history vs hypocrisy

Over time, a gap can open on your team between your talk and your walk. The codified language of your culture, whether it be compensation policy or definitions of your core values, no longer matches what happens in practice. What’s more, the de facto version gets the approval of the leader.

For many veterans on the team and for you, if you’re the leader (and especially if you’re the founding leader), these discrepancies often connote a history. You can see and remember how we’ve gotten to where we are, why things operate the way they do. The dictionary definition is a guide; but the common usage of the word rules. And sometimes, the gaps between talk and walk won’t even occur to veterans. They speak the contemporary dialect fluently and accept its internal contradictions.

For many newcomers, however, this gap between talk and walk will not look like the honorable fruit of a complicated history. It will look like hypocrisy. This place doesn’t do what it says it does. Or it doesn’t do it in the way it says it does. What gives?

This newcomer’s skepticism is useful - you can ask new people to identify all the gaps they see between talk and walk in their early weeks/months. Then you can decide whether you want to change your talk, explain your walk, or let it ride.

-eric