Participant: I’ve been an observer of a group of people that come from different organizations, and they have a common goal to get together at meetings. What I’ve noticed is that whenever they get together, which is about once a month, they tell the same stories, which are usually like, “It’s so hard to get any progress!” (Laughter) They usually break down and bond and share that common goal. 

Larry Prusak: It’s ritualistic speech. 

Participant: And they need to do that first before they can get on to the agenda.

   There is strong anthropological evidence for this phenomenon. I’ve noticed that if you get together with other people in a firm like IBM – I mean, IBM is a very big firm – the first thing they’ll do is piss and moan about the firm for a little bit. (Laughter) And it’s ritualistic speech. There’s a wonderful phrase used by anthropologists called phatic speech. It’s not emphatic, but phatic. And that is speech in which it’s not the content that matters, but the fact that you’re saying it to bond with another person, or doing it as a ritual. It’s like saying, “How are you?” to someone. It’s a phatic statement. You may not really give a damn. It’s sort of ritualistic. And it’s saying, “I acknowledge your presence.” A lot of that sort of speech you’re talking about is phatic speech. It’s means: “Let’s get together. We all trust each other. Here’s who we are. We’re people who are pissed off because we work in this firm and these things occurred and this is how we feel.” And then we can get into the content.

Participant: What about the idea that language doesn’t necessarily describe reality but it creates reality? And that what we’re talking about in a conversation right now, when people are complaining about how badly things are going, that they are making it bad, or even worse. I just wonder whether people will be able to make the shift to talk about is working and what is going well, and so get rid of the age-old negative stories that re-create the negative reality over and over again.

Larry Prusak: Yes, I hear what you’re saying, but this is where I have a real issue with people who look at organizations outside of their economic content. Probably I am the person on this panel who is closer to the world of economics, and I don’t think language alone creates reality. I think there’s a base of reality. For a lot of people, it is unfair to be working the way they are working in organizations. It’s an unpleasant life, and the economics of it determine the outcome. 

    So I would say, at least from my old 1960s perspective, that there are real reasons for the anger of people working in organizations. The disproportion of rewards to effort, the asymmetry of it. I’m treated well, and so it’s not my situation so much, but there are real reasons for people to be upset. When you start to look at organizations, outside of the macro-economics, and see that people lose their pension, well, life is really hard for a lot of people. Then there’s the stock market. 

   But I agree with you that the negativism can sink you. I agree with this. That’s something that what Zander was talking about. And I absolutely agree. The people who have a real gift for creating positive feelings are musicians. But most people have more quotidian or mundane aims, like having the kids get to see a college or paying off the mortgage. There’s a lot of reality in life that is pretty tough for a lot of people, and often stories are outlets for them. I am less of a social constructionist than others. I may be more of an economist. (Laughter)