The hidden message

 How Communication works

            Every organizational message has a organizational meaning; otherwise the organization would not bother sending it out. That meaning might be implicit rather than stated. It might not even be implied, but it will still be there. Some people refer to this as the “hidden agenda,” and such “hidden agenda” can reflect the organization’s or its employees’ ethics—or their lack.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

1. What Does It Mean to the Organization?

            Every organizational message has a organizational meaning; otherwise the organization would not bother sending it out. That meaning might be implicit rather than stated. It might not even be implied, but it will still be there.

Some people refer to this as the “hidden agenda,” and such “hidden agenda” can reflect the organization’s or its employees’ ethics—or their lack.

            The stated “purpose” of a release, for example, might be to announce that the organization has set a new sales record. This is important information, especially to stockholders, investors, vendors, and, of course, employees.

            One of the organizational messages being sent is that the organizational management is obviously doing a good job.

            Another organizational message could be the one sent by executives claiming some of the credit for the record. There could be a great deal of discussion—and some shouting—about just how the announcement will be made:

• Who gets to make it?

• Who gets to be on stage standing next to the person making the announcement while the TV cameras are running?

• Will anyone else be allowed to speak to the media?

• Whose names will be included in the acorganizationing material and news release?

All of these are important questions to the people asking them. They also give observers—such as the media—an insight into the organizational culture, the communication climate, and what the organization and culture consider to be important.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

6. Case Study in Reading Hidden Meanings: the USSR

            During the years of the Cold War between the USSR and the western nations, one of the most important days of the year was May 1.

            This was the day of the annual major military parade down Red Square in Moscow. The entire leadership of the Soviet Union would be on the reviewing stand to watch tens of thousands of soldiers, sailors, and marines march past them as military aircraft flew overhead and tanks and military vehicles rumbled down the street.

            The western powers, other Communist nations, and the rest of the world, for that matter, were not really that interested in the military hardware that was on display. Nor did they really care all that much about the content and rhetoric of all the speeches the various Soviet leaders made.

            The most important messages being sent that day had nothing to so with what was said. It had to do with where people stood—or didn’t stand.

            Everyone wanted to know who was standing on the reviewing stand, and how close they were to whoever the current Communist ruler was. Analysts from the U.S. Central Intelligence
Agency, Britain’s MI5, and other intelligence agencies studied the pictures of who was present in order to determine who was in favor with the current leadership.

            To the various intelligence agencies of the world, Russia’s purpose in holding the May Day parade was no to celebrate the Communist Revolution, or even display its military might and prowess—it was to declare who was in charge,

            That was the most important message being sent.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Do Ethics Mean to the Organization?

            organizational culture may also dictate organizational ethics—or their lack.

Failure to maintain a strong ethical base and standards can lead to “whistle blowing;” to employees reporting unethical or illegal organizational behavior to the government, the police, or the media.

“organizational values and ethics are not typically discussed regularly with employees,” says Atlanta, Georgia consultant and writer Emory Mulling, in an article in the East Bay project/programme purpose times (http://eastbay.bisjournals.com/eastbay/stories/2001/08/27/smallb7.html, August, 2001). “Many organizations have a written value statement, perhaps in the employee handbook. Day to day, however, management assumes that everyone knows the code and abides by it…

“If you set a precedent for tolerating unethical behavior, it’s harder fixing the problem…What’s more difficult are the gray areas where you have one employee’s perspective against another.

“Think of situations where your co-workers may have done something you did not think was right. Perhaps an employee lied to a beneficiary about why a project was delayed so as not to take any personal blame. Or maybe a co-worker padded his hours on a project so his team could meet its billing goals. These might seem like innocent white lies to the offender, but to another employee the practices might border on fraud.”

So what do you so when employees interpret the ethical code differently, or when they are not sure how to interpret it? Fro that matter, what do employees do when they see others, especially their superiors, violating the organizational codes of ethical conduct?

As we will see, some of them go public.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

9. Case Study in Whistle Blowing: Dr. Jeffrey Wigand

            Dr. Jeffrey Wigand was the head of research and development for Brown & Williamson Tobacco, one of the world’s largest tobacco organizations.

            In his position he saw how the organization lied to and misled consumers about the highly addictive nature of nicotine, how it ignored clear scientific evidence that some of the additives used to improve cigarette flavor caused cancer, and how it his the facts so that they could not be used against the organization in lawsuits brought by sick or dying smokers.

            He saw what the organizational culture was within the tobacco sector of activity, and he decided he could no longer live with it.

            Although he violated a confidentiality agreement he had signed with his employer, Dr. Wigand maintains, “I wasn’t disloyal in the least bit. People were dying. I was loyal to a higher order of ethical responsibility.”

            His testimony in a Mississippi courtroom eventually led to the tobacco sector of activity’s $246 billion litigation settlement. The tobacco organization had sued him for violating his confidentiality agreement, but that suit was dropped as part of the litigation settlement.

            The tobacco sector of activity is so powerful that it stopped CBS-TV from letting its top rated news show, 60 Minutes, broadcast its interview with Dr. Wigland for eight years. The network finally let it be broadcast after the story had come out in the media, and after it had been criticized for bowing to organizational censorship.

            Wigland’s story about why he told the truth, what he had to go through in order to do it, and what happened to him after he did it, inspired the movie The Insider starring Russell Crowe and Al Pacino.

            His decision to go public cost him his job, his career and his family. His wife divorced him, and he was estranged form his daughter for years after the separation. There were also numerous death threats and the tobacco sector of activity launched a smear campaign against him.

            Today he operates Smoke-Free Kids, a non-profit foundation he formed to educate children about the dangers of smoking.

            As he says on the website (http://www.jeffreywigand.com/insider/sfk.html), he “seeks to use his knowledge about the tobacco sector of activity to educate children how the sector of activity uses the media, the entertainment sector of activity, sports events, music and deceptive advertising to introduce children to tobacco and “hook them young, hook them for life’. Eighty percent of today’s tobacco users became addicted before the age of eighteen.”

            He does so by using “scientific methods of discovery, actual sector of activity data and documents to explain how the sector of activity targets kids and youth to generate new tobacco addicts. This education process enables kids to make their own responsible healthy decisions.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~