How to dismantle a (corporate) propaganda bomb
There’s a difference between healthy corporate culture and toxic corporate propaganda.
Healthy corporate culture drifts into the lane of toxic propaganda when it creates a false narrative of omnipotence and fear.
This is the key message I took away from an exceptional new book by Peter Pomerantsev, “How To Win An Information War.” The book explains how propaganda and counter-propaganda works. Propaganda redirects a general sense of fear and shame toward an external enemy who can only be vanquished through devotion to an invincible authority. Effective counter propaganda says “your feelings of insecurity and your desire for restored glory are completely legitimate. I feel the same way. But you can do a lot better than this regime.” Once you create separation between the dictator and their followers can you start to peel them away.
This thread runs through Nazi propaganda to Putin’s Russia, and into modern election campaigns.
It also bleeds into modern corporate communications.
The Beatings Will Continue
Pomerantsev’s description of political propaganda transported me back to Bloomberg, where I worked from 2011 - 2015.
When I arrived at Bloomberg’s Lexington Avenue headquarters for my onboarding (indoctrination?) in 2011 I was handed two books: “Bloomberg by Bloomberg,” Mike Bloomberg’s autobiography, and “The Bloomberg Way,” a manual of how to write and think like a Bloomberg employee.
Throughout the office, slide shows of grinning employees volunteering to clean up a park, or Mike Bloomberg mingling with interns, or employees smiling at a company town hall ran in a loop. Videos in which the company’s earliest employees would wistfully reminisce about the old days reinforced a mythology that we worked for an omnipotent billionaire genius whose technology was the central nervous system of global capital markets. There was no greater honor than being let into the inner cabal of executive leadership. We were invincible. We were a family. This is fun!
“Once you leave you’re dead to us.” a senior executive told me once I joined. “The company never re-hires anyone who leaves.”
Underneath this carefully cultivated veneer things weren’t quite right. Rumors swirled that Charlie Rose, whose studio was in the Lexington Avenue headquarters, was an alcoholic sexual predator. Lifelong veterans would disappear - their likeness erased from the company’s digital memory like a political prisoner in Pinochet’s Chile - because of some political pissing match. Mike Bloomberg, the founder, the co-founder Tom Secunda, and Matt Winkler, the head of news, each had volcanic tempers that would explode at random intervals. They would hurl the closest piece of hardware they could grab and shout in people’s face. The company’s huge, open plan spaces meant there was no place to take cover when they detonated.
Amazon, Google, and Meta started to poach Bloomberg’s best technologists for more money. The company was forced to abandon its dictate that departure was death as new companies with healthier cultures and better pay won the war for talent. Colleagues who were once awe-struck by the billionaire leaders would emerge from meetings and say, “he’s a slob who got lucky.” People began to recognize that there were better, more lucrative, more innovative places to work, despite the company’s efforts to equate departure with death.
I quit my job at Bloomberg in 2015. I was perfectly happy to be dead to them. I was soon much happier and made lots more money.
How to dismantle a (corporate) propaganda bomb.
Britain successfully neutralized Nazi propaganda with an intricate false flag operation. Britain created a pirate radio station that seemed like it was created by a disgruntled army commander named Der Chef. Der Chef loved Germany, loved the army, but hated the bureaucrats in the Nazi Party. He would swear incessantly about the “filthy British” and the “Russian Pigs.” But his most vile vitriol was reserved for the non-military members of the Nazi Party. His broadcasts shared horrific facts about German soldiers freezing to death on the Eastern Front, facts that German censors blocked, followed by true stories about high-ranking Nazis stockpiling fur coats in Vienna for their wives and mistresses. Because Der Chef was sharing true facts about German casualties in the war, his broadcasts became the only reliable source of news. Soon, he had more listeners than the official Nazi broadcasts, even though listening to Der Chef was punishable by death.
In the same way Der Chef discredited Nazi propaganda the Pandemic discredited corporate propaganda. You could make a good living, do work you love, and stay focused without toxic corporate politics and fake fun. Corporate earnings hit record highs while everyone was working from home. A record number of Americans began to see what I saw when I quit my job in 2015: Your company isn’t indispensable. You don’t need to immerse yourself in toxic politics to do great work and make great money. Whoever told you that was lying.
The Great Resignation is Now the Great Fragmentation
One of the most underreported megatrends of our time is that in large companies the Great Resignation never stopped. This April will mark the 48th consecutive month in which more than 30,000 Americans quit their jobs in large companies. We’ve entered an era of diseconomies of scale - a bloated, complacent, conceited corporation is living on borrowed time. You can hire a great consultant without hiring McKinsey. You can hire a great investment banker without hiring Goldman Sachs. GDP and unemployment have remained remarkably resilient even as huge numbers of Americans quit their jobs and strike out on their own. Even as interest rates, venture capital, and credit has swung wildly.
There’s a difference between healthy corporate culture and Toxic propaganda
The company where I worked before Bloomberg, Risk Metrics, invested as much in its culture as Bloomberg did - but it was healthy and honest. Our CEO, Ethan Berman, was humble and curious. He surrounded himself with people who disagreed with him. He was open about his own mistakes, fears, and insecurities. At Risk Metrics the mantra was “Change the world. Have fun. Make money. In that order.” It was understood that this culture wasn’t right for everyone, and if that was true for you the company would help you leave. Looking back on it, Risk Metrics understood the dividing line between healthy corporate culture and toxic propaganda. These lessons are important for employers and employees trying to find the right fit:
1. Be humble and curious. There are no silos. The job of great leaders is to listen, learn, and empower.
2. Be honest, even when it hurts. Even when the conventional communications playbook would recommend that you spin the truth.
3. Delete bloat and toxicity. It is ok to be wrong, but it’s not ok to be an asshole or to avert ownership and accountability.
Punks & Pinstripes is hiring into our healthy corporate culture.
We’re looking for a Punk community manager, and a brilliant director of propaganda - I mean, a brilliant content manager. Please email greg@punksandpinstripes.com if you’re interested.
