368, Commitment, Pt. 10 (Randall, pt. 4)

The rest of the article is in the "Discussion and Conclusions" section, although there are a couple sub-sections.  This first quote is before the sub-sections:

"At high levels of commitment, it appears that the costs of commitment  outweigh the advantages.  Individuals may advance more rapidly in their careers, and the organization's production demands may be met with greater ease.  However, individuals also may suffer an array of personal, family, social, and work-related problems.  In such circumstances, the requirements of organizational life may no longer be satisfactory to its members (Scott & Hart, 1981). Further, the firm may lose flexibility and find itself burdened with overzealous employees, and it may become vulnerable to a variety of unethical and illegal behavior." (p. 467)

In the world of the Vienna mission career advancement was a non issue because there was hardly any room for advancement, although the mission has grown considerably now since I was with it so if missionaries stuck with it all that time from then to now they maybe there would have been some leadership opportunities (regional leadership, etc.). But you can imagine how much more efficiently everything would run with everyone on overdrive high commitment to the mission.  But then you have situations like what I experienced so much of the time where efficiency was all but nil.  So was the statement really true that the "organization's production demands may be met with greater ease" in the case of the Vienna mission? I thought so, but what wasn't my personal experience, so I can't be really sure about that either.  Maybe efficiency wasn't a very high priority, or relatively as high as some other values, like security.  So, in my case, since I wasn't totally socialized, security was still an issue and so security was more of an issue with me than was efficiency.  I'm not sure about this.

So the thing is tha this author is saying that the advantages as to why you might want high levels of commitment are for personal career advantage and/or for organizational efficiency's sake (for work/production).  If neither of these are actually benefits then there must be some other benefit if the organization (in this case the Vienna mission) wants the high levels of commitment.  So what would be the benefit?

The thing is that it really seemed to demand that high level of commitment and I recognized this while I was there; it wasn't something that I pieced to gether afterwards to figure out.  So they must have had some reason for wanting it if not what the author suggests as the usual reasons.  I submit that the reason(s was/were that they wanted it because 1) they thought they needed it for security (presumably because some of the missions they worked with required certain things that demanded it) and/or 2) there were some things they were up to that might have been distasteful to some of their supporters such as some U.S. government connections (like the U.S. military reserve chaplains or the member mission that took money from the CIA for their short-wave radio work into the USSR (this was the late 1980's but the CIA money I only knew for certain was a few years earlier).

As far as losing flexibility, the mission had all the flexibility it needed, I think because the members had internalized all the values and norms.  So if, for example there was a major security breech, they would all have pretty much known what to do.  They all had superiors o guide them I guess.  They didn't need flexibility for the market, like a for-profit corporation would.  Otherwise, they would need flexibitlity in-country (in East Bloc countries, where they taught classes) to deal with crises there, but they knew what to do had the skills to get out of scrapes of various kinds.  I think I did just fine security-wise with only moderate (or less) commitment and I did not cause any security breaches.  But that wasn't good enough for them; they still wanted the high level of commitment.

***

These next quotes come from the sub-section "Implications for Research"

"Herbert Simon was one of the first to suggest that commitment to the organization as a whole is distinguishable from commitment to specific values, policies, or goals.... Gouldner.. later demonstrated empirically that commitment to specific values was independent of commitment to the organization as a whole and that commitment to one value was independent of commitment to another." (p. 467)

The Vienna mission didn't see it that way, because it was an all or nothing mission.  You had to take the whole thing.  That's part of why I compared it to the Soviet Union, which demanded that its citizens (especially pre Gorbachev) believe in the party line and it did everything it could to get them to believe it, including through the schools, Young Pioneers (children's clubs), all the media, at work, etc., etc.  Basically, et was everywhere.  In 1977 the new constitution gave a nod to religious rights by allowing freedom of religion and freedom of atheistic propaganda.  That is believers didn't have the right to propagate their faith, but they could quietly practice their faith within their 4 walls (if they could get past a bunch of other obstacles and problems). 

So whether or not the Vienna mission would say I had my right to my own ideas and opinions, the thing was that they wanted a high level of commitment where they had the right to mess with my values so that they could implact their warped onesl  So in their case commitment to the organization was NOT distinguishable to commitment to specific values, policies or goals.  You could NOT pick and choose.  I mean, I in fact did that, but that is not what they wanted.  And the scary thing is that you have to accept it all, but you don't see it all.  So it's like an iceberg, where you see maybe the top 1/3, if that, and the bottom 2/3 or more is under the water, but you have to make a determination based on that 1/3, not knowing what the other 2/3 is.  So you take the leap of faith that the mission requires and except everything, not just the 1/3, but all of it, including the unseen 2/3, and at that point you're stuck.  And if the mission tests you, like makes you help socialize someone - pass on the thing that you just became a part of - then you're already vested in it and the more you're in the harder it is to get out.  Plus, the mission uses psychology, that would make it hard to get out as well, if my experience is at all meaninful for others in this manner.

***

That's it for this article. I can't believe it's so late already.

367. Commitment, Pt. 9 (Randall, pt. 3)

So the next section in the text is just like the last, except that now it is:

"Moderate Levels of Commitment" (instead of "Low Levels...")

And the sub-section is, predictably: "Positive Consequences for the Individual."

***

Picking up with the second paragraph...

"However, a moderate level of commitment does not mean unbounded loyalty to the firm; at this level, individuals avoid being swallowed by the system and are able to fight for their identities as persons... Employees express what Schein (1968) called creative individualism - accepting only pivotal values and norms and rejecting those that are nonessential or harmful." (p. 464)

This sounds like me, pretty well.  Now if churches send missions to the mission field, does it usually strike them that they expect the missionaries they send to the field to have to fight for their identities (with the organization!! - not with the country or "target people" - we're talking here about organizations only)?  I don't think so.  What was so wrong with my identity that it need such a major overhaul?

Well, so I basically had a moderate level of commmitment (at the most, certainly no more than this).  One of my goals definitely was to avoid being swallowed by the systems because from the get-go (once I arrived in Vienna, that is, not really before, even though I had a couple warning signs earlier about them) I saw things that I most definitively did not like and disagreed with just hugely.  So I did not want to become like them at all.  So I guess in the end when I had to give in to thing at least it wasn't the things that had to do with deception, which mainly would have only happened if I were a true insider, anyway, I think.  To have walked away with my sense of truth and falsehood intact was a miracle, let me tell you.

For me it was having to reject what I saw as "harmful" values and norms and ones that I disagreed with with strong conviction.  It didn't matter to me whether or not the values and norms were pivotal to the mission or not; what mattered were whether I disagreed with them.  And when I say disagreed with them with some conviction, I mean things that I read and studied about maybe in a class in college, maybe on my own knowing that these issues were pertinent to East European mission work.  I really thought I'd thoroughly prepared for East European mission work, including things like that, like theological and ethical issues.  And I knew about a lot of the history and social issues and political regarding believers in those countries.  And I'd thought about different ramifications of different missions approaches and the like.  And I'd studied and thought about what the Bible had to say about some of these issues too, so I rejected the mission's actions based on my interpretations of them and how that fit my value system.  So this is how it would go:

1. The mission would do something.
2. I would look at the action within the context of the mission, its other actions, etc. and my value system.
3. I would come to a determination.  If I though that the mission's action was incongruent with what I thought it stood for or how I thought it should be acting, I would step back and that would be a cause for moderate commitment to the organization.

The more these things added up the farther and farther away I'd slip from the mission and the more my moderate status would be secured.  Eventually, I'd slip towards low levels of commitment because these things took too heavy of a toll.  Sending me back to the States the 5th month of my time with the mission was a bad move if they ever had any hope of garnering my commitment.

***

The other sub-section are all here, just like for the low levels of commitment, but I don't have anything to say about them.  So we'll move on to "High Levels of Commitment" and skip to the sub-section "Positive Consequences for the Organization."

"Some organizations (e.g., military units) view total and unquestioning  commitment  as not only desirable but also essential for accomplishing their goals (Hoffer, 1963).  Due to their excessive devotion, highly committed employees willingly accept the organization's demands for greater production (Etzioni, 1975)." (p. 464)

As I've discussed in previous posts, the Vienna mission was a total institution.  But that didn't get it off the hook from having to follow Biblical mandates, especially such as those about lying and related practices that they involved themselves in as a way of living, it seemed.  So, whether or not the mission was a total institution, it still was fundamentally, at it's core, supposed to be an Evangelical Christian mission first and foremost.  At least that's what I expected and that's the only way I would relate to it because it anything other than that was the truth than I actually would have none of it.

It seemed to me that to reach the core of the mission (to pass socialization) you had to agree to the deception approach to security, which right then and there meant that you were taking a huge step away from adherence to the Bible.  It's not as if there aren't enough issues in our own (USA) culture that make it hard enough to do that and easy to just kind of cut corners here and there, but to enmass open yourself up to living a life of deception in contradiction to the Bible at the same time you're doing the work of the Lord?  If Christian pastors want to become military chaplains it's possible they might have to become familiar with some of this, I don't know (and I have a file on chaplains too so I tried to figure them out a bit too), and certainly some precautions might need to be taken to protect the work and the people in volved in the ministry.  But the lifestyle of deception and the lack of trust is too in God it showed is too much.

They were more worred about offending the other missions they worked with than they were about offending God!  How is that for a good Christian mission!  So they all agree to meet at the lowest common denomenator and they end out looking more like a spy agency than a Christian mission, at least to me.  I'm talking about how they dealt with security issues and how security became mission #1, in my opinion.  They just absolutely didn't trust me.  I didn't do them any harm the whole time I was there and then at the end they all just stopped inviting me really left me out, even mom saw it when she came to help me move, and the only thing was that I hadn't reached their high level of commitment.  [This is leaving out the issue of my dad, of course, which is a whole other can of worms.]

