Lastly,
Simon Sinek discusses that in an environment without connections workers have
become numbers rather than real individual people. Due to the increasing size of corporations it
is no longer possible to know everyone who works in a corporation. Therefore, managers
and executives must rely on documents and reports to judge the performance of
the company. This is dangerous to both the health of workers and the health of
the corporation (Sinek, 2014, p. 101). To explain this disconnect Sinek cites
the example of the Milgram experiment. In this experiment the test subject who
took on the roll of teacher was asked to deliver several different levels of
shock to the student in the experiment every time a question was answered incorrectly.
It was found that the teacher (the test subject) were much more willing to give
the highest levels of shock even when the student complained of pain if they
were in a different room and could not see who they were supposedly harming. The test subjects expressed that they knew
what they were doing was wrong but they were just following orders. Similarly,
in a workplace when the individual harm cannot be seen people are willing to
not do the right thing. Corporations may opt to follow the bare minimum requirements as required by the law rather than operate on a moral code. Also, the Milgram experiment demonstrates that people tend to blindly follow authority so unethical leadership in the current workplace framework would most likely not be questioned. Overall, these numerical abstractions cause corporation executives to divorce themselves
from humanity.
Tarleton
Gillespie in his piece, “The Relevance of Algorithms” explains a similar
phenomenon in which humans become data rather than individuals. Algorithms are
meant to very quickly and efficiently group people and determine their habits.
Gillespie explains that the online persona assigned with an algorithm is known
as a shadow body. This means that some aspects of an individual are emphasized
while other things are overlooked. This is problematic because people are being
over simplified and there is the assumption that all people must fit into a set
category (Gillespie 2014, p. 174). Gillespie would agree with Sinek’s argument that
assessing data on people rather than actually connecting with them is harmful.
Works Cited:
Sinek, S. LEADERS EAT LAST: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don't (2014).
Tarleton Gillespie, “The relevance of algorithms,” in T. Gillespie et al. eds., Media Technologies (2014).
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