Foul Language - and you are fired.

The supreme court of india recently ruled that if you abuse your boss, the organization is justified in sacking you. Hmmm I wonder if this would encourage people to be polite... or at least decent with each other in our organizations. But wait.. we dont have a test case that asks the converse. What if a boss abuses a subordinate? My guess is, that if the converse were also to be upheld, many organizations would be decimated. But ofcourse, in this case, the subordinate doesn't have the power to sack his superior. Therein lies the tragedy of organizational behaviour.

In many many situations I have seen / heard a "boss" take his subordinate "to task" for some goof up or failure. Ofcourse all bosses do not do it in public, while some believe its important to set an example. I wonder what benefit it has?

The "theory" behind it is the idea that the reason why the employee performed badly is because he was not "SERIOUS" or had no thought for the consequences. Ofcourse "consequences" is behind the theory of "deterrence" in soceity, say the justice system uses this.

Unfortunately the organization is not best represented by a police state. The assumption fails on two accounts. The first is the idea that the employee doesnt care. On the contrary, in today's world, employment and organizational membership seems to be the most important part of human existence! The second is the idea that somehow a "dressing down" would cause the employee to make less mistakes. It does... because the employee doesnt care about doing anything any more.

Hmmmmmm....have to go for a meeting now (means literally, I have to meet someone... not sit in a stuffy office and draw doodles). Perhaps I will write more about this (or rewrite this) later.