It does appear, however, that everyone else except me accepted the mission's demand for high levels of commitment, and everything that went with it, including the values and norms - and deception.  I don't know how many people grappled with it.  I do think that one of the secretaries had a bit of a time adjusting to the organization, but she never shared her thoughts with me, so I don't know what the issues were.  Maybe I should have asked, but I had too much going on on my own end.

***

"Negative Consequences for the Organization"

"Case studies of illegal behavior illustrate the relationship of high levels of commitment to corporate crime.  Investigations into the General Electric price-fixing conspiracy (Geis, 1967, 1982), the cover-up of the side-effects oticholesterol drus HE/14 (Carey, 1978, Lockheed's involvement in foreign and domestic illegal payoffs (Clinard & Yeager, 1980) and tng carto price conspiracy lasting from 1960 to 1974 (Clinard & Yeager, 1980) revealed employees so committed to the firm that illegal behavior to benefit the employer was viewed as acceptable.  Any deviation from standard operating procedures were not questioned by those employees.


Typically, employees who committed illegal acts willingly put organizational interests above their own." (p. 466)

I am sitting here desperately trying not to gloat.  Really, this is no occasion to gloat because it is a horrible thing.  The point is that this kind of thing happens.  Look at it, look at these examples, right under our noses thousands of people have been involved in these kinds of things, so why not missionaries who are desparately trying to figure out a way to reach these people and they don't think they can see another way but to deceive or who knows what else - since they have a U.S. military chaplain on staff and one of the missions on their board took money from the C.I.A., so it could even be worse than I imagine, and that's, of course what I feared down deep, especially since they seemed to be so without conscience regarding these things. 

Do you see it?  Do you see what I mean?  The missionaries were so committed to the mission, to the organization and to the goal, to what they're trying to do that they were willing to, well, bend the biblical rules a bit, if you will, just like the people in all those case studies in this text broke legal rules.  So you have missionaries breaking biblical rules in the same type of process.  I think it's one way of looking at it, although it certainly might not be adequate to explain enough of what went on in the mission, but it explains at least some of it or from one angle, I think.  It's a big help.

And I was not going to become highly committed to the mission when I saw some of the dishonesty and discrepancy right from the beginning in what they were doing and saying and how I thought missionaries and Christians should act and talk.  But I think this is what I mean when all along I've been saying that the mission required total commitment because this is what they wanted this very thing right here, do you see?  Because these "negative consequences to the organization" in the case of the mission were actually positive consequences for them for security reasons (that's my understanding of it).  So it was all warped, like living in a different world with its own warped rules.

So what for most organizations would have been negative repercussions of certain warped forms of high commitment, were to the mission actually positive and even mandatory qualities, which I refused to take on for myself because I disagreed with enough of what I was seeing of the mission that I didn't want to make myself that vulnerable to it.  Also, however, I didn't think that anyone had the right to ask that level of commitment of me except God and I questioned the right of them to be so intent on having that amount of power over anyone.  That's not the same as saying I wanted to rebel; it's just that God remained at the top and they were not going to usurp Him.  That means I always have the right to go to the Bible and determine for myself whether or not something is sin or not and the mission doesn't have the right to twist something (which they were good at to explain away the use of deception and lying and the like) and force me to into their lies or whatnot. 

Wow, I really hope you understand this, because I think this really helps bring some things together.

366. Commitment, Pt. 8 (Randall, pt. 2)

Now Randall starts with "Low Levels of Commitment" (the title of the section) and looks at some different aspects of it and then does that with moderate and high levels of commitment also.  So I'll start with the low levels first, as the author does.

The first subsection is: "Positive Consequences for the Individual."

The only comment that caught my eye in this section is: "Low levels of commitment can be a source of individual creativity and innovation (Merton, 1938)."

I didn't relate to the reasoning that followed, however, so I ignored it.  For me, I felt that the mission was stifling and they just had their own narrow way of doing and seeing things, so in that particular situation, a low level of commitment I thought was very conducive to individual creativity and innovation. They just kept squeezing me into their narrow idea of what they seemed to what of me that seemed so degrading to me and counter to all my values and what I believed in. 

So having a low level of commitment in my case allowed for more creativity.  I think that this was true even for creativity in the mission, not just for creativity on the side (i.e., with the Austrians).  For example, if I had just dropped everything and done everything the mission had asked right away, such as had a roommate and the started going to the English speaking church sooner, then I'm sure I would not have done near as much entertaining because I was have been more demoralized and not as eager to reach out to others.  I would have been more chained to the secretaries and that identity they set up for me, which I didn't see myself as, except as the job I'd agreed to for 2 years.

So the point is that for me having a low level of commitment to the mission was actually better, I think for me and the mission, although I'm sure the mission wouldn't have thought of it that way.


***
"Positive Consequences for the Organization."

"On an organizational level, the higher turnover and absenteeism typical of individuals with minimal commitment may be functional if those employees are either disruptive or poor performers.  The potential damage done by these employees may be limited; attitudes of others in the organization may improve if the undercommitted employees are absent; and replacements may bring in employees with new skills (Mowday et al, 1982)."

It should be noted that I did not have high absenteeism and I fulfilled my 2 year commitment, so the turnover & absenteeism complaint can't really be used against me, unless it were to say  that I should have stayed longer.  If they (the mission) were to say that there was lost time when I was in the USA I would really blow my top because that was there doing, so I hope they won't even go there because I have lots more you guys don't even know about that I haven't even begun to show you yet, so they better not even go there with that one. 

I wasn't disruptive, as I've said a million times.  I had a good attitude the whole time I was there and I never complained about anything.  It's not like I tried to sabotage them or something.  And I did my job well, and there never was a complaint about that.  So what could be wrong, really.  I was a good worker, I was always there, I had a good attitude, I even took initiative to reach out socially, which is a nice extra since everyone's strangers away from home.  So why did they treat me so badly, then?  Really, why did they?  What could I have done to make them so mad at me to treat me the way they did, considering every other job around would be just very happy to have me.  Even when I went on trips, I did great.  There was not problem. 

Oh, yeah, commitment, that ugly "c" word.  Because of all the stuff I saw right from the beginning I was a tad (!) weak on commitment so if they figured that out that might have fueled their fire and made matters worse.  But the thing is that they had things set up before I even arrived to be very abhorant to my ethical and moral standards.  So I hadn't done anything to deserve those things because I couldn't have because I hadn't arrive yet.  I take that back... if something from the U.S. somehow preceded me perhaps I had done something to deserve it, but if so, it was unbeknownst to myself, because I didn't know it was coming.

***

The next section is titled "Negative Consequences for the Individual."

"Whistle-blowers in particular may suffer severe negative consequences to their careers by making known illegal or harmful conditions to a governmental agency, a news reporter, or media personnel (DeGeorge, 1982).... Whistle-blowers often  are cast in the roles of Judas Iscariot (Walters, 1975) or muckrackers from within (Peters & Branch, 1972). They commonly experience heavy personal costs including loss of income, loss of job security, isolation, defamation of character, exclusion from staff meetings, lost perquisites, less desirable work assignments, heavier workload, Harassment, and more stringent criticism of work (Ernmann & Lundman, 1982, Miceli & Near, 1984; Parmerlee, Near & Jensen, 1982)" ( p. 463)

I wasn't a whistle-blower, but I wish I'd been one.  But I was lucky to come out as together as I did; to even attempt a whistle-blower act would be like suicide, I think.  It was all I could do just to keep myself together.  I doubt anyone's going to take anything seriously against them because everyone's too much in bed with them.  And no one takes biblical mandate seriously enough nor holding each other accountable.  The stuff that I experienced there was absolutely horrible. 

I'm not sure how they described me after I left, but the way the treated me like anathema makes me think they thought I was a real threat to them.  They really shunned me to the child at the end, so that was serious stuff and it was coming from the top for it to be so unified.

Even though I wasn't a whistle-blower I knew when I left the mission there weren't many other mission options left (I knew virtually all the missions and I'd written to almost all of them and the ones that responded most of them treated me like I was a spy trying to get secret information from them!  I was just trying to decide which mission to go with).   So it was going to be a huge change in my life after I left the mission because I wasn't going to be able to go the usual route into my chosen field.  So I was more or less side-lined, really.

Also, while I was with the mission, I experienced isolation (working at the US office when I should have been in Vienna), less desirable work assignments, and harassment.  I think that they caused some problems that to me were harassment, I'm talking about things like computer issues, when people wouldn't cooperated with me, and things like that where it felt like it was intentional but they always acted innocent like they didn't know what they were talking about or had some lame excuse or other that wasn't very convincing to me, especially when it or something similar happened repeatedly.

***

The final section is "Negative Consequences for the Organization."

"Low levels of commitment among professionals also create problems for the organization.  Due to their outside referent groups, individuals with a cosmopolitan orientation may be more difficult to control than those with a local orientation (Gouldner, 1957; Gouldner, 1958). Further, commitment and identification to a profession may be inconsistent with the requirements for success and advancement in an organization (Raelin, 1984). " (p. 463)

You'd think that some of the theologians on staff would have had memberships in professional organizations where this might have been ans issue, but I don't know for sure about this.  I just don't understand even how the theologians could agree to the values and norms of the mission anyway, so I guess anything is possible there.

As for myself, I didn't really have a membership or outside professional group, per se, that I recognized.  The things is that professional groups usually have ethics statements and professionals might feel bound to that statement and this can cause clashes at work. 

The thing is that for Christians we should always have and "extra-organizational" authority that we adhere to, and that is God and the Bible.  The thing is that if you let them, the mission and its leadership, if you let them, will gladly twist the Bible and misinterpret God's will for you until you willingly agree to something you otherwise would say is clearly sin.   So much for external authority.  They just hijacked it for you.

