5 ancient myths in todays workplace
November 8, 2013 2:04 PM
Camus died in 1960, but his metaphor holds. The 21st century workplace, in fact, appears full of figures and situations straight out of the ancient poet Homer. Myths are made for the imagination to breathe life into them, Camus said. Here we examine five examples where antique mythology has spilled over into office life, including the Pandoras Box of Obamacare and ending with Sisyphus himself. Who knows the right HR director just may be able to help an employee whos forever rolling that rock up a hill. [Images: Shutterstock]
Janus
The Roman god of beginnings and transitions may seem like a metaphor for two-faced managers or workplace hypocrisy, but to authors Rhys Cowsill and Keith Grint, he represents an effective leadership style. Cowsill and Grint say there are three kinds of task-accomplishing perspectives: those of people who only look upwards to satisfy demands of superiors, like Orpheus in Hades; those who focus downwards trying to keep subordinates happy, like Prometheus bringing fire to the mortals; and those who look both ways, like Janus. This third style, they write, seems to have the greatest chance of sustained success at the more senior levels of the organization.
Scylla & Charydbis
Employers and employees are forced to choose between two untenable alternatives more often than they should be, much as ancient sailors had to pass too close to either the dangerous rock shoal Scylla or the whirlpool Charybdis. One such choose-your-poison dilemma relates to stress vs. performance. As Thomas Parry, president of the Integrated Benefits Institute, puts it: Employers are between a rock and a hard place in dealing with workplace stress. On the one hand, the challenging economy translates into employees working longer hours and experiencing more stress at work. On the other hand, employers want a high-performing workforce. Employers should take every opportunity to help manage employees harmful stress, IBI says, and they will reap the rewards in performance.
Pandoras Box
The Affordable Care Act has been called a Pandoras Box for everything from Medicaid to eugenics, but while were still figuring out ACAs content, one thing is certain: the box is open.
King Midas
With Twitter going public last week, IPOs are on a lot of financial planners and CFOs minds, but beware what experts call sudden wealth syndrome. Too much of a good thing can definitely be bad for a company in the long term. Google lost a third of its original workforce after going public for the simple reason that they made so much money on their stock options. Sudden wealth is not a day-to-day problem for most human resource professionals, but unless your job is the type youd want even after winning the lottery, it doesn't hurt to be prepared. Sudden wealth can make for some very fast exits.
Sisyphus
New research out of Duke University suggests that people can focus so strongly on what a job pays or how much effort is involved that they fail to take into account the tedium that comes with it, and end up miserable in a repetitive position. The easiest task can make for the most Sisyphean job. People need to be careful not to focus too narrowly on the belief that greater effort must necessarily be rewarded with higher wages, writes professor Peter Ubel. Sometimes its the work that matters! Of course, the opposite can be true as well, when joy is found through proper labor. As Camus wrote, one must imagine Sisyphus happy.
