Corporate Theater is a term for when interactions take place politely in meetings with nodding and agreements, only for power brokers to swoop in afterwards to make changes behind the scenes.
Have you ever left a meeting feeling that there was agreement on a path forward, only to learn later that others in the room have now decided to go a completely different direction? Have you heard (or even initiated) disagreement or complaints about something from a meeting, even though everyone in the room nodded politely with no sign of dissent? If so, you might be a witness to Corporate Theater. Unfortunately, Corporate Theater can quickly become audience participation, sometimes without you even realizing it.
A handful of c-suite clients from a variety of organizations in the for-profit and non-profit sectors have described this to me recently. Interestingly, each organization has an (unofficial) name for it, incorporating their company name as if to signify that it’s unique to their organizational culture: “The [company name] Nod,” “[company name] Polite,” “[company name] Nice,” “The [company name] Smile,” and so on. Surprisingly / not surprisingly, the clients who called out this phenomenon in meetings received nods and agreement from their colleagues in the meeting. Putting aside for a moment the likelihood that they may have only been nodding and agreeing because they were engaging in Corporate Theater in that very moment, this appears to be a widely understood phenomenon within each organization. So why does it happen?
One charitable answer is that during the meeting people are actively listening, and sometimes only see the pieces they disagree with later on. It can take time and reflection to understand how you feel about something, after all. You’ll know for yourself if this is your situation; you can’t know for sure that it is the case for others, but it certainly can be if this happens once in a while. If it happens often, it’s probably not this. It’s almost certainly some manifestation of power dynamics; sometimes using power just to show that they can – sometimes subconsciously; usually not.
But it can also be that the company culture has become – as one Executive Vice President described it – a “low courage environment.” People don’t feel able to voice objections or disagreements during a meeting, so they wait until afterwards when they can use their power to change things behind the scenes. This is problematic, to say the least. In some cases, this may come from people feeling the need to be “politically correct” in a group and worrying about saying something inappropriate in front of multiple witnesses, with no such compunctions behind the scenes. Even if it’s not that extreme, it is a sign that one’s work might be overturned, ignored, or taken away without discussion, which breeds a disconcerting and unstable workplace that many employees want to leave.
If Corporate Theater is taking place in your workplace, what can you do about it this week?
This Week’s Tips:
Choose to disengage from Corporate Theater. By making a few simple changes, you might end up shifting the culture entirely:
- Reflect on the role you play in Corporate Theater. Are you an audience member, complicit in silence? Are you an actor, playing the part you think you need to play? Are you a director, leading others to do the same? Perhaps you’re a casting director, hiring others to act in a culture of Corporate Theater. Or maybe you’re a set decorator, creating an environment where people act their parts. Whatever your role, recognize it and reflect on it; this is how you can begin to make change.
- Speak up – during or after meetings. If you have immediate reflections to what is shared, voice them during the meeting. Do so respectfully, honoring the work that has gone in to what the person is sharing, and calling out positives also, with as much specificity as possible. If this can’t happen during the meeting – because of meeting priorities or because you need time to reflect and articulate – take time to request a follow-up meeting and/or outline your thoughts in an email with some open-ended follow-up questions to continue the conversation in a collaborative manner, ideally to the full group who had been present initially. Be humble – after all, you don’t know the ‘right’ path forward with 100% certainty – but you do have thoughts, and sharing them will encourage others to do so openly also.
- Call out when you see Corporate Theater taking place. If you find out that other power brokers have changed the game after a meeting or presentation, ask them for more information on the change: What led them to make those changes? What was it that had them act one way during the meeting, and then differently afterwards? This can certainly take courage – if this happens regularly in your organization, start with a small example not tied directly to your own work, and approach it from a point of curiosity; bringing some attention to it might cause them to reflect more deeply and perhaps act differently in a more significant case.
- If the thought of your workplace as a “low courage environment” resonates with you, take steps this week to show courage, even in small ways (like sharing a creative personal project you’re working on). Doing so will encourage others to do the same. When enough people do, the organization can’t be accurately described as “low courage” anymore.
Try these out this week, and let us know how it goes! We’d love to hear from you.
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