But not for me.  The secret I learned - while in the USA - was not to talk and not divulge weaknesses and not to express deep thoughts.  It's best, I learned, to keep everything on the surface level, nice and light.  I lived like that for 18 months, and pretty successfully for the most part.  I mean, as far as duping them and keeping myself from completely falling apart is concerned.  And at least I didn't get hijacked.

I had values that I held above the mission, but not organizations, like profesional organizations.  Still, my values I think worked similar to how ties with a profesional organization might work, as far as it being in the way of employee management.

***

That's it for tonight

365. Commitment, Pt. 7 (Randall, pt. 1)

I'm in pain and having a bit of trouble walking.  My back pain is getting worse, so I'm glad I'm seeing the pain doctor/anesthesiologist tomorrow, and my migrain is also bothering me.  Plus, my legs are giving me more trouble, especially my lower legs.  I shouldn't be having trouble, when you think of all the exercise they've had lately, but it just goes to show you that exercise and physical therapy can't solve everything.

I went to B.J.'s this afternoon to use a few monthly coupons for things I needed before the month was over and I was glad to find they had slippers and just what I was looking for too (comfy soles, slip on, washable, etc.).  My last pair gave up the ghost in the washing machine last week.  They were last seen in shreds of fabric which were a nuisance to pick off everything else that was in the load with them.

***

Since I don't feel well and need to do something sitting down, I'm going to start another article, which is:

Randall, Donna M. (1987). Commitment and the organization: the organization man revisited. Academy of Management Review. 12(3), 460-471.

I'll try to ignore my pain.

***

Randall begins with the following quote:

"I would urge each individual to avoid total involvement in any organization: to seek whatever extent lies within his power to limit each group to the minimum control necessary for performance of essential functions; to struggle against the effort to absorb; to lent his energies to many organizations and give himself completely to none; 'to be laws to themselves,' as Walt Whittman urged us many years ago - for that is the well source of the independent spirit (Kerr, cited in White, 1956, p. 51)" p. 460)

I don't say that I necessarily agree with this quote exactly, certainly not everything in it, not the basis of it.  That is, I don't think that men are "laws to themselves" because I believe in "a Higher Power" if you will, God, to be specific.  Of course, there are those who would say that's okay but you can believe in God and leave every man to their own interpretation as to how to interpret the Bible or how to interpret the commandments, or something of that nature.  In a sense the Bible actually does give us some of that leeway in our conscience and there are things that may be wrong for me to do because my conscience grieves me regarding them, but not for you (and Scripture isn't clear in stating they are wrong so there is latitude regarding the issue).  So actually there is some of this type of thing allowed in Scripture I think. 

But I don't believe Scripture would let us go overboard in the sense of letting us (or recommending that we) go off in solitude to live our Christian lives.  The thing is that we are saved into the Body of Christ and we need each other.  So the norm would be for us to be in fellowship.  It's possible that there are individual exceptions, such as God setting someone aside for a ministry that results in him/her being isolated for a time.  But that would be unusual, not the norm. 

But as to what this quote might have to do with the Vienna mission... well, of course it does sound refreshing compared to the stifling absorption I felt while I was there that the mission just wanted to own me lock stock and barrel.  So I think there is something to this quote that no organization has the right to own an employee, a missionary, or what have you to the extent that the Vienna mission did.  And the thing is that they did hardly anything up front and straight.  It was mostly like tightening a noose around my neck rather than sitting down and talking like colleagues or people who respect each other.  Their way of treating me showed absolutely no respect for me. 

***

"Commitment to an organization reflects the relative strength of an individual's identification with and involvement in that organization (Steers, 1977). Organizational commitment can be portrayed as having three major components: (a) a person's strong belief in and an acceptance of the organization's goals, (b) a person's willingness to exert considerable effort on behalf of the organization, and (c) a person's definite desire to maintain membership (Porter, Steers, Mowday, & Boulian, 1974)." (p. 461)

I believed in the mission's goals pretty much the whole time I was with the mission, but the longer I was with it the more I began to think they were corrupt through to the core and so then by the very end that clouded the goals, I think, for me.  I was just so repulsed by the mission that the goals were lost in the repulsion.  That wasn't till the very end, the last 3-4 months though that it was that bad.  

Because of the way the mission greated me with lying and those stupid software manuals (when I had offered to take a software class in the States before coming if they'd have told me which software they were using, this was 1987), because of these things I started off with my heels sort of dug in and a bit hesitant about what was going on and not really trusting them, especially since I thought through ethical and theological issues involved with working in that part of the world and I had strong convinctions and I disagreed with them, biblically.  So I'm afraid that I wasn't going to put forth a lot of effort for the organization.  If they asked for it, I'd do it.  If it was my job and I thought it was reasonable and not stupid (like software manauals), I would do it though. 

There were times when I heard rumors about the mission opening offices in Russia and maybe I could go there.  The thing was that I soon learned that rumors were not to be trusted, so I never trusted rumors. So I guess they knew or were looking for ways to trip me up or mess up my mind, I don't know.  The only rumors I ever heard were things that were relevant to me.  Either I was out of the rumor loop so didn't hear any other rumors or rumors were plain rare and these were fabricated just for me, because I was the trouble maker (well the odd one out, the one not properly socialized into the organizaton). 

I think I knew by about a year into my 2-year term, though, that I wasn't going to be the one that was going to approach the mission about continuing on past the two years.  So if it was going to go longer it would have to come from them, not me.  They hadn't been playing straigh with me for too long and if they wanted me any longer they'd have to prove it by coming straight at least once and proving it.  If not, then I'd just be glad to be out of there, my dream of a lifetime crushed beyond recognition.

 ***

The next quotes all come in one section so it's going to be a lot, and I think I'd better stop here for now.

364. Commitment, Pt. 6 (Becker & Billings, pt. 1)

My next article is:

Becker, Thomas E. & Billings, Robert S. (1993). Profiles of commitment: an empirical test. Journal of Organizational Behavior. 14, 177-190.

From the introduction:

"Reilly and Chatman (1986) used Kelman's (1958, 1961) research to argue that commitment may be based on compliance, identification and internalization.  According to Kelman, compliance occurs when attitudes and behaviors are adopted in order to obtain certain specific rewards or to avoid certain specific punishments.  Identification occurs when attitudes and behaviors are adopted in order to be associated with a satisfying self-defining relationship with another person or group.  Finally, internalization occurs when  attitudes and behaviors because the content of the attitude or behavior is congruent with the individual's value system." (p. 177-178)

So, basically, there are three bases for commitment presented here.  Which fit my commitment (such as it was) to the Vienna mission?  I think that the closer to the end of my time with the mission it got the more of my commitment (what was left of it) was of the compliance variety.  I was more or less in survival mode and there wasn't much of anything positive going on for me.  I was going to the English language church, teaching children's Sunday school (when I really wanted to work with older people; I was just reverting to what I'd done in high school at church); and I was working as the receptionist. 

When I arrived in Vienna I think I came with an identification attitude.  I think that was actually very slow at eroding because I did believe in what they were doing, and also I held out this hope - probably an irrational hope - that they would turn out to actually be something different than I understood them to be and would come talk to me about real work opportunities and issues.  But I was not going to come to break down and come to them, so if they wanted me they were going to have to come to me, because I didn't play games, and I saw this testing of workers leading to breaking down as gamesmanship, so I wasn't going to do it.  I never did that with my boss either.  I'm not sure exactly when identification ended altogether, but it must at least have been by the time I was moved to be a receptionist and finally gave in to go to the English speaking church.

I never really reached the internalization stage of commitment, although I dhd internalize the inocuous norms and values (that I understood - as some were confusing, being not entirely socialized). 

***

"...Neuman et al (1989)... found that membership in teams was related to higher overall satisfaction and more favorable attitudes toward self, others, the job, commitment to both local and global foci, including top management, the organization, the supervisor, and the work group." (p. 184)

I rather doubt that this is the logic that the Vienna mission leadership used when they matched me up with the other secretaries.  That match (not made in heaven, in my opinion), was rather to serve as a socialization basis and to be my cohort in the mission, sort of like how the country teams and layout/art team were a group, only we were scattered around the building.  It's possible the mission leadership did think of these things listed in this text.  Security might also have been on their mind, sort of like a buddy system, too.

My main mentor did help me a lot with tips on how things are done and another secretary also helped out that way too, and so that certainly raised my satisfaction (such as it was), because without that it would have been even worse.  The moral/ethical issues I was having a problem with weren't their fault, although at some point when people participate in a situation they become part of it.  There may be times when that was so, even shunning me - why were they shunning me?  What had I done to deserve that?  They were part of that at the end when everybody shunned me!  Why?

***

That's it for that article. Not the most helpful one I've had to date, but not too bad.

363. Commitment, Pt. 5 (Burke & Reitzes, pt. 4)

I went to use the gym here for the first time at the condo complex and the two pieces of equipment I'd need the most for my legs don't work well.  So that's discouraging.  If physical therapy were to end I would need something to pick up the slack, and I thought that the gym here was better than that.

***

This article is a research paper based on questionnaires which are statistically analyzed.  Here is a brief statement about what they were looking for in the "Findings" section, just to help you understand the discussion:

"As stated above, we are interested in two empirical issues: The first relates to the structure of the bases of the commitment; the second relates to the effect of commitment on the relationship between identity and behavior." (p. 246)

Regarding the first issue they did factor analyses to determine what were the the bases for the respondents commitments. In any case, individual items can have positive or negative influence.

