if a monk hates the temple, he can just leave."
That's the true feeling about us I wanted to put into words.
5. Conclusion
While running projects, I often witness critiques of local governments for their for-show administration. We also criticize the narrow thinking of some of the people in charge. Two thoughts came to me from that.
On a personal level, I wonder whether what I felt was actually my own dissatisfaction with myself being projected outward, and the emotional eruption was really about that uncomfortable truth within me. The other thought is: while criticizing that kind of for-show administration all along, haven't we become exactly that kind of for-show administration ourselves?
The reason I'm especially sensitive to the violence of common sense or to "raising objections" probably has roots in moving a lot as a kid. I changed schools many times. In college I transferred majors and double-majored. I worked all kinds of side jobs, from intellectual-class work to plain manual labor. After working at a company, I ran a business, then went back to being an employee — comparatively speaking, I got to face a lot of different groups.
Through all that, I got to experience the common sense each group put forward. Some were destroyed by the very common sense they championed, and some fought hard to stay aware of the scope of the common sense they were building.
In any group, no one wants to admit that the organization they belong to is a one-eyed-monkey tribe. This isn't just Korea's problem, nor just some small local organization's, nor just IT companies'.
I'm not trying to criticize irrational common sense. I'm not trying to innovate with a new common sense either.
Facing the common sense of those who react differently to the same issue.. I came to realize: in this world, there is no fixed criterion for what's "well done (common-sensical)" versus "not that (uncommon-sensical)." It just comes down to whether the person doing the criticizing can tolerate their own inner anxiety — it's a problem of the individual's capacity to judge.
6. Epilogue
I've written too long. With a little more time, I could have written it shorter… a regret. I'm afraid the post might feel rushed, but it seemed more important to put it down before the present sincerity cools.
It's the year of the sheep. I don't know what image everyone has of sheep.
To people, sheep look gentle, but among themselves they're actually quite mean?. They seem to live in a herd by day, but when night comes, they sleep apart in winter and huddle together in summer. The reason, I'd guess, is that they're acting at the common-sense line that has let them survive all this time. That's how they live.
Before we criticize them or call them foolish, that is their own way of surviving until now. They willingly give up their wool to the humans who build them safe fences and lead them to food, placing their lives — and the lives of the other sheep around them — in human hands. Meanwhile, with fellow sheep of similar condition and status, day and night, they don't stop their fierce survival competition despite the cold and the heat.
In 2015, while thinking about the sheep, I hope we can take one chance to re-examine what we've been calling common sense. Questioning common sense might be classified, by those living comfortably, as a slippery-loach kind of incident.. but I'd like us to think, at least once, that a stream without loaches will eventually rot.
A new year does not start from spring.
The first day of the new year, January 1, too, begins right at the peak of winter.
Not "spring, summer, fall, winter," but
"winter, spring, summer, fall, winter" — that's what makes up one year.
I'm not trying to say anything special.
I'm only babbling that what we want — the "spring-like" thing —
can't be gotten just by letting time pass.
I want to try, going forward. Before criticizing another person or group by the yardstick of common sense, I want to learn to accept them based on empathy. So I've gone round and round, and chewed on it and chewed on it, and with difficulty put down these few lines.