***

But I'm going to come in at the the go to the "Consequences of Commitment" subsection, still in the "Findings" section:

"For persons whose commitment level is one standard deviation below the average, the effect of identity is 0.050 (.154 - .104). Thus for people with low commitment, little relationship exists between identity and time in role, but as commitment increases, the relationship becomes significant and strong." (p. 248)

I'm not sure what the "average" commitment level was in the Vienna mission, but I'm sure it was much higher than mine, especially for full-time (2-year commitment) missionaries.  To understand how they make the connections you have to see the questionnaire they used and the table of results, but it does follow as they say it does in their research.  So if it is generalizable to me, and I think it does fit, that my having low commitment, little relationship existed between my identity and time in role.  That never changed, though, while I was in Vienna, although, there were some ups and downs.  While I was working with Austrians at first, especially, I still felt like that part of my role connected well with my identity.  And the same was true when I went on ministry trips, especially the women's ministry trip.  In those times there was a closer connection between my identity and my role, but all the other time it was like I might as well be living someone else's life.

***

"Overall the analysis reveals three basic results.  First, commitment, as indicated by the bases serving as proxies, moderates the relationship between one's identity and one's behavior (shown in the 'Commitment Basis by Identity' column). Second, the exception is that NEGATIVE does not act in this manner and therefore may not represent a basis of commitment." (p. 248)

I was originally only going to cite part of this, but for it to make sense I needed all of it.  This all refers to one column in a table, and there's a third  finding, that is not important to my discussion so I didn't include it.  So the thing is that people have commitment to school, to work or whatever.  And this commitment, according to this study's findings, moderates one's identity and behavior.  As I understand that you'd have identity - commitment - behavior, although it doesn't have to be so hard and fast in that order, necessarily, I suppose, but it seems like that would be a logical order.  But that's the kind of thing you'd be looking at, anyway.

But in this "Commitment Basis by Identity" column there are 2 negative items, and these must be the ones that are referred to in the exception that don't operate in the manner described above.  A negative commitment can hardly serve as a moderator between one's identity and one's behavior now, can it?  I think I was more or less in this camp probably most of the time I was with the Vienna mission.

***

"People with higher commitment are acting to keep the correspondence between their identity and their behavior more congruent.  Identity theory antidipates precicely this effect of commitment." (p. 248)

I didn't have high commitment, but I did have a very big dilemma regarding the correspondence between my identity and my behavior.  I really tried to twinkle toe around the really obnoxious stuff so that I wouldn't have to deal with overly much dissonance, but I couldn't always avoid things.  The first 18 month the mission did things to me, but the last maybe 6 months or so I finally gave in to them and there began to be more and more incongruency between my identity and my behavior, and that was harder to take than when it was just them doing things to me.  That was like the final nail in my coffin.  But if I'd stayed any longer they would have started in on my thoughts, so I'm just glad it ended when it did.

***

I guess that's all for this article.

362. Commitment, Pt. 4 (Burke & Reitzes, pt. 3)

I washed most of the windows today and worked on polishing my parents' 25th anniversary decorative plate which I have out on a side table on a stand.  I'm on the 3rd floor and owners here are responsible for the windows, so I wonder if I have to get someone to clean the outside windows.  I'm going to have to ask about that.

***

The next portion of text is from the sub-section "Commitment Processes", still in the main section "A New Formulation of Identity and Commitment."

"Commitment in our view, refers to the sum of the forces, pressures, or drives that influence people to maintain congruity between their identity setting and the input of reflected appraisals from the social setting.  If the forces are weak, people will engage in behavior to change the reflected appraisals toward congruity with their identity setting 1) only some of the time, 2) only if the incongruity is extreme, 3) only if little effort is required, 4) only to a limited degree, 5) only in some situations, and 6) only if the cost is not high. Greater commitment , on the other hand, impoies a greater correspondence between inputs (reflected appraisals) and the identity setting. In cases of greater commitment, the reflected appraisals are more likely to contain shared meanings that affirm and are consistent with an identity." (p. 243)

This is interesting.  I think number 2) is the real critical one for me.  The incongruity between me and my identity with the mission (and how I interpreted it while with it) was pretty vast.  The minor areas that allowed me to function on a basic level while with the mission were not enough to really change my commitment because these were not the major issues and the there were two many really huge, significant differences between me and the mission that my commitment to the mission was all but nil.  I think my commitment was more as a person of integrity to fulfill my two year commitment, that I did believe in the general work of the mission (although my doubts were so large that even that was weakened).  I didn't have any respect for the mission leadership, although I couldn't let it show.  That's what the mission was all about, right?  Deception?  Only they usually used it to decieve the outside world and the Communist border guards.  I had to use it with the mission.  I didn't really lie, I just didn't let my inside thoughts show.  So they didn't know what I thought of them.  Including my comparison of them with Communists in how they treated me as a dissident and cults, etc.  How could I let them know that?

I never did any wrong to them.  I was to scared to death of them to try to expose them, although they needed it, heaven knows.  But those were the Red scare days and the moral majority would have just had American Christianity laughing at me or making me out to be the bad guy for exposing them when they do such important work. 

So I lived and worked among them but not really being one of them.  The 2) was the roadblock because the incongruity was too extreme.  The minor areas where I could concede were nothing really; it was the big issues that kept me from becoming one of them.  But then the other thing is about my dad and whether I ever could have become one of them.  Since I was the only one that ever had so many problems (that I know of), was it because of my dad?  Was it that I never ever could have really become one of them?  I'm not really sure about that.  That might or might not be the case.  After Vienna I had other very clearly political incidents, so it very possibly could have been, though.

***

I'm skipping one irrelevant sub-section and we're now in "Consequences of Commitment."

"One of the consquences of high levels of commitment to an identity is that people will work harder to maintain reflected appraisals (inputs) consistent with their identities. Individuals with low commitment to an identity will not work as hard to maintain congruency between inputs and identities, and there will be less correspondence between meanings of identity and meanings of role behaviors." (p. 244)

This is definitely me and was definitely and issue with me that might not have been such an issue with some other people.  Even if my dad's work was involved in my treatment in Vienna, my high level of commitment to my identity still was a factor in my responses to what happened.  In any case I don't think that was expected, nor completely understood even by the time I left.  They evidently knew that there was something internal (I was "standing up in the inside"), but they didn't know what that entailed. 

So the thing was that they came at me immediately when I arrived in Vienna  with things that went right against things I disagreed with, and disagreed with strongly, and for someone who has a high level of commitment to an identity, I'm thinking right away that I'm full alert as far as commitment to identity is concerned because I don't trust them... not like that I don't.  That's not the way to garner my trust.  It's like how a dog or cat puts their hackles up ready for a fight if need be; I had my hackles up.

***

  "First, we view individuals as using their behavior to increase rewards and values received for having a particular identity, whereas Kanter sees organizations as using rewards and values to control the behavior of individuals.  Second, we view individuals as using links to others to complete the feedback cycle of the identity process.  In this way they obtain the reflected appraisals that further confirm and support the identity. in contrast, Kanter sees organizations as providing individuals with links to others to enmesh them in a network.  Finally, our interpretation of commitment focuses on inputs (reflected appraisals) and their relationship to identity, and highlights the individual as an activy agent making choices.  Kanter's interpretation of commitment, however, focuses on the outputs or behaviors of individuals, thus casting individuals as manipulated objectes of organizations." (p. 244)

 Basically, it seems to me, that the difference in these two views is who is the primary active individual, the individual with the commitment or the entity acting on the individual to cause him/her to have commiement.  The authors take the former stance and Kanter the latter.  This is nice for me because I can use it for me vs. the mission. Sweet.

I don't think I ever did anything to "increase rewards and values" while at the mission.  I was too busy either trying to figure things out or just surviving or both.  I was never in a position where I could realistically think about getting ahead, although there was a time where rumors were bantered around about different opportunities, but I never knew what to believe, although I sort of acted on my own a bit (e.g., studied Russian), but then I felt stupid because I eventually just stopped believing any of the rumors.

The only things that I can think of that the mission might have done that could possibly have been looked at as kinds of rewards and values were either 1) praise - which is a rather lame, or 2) mission trips (it's not like we got money rewards or anything).  The praise had to be for something real, and I think it was mostly something that was really simple, had been poorly managed or something like that, so the praise in context rand false.  The mission trips were another thing and I felt like I was finally in my element.  But the thing was that they came so late in my tenure with the mission and they couldn't undo all the horrible stuff that had already been done.  It wasn't like I was all of a sudden going to change my mind about the mission and stay with them.  You've got to be kidding. 

As to the feedback cycle aspect of identity, I was stymied with that in the Vienna mission for the most part too.  There were a few people, however that I could learn from a little.  There was one couple that lived nearest me and I think they knew me best.  I had taken them and another couple with young children on a picnick in the Viennese forest near us and I had also attended the midweek Bible study at their place much of the time I was there.  I didn't tell them about my thoughts or past but I felt like they sort of caught my spirit.  There were a few others that I could learn some from here and there.  But for the most part I closed myself off from the feedback cycle as a kind of self defense.  And even then I still came back to the States destroyed. 

As an aside here I just got to thinking, my friend in Minneapolis, who I stayed with while I was researching all these articles (in the States visiting while I was living in Russia) she had been married to a man who destroyed her very kind and sweet spirity.  She's a musician and just so sweet and he killed her spirit by criticizing her over every little thing.  Well I came back to the US from Austria like that but people didn't understand.  All my joy for the ministry for reaching people and even my friends, they just killed me, but I couldn't get a divorce paper and explain to people what my husband had done to me.   

I didn't want a reflected appraisal from the mission because why would I want an appraisal from someone who was trying to get me to lie or someone who lied to me repeatedly the first couple months?  But that didn't matter because they were going to make sure I got their appraisal and listened and they were going to shove it down my throat until, well, until I was a broken and destroyed shell.  Is that what they wanted?

Kanter's view does, it seem pretty well describe the mission, in as much as the mission did want everyone to be linked together.  The mission did want there to be a high level of trust among everyone and a lot of camaraderie.

I like the idea of "reflected appraisals" and the individual as an active agent making choices.  While I was there I certainly did make reflected appraisals on my identity.  While I was thinking about what was going on around me it would make me think, too, about what I believed and maybe why.  As long as there wasn't any of the stuff going on that I felt very convinced I disagreed with, then I'd give it some thought.  I ended out leaving because I disagreed with some basic aspects of the mission, so it's questionable whether it was completely ethical for me to stay the full two years, but I did.

The mission I think would see things Kanter's way, where individuals are manipulated objects of organizations.  They wouldn't be that crass about it though.  But they would want to be in the upper hand and really know what's going on and what's what.  Everybody's values and and commitments have to be in sync.  When I arrived in Vienna everything was all set up and ready to be orchestrated - by the mission.  So they had the socialization all set up like that and I think that the mission would like this kind of thing to have also to have been mission-centric as far as who was in control.  I was there 2 years and they failed with me, however.

361. Commitment, Pt. 3 (Burke & Reitzes, pt. 2)

I got an e-mail earlier (after I returned home from physical therapy, about 7:00 or so) notifying me of the imminent and (for me) ootentially disasterous change in Blogger so that now it's going to be more affiliated with Google.  Somehow the earlier notices had passed me by or something, but when I went to fill in the form to change from the legacy to Google it wouldn't recognize my username, when in fact my username was the one I do use for Blogger.  So I was all up in arms about that and there was no one to ask because the only recourse was these discussion boards that were, as far as I'm councerned, somewhat less than helpful.

Eventually I saw that all these people were writing to complain about various things regarding the transfer of Blogger and it didn't seem from my perspective, that no one was really trying.

Then I decided to approach it from the other end - from Google.  So I logged into Google, which I really never use, and I found out that there's another whole bunch of Google accounts that I needed to sign up for and then when I clicked on the Blogger logo it took me right back to my usual place.  I went round and round with this a few times and I guess I'm okay with this legacy thing now.

Back to out text...

***

This text is patched together from the section titled: "A New Formulation of Identity and Commitment," and the subsection is "Identity."

"Burke and Reitzes (1981) note three distinctive features of identities.  First, identites are social products that are formed, maintained and confirmed through the process of 1) naming or locating the self in social categories...; 2) interacting with others in terms of these categories... ; and 3) engaging in self-presentation and altercasting to negotiate and confirm the meanings and behavioral implications of the social categories.  Second, identies are self-meanings ... that are acquired in particular situations and are based on the similarities and differences of a role in relation to its counter-roles.  Third, identities are symbolic, calling up in one person the same responses as are called up in others.  Finally identies are reflexive.  Persons can use their identities to assess the implications of their own behavior as well as of other people's behaviors; this assessment if part of the reflected appraisals process... We now add that identies are a source of motivation for action, particularly actions that result in social confirmation of the identity.  The self becomes an active agent in interaction." (p. 242; underlines mine)

There is a LOT here and it might take a while to dissect it. I'll go through the First, Second, Third, Finally, and "We now add" sections separately, one-by-one.

I came to Vienna with a pretty strong identity vis a vis missions in Eastern Europe. I think I would have been open to influence if there hadn't been the lying and deception, and certainly not the sending me back to the States the way the did under the guise that they used.  So I very early closed myself off to being open to any influence from them regarding identity influence.  This is just another way of saying what I've been saying all along, although I haven't said it, I don't think, in terms of identity.  I definitely did not want to identify with their value system because that was not "okay with me"  it did not match my value system and I knew enough about missions in Eastern Europe and I was raised with such a strong vew of the Bible that there was no way I was going to be convinced that that kind of deception and way of living was necessary and so I was not open to identifying with them and the things they did to me and they way the treated me were an immediate shut off.

On the one hand they immediately presented all these deceptions and lies and then they smothered me in sweetness.  I don't know, maybe it's sort of like smelling puke and then trying to cover it up with perfume.  So you have the perfume and the puke both going on at the same time.  Now if you're a guy out on a date with a new gal and this gal comes smelling like that what are you going to think?  Do you like it?  Or is it repulsive?  I don't know about you, but in the mission it was very repulsive and actually I sort of ignored the sweetness, I guess because I thought I was only a secretary and that kind of welcome was overblown for a secretary.  And then the negative things were awful.  So wanting to identify with them was out of the question.

That said, however, they were of the type that they weren't above using force.  They made me cut my friends from my prayer letters, they made me put things in my prayer letters (or leave things out), they pressured me to attend the English language church until I couldn't take it any more.  So I felt like they made me into someone I didn't like any more.  So I don't know if you cound that exactly as "social products"  It's not as if it was a give and take process.  Rather it was a push-push-push process.  Or sometimes even just a demand process.  That is social, in that I didn't do it myself, though.  I'm not sure I made any identity changes just from the usual social processes while I was there though, because I was too busy dealing with these other heavy duty things.  Not that I didn't socialize, but my thoughts and concerns were more preoccupied with the other things.

On to the second, self-meaning, section, I guess these would be the meaning I gave certain roles and situations in the mission.  The thing is that no one knew about these things, especially after my being sent to the USA the 5th month of my tenure with the mission because the main thing I learned from that time in the States was to shut up and keep my thoughts to myself.  So I became very good at that for the duration of my time with the mission and that's why no one, even my parents guessed what I was thinking.  I became afraid to let people know.  I didn't trust anyone after that.  I mean anyone connected with the mission, in particular.

My self meaning, especially vis a vis the time I was spent with the Vienna mission, was a bright, enthusiastic, person who liked to take initiative, liked to work with people, liked writing, liked languages, enjoyed entertaining, etc.  I didn't see myself as a secretary (which I've said umpteen times here) but I was willing to be one for 2 years to see what possibilities that might open up.  I saw myself as sincere also, and people on deputation had told me that as well.  This is how I saw myself when I arrived in Vienna.

It was completely different when I left, but I don't think I'll attempt that too much right now.  I will say that towards the end of my time in Vienna I did begin to take serious though to what I might do after my 2 years was up because it was clear I couldn't stay with them.  (Whether or not they wanted me, I did not want to stay with them.)  Since there were hardly any missions left I might work with (except Child Evangelism Fellowship, which I definitely liked, but I didn't feel called to work with children), I had to really switch gears, which was a major identity change for me as I had given so much for so many years to be an Eastern European missionary.

Regarding the third element, that identities are symbolic, I think that was a problem for me in the Vienna mission.  Since I wasn't ever fully integrated (although it wasn't nearly as complex in the U.S. office) I don't think I ever got to the point where you could say calling up in me "the same responses as are called up in others."  That's not to say that that didn't happen to a point or in some cases, but I never reached the level of certainty that I should have because I really hadn't internalized the social norms and values (often because I didn't understand or know them, but at times maybe because I didn't agree with them.)  If they weren't pushing and testing me generally these differences weren't too noticeable I don't think (except for my continued work with Austrians).  But as soon as they started putting on the pressure or testing me it would become clear that I had no intention of submitting.  And at the end I wasn't going to be the one coming begging to them on hands and knees for a position either, because there was no way they were going to get me to change my values.

They got me to change my external actions and crush me, but not inside, so the analysis at the end of my stay, that I was "standing up on the inside" was accurate.  For two years, even through counseling, I managed to "stand up on the inside" and manage to come out of it still standing up on the inside.  I'm not sure anyone else has ever been able to do that.  I don't think a theologian could get away with that because they'd be more on their toes, but since I was "just a secretary" I got through their fingers.  Basically, they underestimated me, to my advantage.  But my life was devestated.

For the "Finally" reflexive aspect of identity, I guess I must have used this a lot because I was under a huge amount of stress.  Can you imagine?  I was there all by myself, no one to talk to, all these powerful people (even perhaps the U.S. government if it was related to Dad's work), I had to think, thnk, think, try to figure things out.  I was afraid to even write things down.  My landlady seemed nice enough, but she was friends with people from the office and went to church with them (that's how I got the apartment).  So I was constantly trying to figure things out from a myriad angles.  And I did pick up jogging and biking.  And I did get out with my own extracurricular activities.

I had to have a solid ground and these were my solid grounds to stand on:
1. The Bible
2. What I knew about Eastern Europe and Eastern European ministry & missions
3. My values that I really believed and was committed to for a reason, had studied and thought through prior to coming to Vienna
4. My educational background

(I may think of something else, but those are major ones.)

If I didn't have some kind of solid ground I'd most definitely sink like in quicksand at the hands of the mission, whatever their intentions were for me.  So these were my solid ground.  The education was more a resource than a solid ground, but it helped immensely.  I used them as a comparison point to analyse what was going on around me and try to make sense of what was going on.  I'm not sure if these things are exactly my identity, but they are, certainly wrapped up in who I am.  My theology and my values seem like they would be parts of my identity, at least.

So I had a very strong identity as far as things related to missions in "Eastern Europe because I had a background developed for it and I used this constantly, non-stop to help me keep from basically going completely crazy.  I felt like I had to make some kind of sense of it all.  I think coming at it this way probably gave me a back door way to being able to adhere to some of there ways of doing thing that not controversial to me too.

And lastly, the "We now add..." source of motivation for action part of identities.  This definitely was what led to me wanting to work with Austrians and it was also how I had devloped friends in so many places.  So it was a major blow when the mission made me cut my prayer letter list.  I should have tried to work around that more somehow, I guess.  But I lost so many friends that way.  But the way the mission molded me made me continue to lose friends because I was a totally different person on the outside by the time I left the mission and no one knew about what I'd been thinking and it was too hard to explain and I was too broken to explain it well.  A few people seemed to understand, mainly not family.  The mission succeeded in quelching the motivation I'd had, but not completely.  I picked up the pieces just a year after leaving Vienna and went to Russia.

***

Addendum (a few hours later): The authors use the example of a student trying to get others to see her as she sees herself, and that being a way identies "are a source of motivation for action."  I'm not sure I did that consciously or not - I'd have to think about that more, but when I was doing things like getting involved in Austrian ministry that was pure me (well, and hopefully God in me, but you know what I mean), I wasn't doing it out of spite, to prove anything , or anything like that.  And it wasn't anything that I thought needed to be shouted from the rooftops - made a big deal of or anything.  But to be deprived of it (and my friends and a host of other things) just killed me and my spirit.  They couldn't replace it.  All they were doing was killing me, emotionally, speaking.  They just kept saying no to everything that was me, everything that meant anything to me.  And then they replaced it with things that to me were very poor substitutes to me and were forced upon me to boot. 

So the mission basically rejected everything about me because they took it away from me and replaced it with what they wanted me to be.  They should just have told me upfront that they hated me and be done with it, because that's what it boiled down to, right?  I mean, if you don't like anything about a person it comes down to you really hate her, right?  Well, that's what it came down to in the end, that they hated me.  They could deny it in words all they want, but their actions speak louder and what they did was in fact displace everything I valued about me and replace it with what they wanted that most (if not all) of the time was disgusting and/or degrading to me.  And, by the way, I don't think it takes a psychologist to tell you that that's not a very good way to get someone to open up.  Especially anyone who is at all astute.  Thankfully, they took me to be "just" a secretary, or I'm sure I can't imagine what else they'd have done to me.  They didn't know that I could think.

360. Commitment, Pt. 2 (Burke & Reitzes, pt. 1)

This new text is:

Burke, Peter J. & Reitzes, Donald C. (1991). An identity theory approach to commitment. Social Psychology Quarterly. 54(3), 239-251.

***

This text briefly describes what the article is about:

"In this paper we review three different conceptions of commitment that tie the person in various ways to lines of action (Becker 1960, 1964), to organizations (Kanter 1968, 1972), and to role partners (Stryker 1968, 1980).  We then consider an identity-based understanding of commitment implicit in the work of Foote (1951).  This approach which draws on identity theory and affect control theory leads to a more unified understanding of commitment.  Commitment, from this perspective, does not link a person to consistent behavior, other individuals, or organizations.  Instead it may be viewed as linking a person to a stable set of self-meanings (identity).  That connection, in turn, produces apparent ties to actions, organizations, and persons." (p. 239-241).

This theory, of course, will get flushed out in the course of the article. I don't know that the Vienna mission would be entirely comfortable with this approach to things, because it would want to be the center of the universe, so to speak.  It would not want the identity to start with the individual, I don't think.  Having the individual be the most central risks the individual coming up with ideas and conclusions different than the mission, as I did, and that's the last think the mission could tolerate, as I experienced, although that's oversimplifying my situation, I think.

There are a lot of other interesting nuggets along the way in this article, though, that should provide a jumping board for thoughts about the Vienna mission.

***

"Kanter uses social action theory to generate three dimensions of commitment.  Instrumental commitment refers to the material benefits (food, clothing, shelter, goods, and services) to which individuals have access as a result of their membership in a community.  Affective commitment focuses on the positive cathectic feelings that bind members to a community and generate gratifications stemming from involvement with all the members.  Moral commitment identifies the evaluative orientations that provide members with a sense of self-worth and with community pride and confidence in the values and goals of their community." (p. 240)

Members of the Vienna mission met needs in all areas, although "material needs" would probably have mostly been of the services types like moving heavy objects and the like.  The affective aspect was very important, even crucial as a security issue, because a disgruntled member could wander off and say something to the wrong person or lash out or spread his/her dissatisfaction to others.  So affect was very important.  But it was also (generally) very sincere, I think, and not artificial or shallow.  I say generally because I think sometimes it felt to me that it could be used to in a syrupy way to try to sugar coat something, like by the military chaplain/H.R. director. 

So material benefits were just something they did for each other, affect was deemed critical by the administration, but moral commitment didn't really have a place, oddly enough, in the mission.  That is to say, missionaries undoubtedly had moral commitment, but my experience there was that the mission didn't really care about that and in fact had to actually twist your morals to accept their view of what was required for security, which basically is a life of deception.  So if you come to Vienna as a conservative Evangelical Christian missionary with high moral commitment, they have to make you agree to a life of deception for the sake of security.  Which is to say, they want to take your moral commitment down a notch or two.. or three... or...  Somehow they do it, even to theologians.  It didn't work with me so they say I have culture shock.  At least I still have my moral commitment.  What about you guys?  [That's directed to any Vienna mission missionaries who might be reading this.]

So I guess out of these three I'd have to say that the mission valued affect the most.

***

The next portion of the text I'd like to comment on is too long and I have to go to physical therapy in a while, so I'll have to put it off til the next post.

359. Commitment, Pt. 1 (Becker & Billings, pt. 1)

That last file was another short one, so we're starting another new one today.  The first article is:

Becker, Thomas E., & Billings, Robert S. (1993). Profiles of commitment. an empirical test. Journal of Organizational Behavior. 14, 177-190.

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This first quote is from the introduction.

"...O'Reilly and Chatman (1986) used Kelman's (1958, 1961) research to argue that commitment may be based on compliance, identification, and internalization.  According to Kelman, compliance occurs when attitudes and behaviors are adopted in order to obtain certain specific rewards or to avoid certain specific punishments.  Identification occurs when attitudes and behaviors are adopted in order to be associated with a satisfying self-defying relationship with another person or group.  Finally, internalization occurs when attitudes and behaviors are adopted because the content of the attitude or behavior is congruent with the individual's value system." (p. 177-178)

When researchers write their articles they don't think of the repercussions it might have on people like me that might be using their articles as springboards for commenting on!  This is so dense!  I could break it down, but that would be going sentence by sentence.  Well, they have their space limitations, and they have to prove the need for the research they did (that's what they do in the introduction).  So here goes.

In the Vienna mission internalization was huge and it was mandatory, as I've said a million times (maybe not quite that many, but it feel like it) here on this blog.  That's not to say, however, that compliance and identification were not important, because I think they most definitely were.  It's just that the internalization assured (or I think that was the intention) the compliance necessarily to be reliable and 100% trustworthy, or 110% trustworthy even, if you know what I mean, like over the top trustworthy, without a shadow of a doubt trustworthy.  I think the mission, actually, might have been a little looser, however, on the identification factor, depending on the individual.  That is, the mission could understand if some members just intended to serve out their 2 year term.  So their identification with the mission might not be the same as for someone who had been with the mission 10 years already (the mission was about that old at that time). 

As for me, I complied with everything I could, which is to say I complied with everything I thought was reasonable and that my conscience would allow me to comply with.  This means, I did not comply with their games, as I saw them, where they weren't being straight with me and where things seemed to have double meanings.The longer I was there, the more there was of this, it seemed, but it fluctuated.

I did not identify with them, that strongly however, and my identification with them was pretty well wiped out as soon as they sent me back to the US five months into my tenure with them.  What did they expect?  I was terrified of them after that.  I couldn't imagine what else they might do to me if they'd go that far! How could I identify with someone like that?  Of course, captive prisoners identify with their hostage takers all the time and they calle this the Stockholm syndrome, right?  After I left Vienna for good I wondered if there wasn't a bit of this in me, because I was so devastated and muddled in my thinking (although I got up on my feet in a year's time).   Nevertheless, I don't really think that fit me.  I didn't really identify with the mission that well, for the most part. 

As far as internalization, I think that really has to be the whole kit'n kaboodle sort of thing, which is certainly what the Vienna mission would have wanted, and I didn't have it and I didn't want it because of my disagreements with them.  Most of what I had internalized, I think, was how things were done and more of the lesser values.  As for the other things, I learned some of them in my trying to figure them out, but that's not to say I internalized them, because I had absolutely no intention of obeying them or making them mine.  These were things I found repulsive for the most part.  But the thing is that the mission wasn't meant to be understood mentally, cognitively, but more by living it and then maybe asking questions.  So it was harder my way, but I had to try to survive in the mission while I was there still and understanding it could give me more resilience.   Well, and I guess it's what helps me be able to write this blog.

Kelman has a point and that's one way to reach commitment.  In the Vienna mission it was making it through socialization, and I think it was pretty individualistic.  I would modify Kelman's hypothesis to fit what I knew about the Vienna mission, which is mainly the secretaries, and that is that when a (fairly) new secretary met up with a punishment response and (maybe built in to the mission's operations somehow) and she came in tears to her boss about it he would encourage her and help her overcome the problem behavior.  It's possible that others did figure out through trial and error what was the right way on their own, but my experience was that these counseling type sessions were pretty important.  It might have been different for the other department or workers though.

***

That's all for now.  I'll pick up next time discussing the results of the study.

358. Trust, Pt. 4 (Michalos, pt. 1)

This article is as follows:

Michalos, Alex C. (1990). The impact of trust on business, international security and the quality of life. Journal of Business Ethics, 9(8), 639-653.

***

"Virtually all contemporary research on subjective well-being, quality of life, happiness and satisfaction with life as a whole shows that good interpersonal relations contribute more than anything else to these desirable states.  If one were to list plausible necessary conditions for good interpersonal relations, trust would certainly be included in the list" (p. 639)

If it is such a necessary condition, and, as I have already described in my previous posts, trust was so problematic for me at the Vienna mission, it's a wonder that I had any positive relations.  Actually, it's possible that the positive relations on their end were just as withheld as they were on my end.  On my end, I just did as much as I could agree with them, but beyond that I chose to stay out my term.  As it turned out my relations with the mission were only instrumental, because they turned on my so quickly.  This is an example, too, of how the trust issue really to the forefront, because they obviously did not trust me at all.

***

 "[T]he moral principle which is at the basis of a civilized society ... is a principle of mutual trust, of mutual respect for certain basic rights: that persons will not, in the normal course of life, knowingly inflict physical physical harm on one another, that they will abstain from such harms insofar as it is in their power to do so, insofar as they can informedly control their relevant conduct." (p. 633)

The leadership at the Vienna mission clearly did not adhere to these principles in how they treated me.  If they had treated me with mutual respect they wouldn't have given me such menial work (reading software manuals) and shuffling me around all over the place in my various jobs.  And being sent back to the U.S. I think they were knowingly inflicting physical harm on me in doing that, as a kind of brain washing just like how they sent back the two other wives for counseling - to scare them into towing the line. 

***

"Alternatively, one might say that insofar as adherence to the No Harm Principle is necessary for a civilized society or a moral community, so is trusting people and being trustworthy.  Thus, I prefer the Principle of Beneficence, even those who prefer the No Harm Principle as the fundamental basis of morality would have a good reason to take trust and trustworthiness seriously." (p. 633)

For clarity's sake here are the referred to principles:

"1. Principle of Beneficence: One ought to try to act so that one's actions tend to impartially improve the human condition.


2. No Harm Principle. One ought to try to act so that one's actions tend not to harm anyone." (p. 633)


The point I want to make here is that trust should be a basic element of a civilized society and a moral community.  A submit that a Christian mission counts as a moral community, and therefore trust should be rather high in such a community, at least if this text is right.  Well, it turns out that it isn't right, because the mission doesn't apply trust and trustworthiness impartially (the principle of beneficence) or to "anyone" (no harm principle), because it seems I was left out.  The mission left me out of its trustworthiness.  That's they only way I can explain the way I was treated.

***

"From a logical point of view, there are four relevant possible worlds to consider.  The world might be such that most people are actually


1. trustworthy and trusted,
2. trustworthy but not trusted,
3. not trustworthy but trusted,
4. not trustworthy and not trusted." (p. 634)

Michalos goes on to describe each of these and gives them each such names as Real Hell and Fool's Paradise. 

I think that I was trustworthy to the mission in that I never ever harmed the mission or intended anything of that nature.  So I was always trustworthy in that way.  And when I was out having my Austrian contacts I didn't do foolish things or cause any security breaches or anything stupid like that.  But If they insisted on controlling all my thoughts and my opinions, etc. then to them I'd be untrustworthy because they didn't like it that anyone had thoughts or opinions that they didn't know about.  Well, and they didn't know what I really wanted, but I couldn't tell them because they'd have just freaked out because of how much I was disagreeing with them. 

But if you turn the tables and ask how much I could trust the mission... from early on I decided I couldn't really trust them at all.  That is, I didn't open up to them at all after they sent me back to the U.S.  I made no more admissions to anything after that, because I didn't trust them, any of them.  You just never knew who to trust.  Not after what they did to me.  No way.

357. Trust, Pt. 3 (Pascarella, pt. 1)

There were a couple things in physical therapy (p/t) that reflected my degrading from the botox loss of effect.  Also, on the way (about 15 or so miles down a major highway), I found myself sort of off in another world of thought.  And then I'd come to and not really remember driving several miles, which is sort of scary.  So my concentration is a bit limited.

At the same time my lower back is hurting more and next Monday I see the anesthesiologist and I expect I'm going to be in for another epidural. 

You know that children's song "heads and shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes..."?  Well, that pretty well describes how my body is a mess.  I just keep plugging along the best I can though.

***

I got a letter from my youngest brother, the one in New England, and I'm sort of dreading opening it.  He's undoubtedly responding to my being candid to what I was thinking and doing the last few years mom was alive.  I'm sure he doesn't like it and he'd like to castigate me, but my other brother might be even worse.  It's hard to tell sometimes though.  I could be surprised.  I do know that mom kept saying that I was the one that always understood the people best, like that brother and his ex-wife.  I can make mistakes and misjudge characters, but I think I generally have a pretty keen sense of character.  I hope that comes through in this blog.  Some people might not like it though.

***

This next article is:

Pascarella, Perry. (1993, Feb. 1). 15 ways to win people's trust. Industry Week. 242(3), 47-48, 50.

Don't worry - I'm not going to give you all 50.

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"1 Demonstrate that you are working for others' interests as well as our own....


... They will observe whether you build and enable others to excel or treat them as competitors.


If you're not demonstrating respect for others, you have to expect them to conclude, 'If you don't respect me, then I can't trust you to look out for my interests.'" (p. 48)

During the middle of my two-year term with the Vienna mission I began to experience this kind of competitiveness that seemed like it really didn't belong in a mission (...or a church ...or among Christians).  What is this competing against each other?  It's stupid!  The two main people were my boss' wife and a gal from the layout and art department.  It was almost like we were pitted against each other or something but I wasn't sure if it was for real or if it was a set up (there were so many games going on, you understand, that I was leery of things half the time wasn't sure what to believe).  I'm not the competitive type to begin with and then to add such an ambiguous situation even detracted all the further from it.  Still, it was rather in your face and because these were people I had to relate to every day it was hard to avoid. 

My boss didn't show respect for me because he didn't give me work to do that showed he respected me.  How is reading software manuals for weeks on end supposed to be respecting me?  It isn't.  Clearly it isn't.  I was much more qualified than that!  Just because I wasn't an executive secretary didn't mean that I didn't have any background as a secretary.  That's ridiculous.  So my boss definitely did not respect me.  Then he just sat by with the others and agreed with the going to America garbage for counseling.  I didn't need to go to America.  That's stupid.  There's no way I could trust him or the management to look out for my interests after that. 

***

"2 Listen in ways that show you respect others and that you value their ideas.


Anyone around you is likely to have information and viewpoints that are of value to you and the organization.  Be a magnet for facts.  Listen especially for the frame of reference, the vision, the new ways of looking at a situation that others bring." (p. 48)

When I first arrived in Vienna I especially did this.  I didn't really plan on taking that approach, but when I realized that the mission was different than I expected and not in a good way especially, that's when I went pretty much full gear into doing this.  I was very attentive, I think and really tried to understand what was going on.  I thought I had a pretty good background in East European mission that should help me understand them, but my background failed me there and I had to create a new understanding and I ended out comparing them more to a spy agency or even to the Communists (in how they treat believers and how the mission treated me as a kind of dissident).

I found it very difficult to find very many facts about the mission, other than the ones we feed folks back home for fund raising, but then I don't think that facts are what would really have explained the mission, unless it would have been the real heart of the mission and how it operated. 

It was difficult to be too open to new ways of looking at situations, because in that group, if you weren't a bona fide accepted insider, they could feed you all kinds of ways to look at a situation and pretty soon you'd be so confused you wouldn't know which end is up.  So with that group it was better to not be too open to new ways to looking at situations.  Smiling and nodding with and occasional "interesting" or "mm-hmmm" thrown in might satisfy them you've been adequately duped.

***

"7 Show consistency in the basic values that guide your decision-making.


Mistrust comes from no knowing what to expect - not seeing any boundaries to or purpose for what you're doing.  Don't put people in the positiong of saying. 'You're honest, but you're liable to make a decision that I don't expect - and possibly don't even understand.'" (p. 48, 50)

I definitely felt this way about the Vienna leadership.  I didn't agree with their reasoning for doing things (that affected me) and then they'd make decisions that to me didn't seem consistent with earlier decisions.  For example:

They sent me to the States for counselling only 5 months into my stay in Vienna.  Then I stayed on and worked in the U.S. office.  They determined that I could come back to the Vienna office and return to my old office.  So I pretty much returned to where I was and they thought that I was reformed, I think.  So they had me go with the Secretaries on the ESL trip and then I went on a women's ministry trip.  After that my parents came and shortly thereafter I was demoted to receptionist. 

Why was I demoted to receptionist?  What had I done?  No one had ever told me that I'd done anything wrong or anything.  So this was a HUGE inconsistency. 

***

I'm going to have dinner now and think about some other things for the rest of the evening... like portioning out my meds for the week.  My g.i. doctor prescribed nexxium for me and I just found out a bit ago (before I started on this post) that my pharmacy is holding it up because it has erythromycin in it which causes heart palpitations in me, and since I recently had the heart arhithmia problem we'd better not mess with that, so they're trying to get him to prescribe something else.  I'll call him in the morning to explain more why I shouldn't take it.


 

356. Trust, Pt. 2 (Sonnenberg, pt. 1)

The next article is:

Sonnenberg, Frank K. (1993). Trust me... trust me not.  Industry Week. 242(15), 22-24, 26, 28.

These were all articles I researched in Minneapolis while I was in visiting in the States while living in Russia.  I later tried to categorize them into files and that's how I ended out with this "trust" file.  I don't think that trust was a theme I went out looking for in the first place. For those of you knew to this blog, I was trying to make sense of my life and it seemed that there was too much political fallout from things interfering with my life.

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"Employees in organizations marked by low levels of trust usually operate under higher levels of stress, spend a great deal of effort covering their backsides, justifying past decisions and conducting witch hunts or looking for scapegoats when something doesn't work out." (p. 24).

This didn't describe the Vienna mission because if you didn't fairly quickly internalize the mission's values and norms and let yourself be pretty much be totally submitted to the mission (so that the mission didn't have to worry about trusting you, because they knew virtually everything about you), then you'd end out more or less where I was. 

The thing is that the mission, I think, assumed that the problem was that I was too distracted by everything external to the mission and when they had pretty much reigned me in in every way they could think of and that still didn't work then they resorted to telling me that I was "standing up on the inside" (the words of my mentor, via a sort of parable/fable told me more than once at the end of my time with the mission).  But they erred in assuming that I was just a secretary.  They really didn't understand my mental abilities, and that's what tripped them up and that's what allowed me to get out of there without completely submitting.  So my cover, if you will, was being a "dumb blonde."  I did have all my books up in my office at one point (just before being sent back to the USA), though, but I guess they didn't take that seriously or something. 

Of course, there's the issue of what they really wanted too, and they maybe didn't really know what I wanted.  I just took things at face value that I was told I was to be a secretary and I would have some off time that I would be able to work with Austrians.  I wasn't told that if I worked as a secretary my whole identity would have to be wrapped up in being a secretary, and the folk at the Austrian mission somehow missed the agreement that I would spend some off time working with Austrians.  I came there trusting them, but they couldn't accept that arrangement because they weren't in control and it wasn't agreed to by them; my sending mission is the one who had agreed to it and the Vienna mission didn't like that, I guess.

***

"Furthermore, in organizations marked by low levels of trust, employees have so much difficulty exploring the full range of options or responding creatively to problems at hand that new challenges are avoided.  Employees are so afraid of being reprimanded for failure of ridiculed by their colleagues that they shy away from new activities that will require new ways of thinking.  Their defensiveness and mutual suspicions limit them to the restricted set of alternatives they have all agreed upon, which are designed to minimize their vulnerability.  Exploration, innovation, and creativity become dangers in this kind of environment." (p. 24)

You have to keep in mind that I am discussing these texts only for myself, because my experience of the mission was way different from most other people's.  So don't think that anyone else would think the same thing, because probably most everyone else would say the exact opposite, although it's possible that a few people might say that they could understand how I might see things the way I am, whether or not they agree. 

I absolutely had terrific difficulty exploring options or responding creatively to problems at hand.  The only problems I could deal with were things like filing systems or the organization of supply cabinets.  Whoopee!  I was at the bottom of the organizational power chart.  No one would listen to me for anything.  I wouldn't be reprimanded for my work, though.  The more time went by the harder it became, I think, to try to win their trust and get a good position or the position I was supposed to have when I came to Vienna to work with the mission in the first place. 

I was strong and it was only as I began to flag and faulter that then I began to shy away from the things I knew they didn't like - like attending the Austrian church.

***

Next the author discusses "the rings of trust."  You start at the center, the rod, and move outward through 3 concentric circles.

"The rod, at the center of the ring, represents the beginning of a relationship and depicts the history of those involved.  We generally start off with some preconceived notion about others..." (p. 24)

The odd thing is that I'm not sure that the problem was the preconceived notions about one another (me and the mission) was the problem.  Rather, it was what we learned about each other once I arrived there.  I felt misled because the things I'd been assured of were not so and I did not like the dishonesty and deceit of the mission and I did not trust it nor agree with its ways nor perceived need for this kind of blatant unbiblical behavior.  I'm not sure what the mission thought about me.  If they were concerned about my father's work it probably thought I would be too hard to control and so too much of a (national) security risk (and the staff military chaplains could possibly have contributed to that sentiment).  If they just wanted a mission in their image they might have been very upset.

***

"The first ring around the rod represents the characteristics that lead to trust.  They are the attributes, such as integrity, reliability, and openness, that allow us to build trusting relationships.  Once these characteristics are demonstrated, they become part of a person's or organization's track record.  When those actions are repeated time and time again, the relationship is strengthened and becomes the foundation of the next phase." (p. 26)

I think that for the missionaries who make it through the socialization process they see the mission in all these positive ways, but I didn't.  The very first summer I was there I personally experienced the mission lie to me multiple times, and I've already shared these here more than once.  That's not integrity.  The mission moved me around from job to job and I was hardly even in the job I was supposed to be in.  What kind of reliability is that?  And there was never any complaint about my work, nor about my attitude!  I always had a good attitude and was social and helped out.  So it was just that they couldn't get to me and this security thing that they couldn't really control me and have my full and total submission.  So they didn't like it and they made me pay for it.  They didn't have openness either and that's why I couldn't understand them.  Oh, if I'd talk with them (when I bothered to) they'd have some mumbo jumbo think to say that didn't really mean anything.  But they were not really open.  No one else got moved around like me. No one.  Period.  And that's nothing to build a trusting relationship on.

***

"The second ring, consistency, allows us to anticipate probable actions.  It provides a degree of comfort [by] helping us to maintain the relationship even through difficult times." (p. 26)

There was never any consistency in the relationship between me and the mission.  It did have a few brief interludes of reasonably good high points, though, generally because I was doing something I thought was using more of my skills on mission trips.  But the problems always remained, so when I returned back home everything would be just as usual. 

***

"The third ring is faith; as it is added to the other two rings, everything that came before it is  strenghened.  This ring, which does not adhere to the others, but rather encompasses them, is the stage at which actions are so predictable that we don't consciously have to think about the relationship.  Trust has become so integral a part of the relationship that we expect it to work.  At their peak, relationships imbued with trust are welded together by a faith so strong that it is very difficult to destroy them.  It is at this stage that people allow themselves to become entirely vulnerable to others." (p. 26)

This is pretty much how the Vienna mission members were supposed to operate among each other as part of the mission, and I think they did.  The mission made sure they did, I think, because it was a security issue.  But they didn't feel it as a negative thing, unless somene had something to hide, I suppose, which is what the security aspect of it would have been meant to catch.

I didn't think I had anything to hide, but I refused to let anyone but God have that kind of power over me, because once you're in that kind of relationship I think you're hooked into it and I think it would be just about impossible to entertain your own thoughts or opinions with any conviction and have them conflict with the group.  You'd have to stifle them, but that kind of thing would come to light eventually and then you'd have a nice talk about it to put it in perspective so you could keep on with the work.  And before you know it your disagreements are not so important after all.

It's not like working at a seminary where you just don't teach everything, but you can still have strong opinions.  The seminary doeson't control your every thought like the Vienna mission did.  It's totally different. 

I just couldn't do it, I didn't think it was biblical and the deception of the mission was a huge red flag.  The mission did great work, but I don't like how they work.  And I don't like that they have political ties either (get the military chaplains out of there)..

In any case, it doesn't take much for you to imagine, I guess, that I absolutely could not be vulnerable.  Being vulnerable was how they sort of sucked you in.  That's how I thought while I was there.  So I ended out not ever being vulnerable and when I left they still didn't know what I was thinking.  If I had been vulnerable it would have been a whole lot harder than it was for me, I am very sure.

***

Here are a few of the traits from the frist ring...

"Integrity.  In assessing people's integrity, ask: Do theyhave a good value system? Are they honest, straightforward, and nonmanipulating?...


Confidence.... It is important to determine whether the people you build relationships with are comfortable within themselves and believe in themselves enough to admit their faults and errors.  Ask yourself, do they always have to be right?


Openness.  Opennesss.  Openness in relationships is built upon some existing level of trust.  You feel comfortable confiding in people knowing they would never break our confidence or use the information against you later.  If they respond to that openness as expected, trust is enhanced and intimacy and honesty grow.  It is not enough to be totally open and honest with your employees.  This philosophy must be demonstrated to your customers and suppliers as well." (p. 26, 28)

Integrity!  Despite the fact that the mission was comprised totally of conservative Evangelical Christians and mostly of advanced degree (Th.M. or higher) theologians the lifestyle use of deception for security and even just with me, presumably for socialization is despicable!  What kind of integrity is that for a Christian mission?!  It's terrible! And that was my early reaction and one of the main reasons I sort of put on the brakes and started observing them and trying to figure out what was going on.  They were lying to me and not giving me enough work to do, which was a waste of my supporters' money which was stupid and idiotic.  I'm not into that kind of gamesmanship.  Just get to the point and tell me what you want and get it out. That's not integrity.  I know a lot of non-Christians that have a lot more integrity than those people.

Regarding confidence, the leaders of the mission didn't always have to be right depending on the issue.  If it was something like the staff's field of work, then the leader might defer to the staff and admit error.  The leader might admit error if it were in, for example, a more mission-wide area of concern, but he might somehow hedge it to maintain his image.

I think that virtually everyone (except me) at the Vienna mission experience this openness as a kind of big happy family.  Once you got through the initial socialization period then you would be accepted by everyone and begin to be a part of this.  I think, though, that one probably grew into it as one internalized more and more of the missions norms proved oneself and values, proved oneself a valuable worker, and got to know the people in the mission better.

Again, I didn't get that far with the mission.  I learned early on that I couldn't confide in other missionaries because it would come back to me, in one way or another.  For example, I confided in a couple secretaries that I was experiencing some stress from the office.  I was recommended to jog, that some of the men jog as a way to relieve stress.  So that's why I started to jog, and I also bought a bike and I biked some.  A certain herb blend was also recommended that Austrians take for stress.  So I tried that.   Then the U.S. military chaplain/H.R. director called me saying I had culture shock and wanted to send me to the U.S. for counseling.  How do you think I felt about those secretaries about then?  What was my trust level vis a vis them at that point?  Do you think I'd be sharing anything personal with them again any time soon?  I don't think so!  So much for openness!  If there was any hope for openness it was just flushed right down the toilet.

It looks like me and the mission are stuck at the center rod as far as trust is concerned.  What do you think?

***

I was looking through the letters I had written mom and dad while I lived in Vienna (my brother sent them to me from mom's stuff from after she died).  I was writing all upbeat so that no one really knew what I was thinking, but I can still sense a change from the earlier letters to the later ones.  So I could use them to point that out and discuss the various things.  Some of the things I write about doing I'd forgotten. 

But the thing is that my migrains is not good and that will take some concentrated mental power for when I'm feeling pretty good.  It appears that the Botox shot worked about 3 weeks this time.  I hope it works longer next time, but I guess they only do them every 91 days, so I have to wait awhile for the next one.