260. Organizational Behavior File, Pt. 8 (Zaleznik, pt. 2)

I'm taking my lunch break now. Amazingly enough, the eggplant and celery I had in the fridge before going to Seattle are still in quite good shape. I have to figure out what to do with almost a quart of sour milk though; I don't like throwing out food if it can be avoided.

I decided to skip the rest of the sub-section I was discussion last time. I'll pick up on the "Exchange" sub-section of the same section as before: "Structural Theories of Interpersonal Behavior."

***

"Deviant behavior exists when the individual acts in such a way as to indicate an intent to flout group norms or a failure to internalize the standards of behavior." (p. 593)

In my case I clearly was an example of "failure to internalize the standards of behavior," but in the Vienna mission the thing was you weren't really sure what the "standards of behavior" were until you began to internalize what you did know (or think you knew) of them, which would, I think, lead to more understanding of the norms and/or others revealing more of the norms. So, in effect, I failed to internalize the standards of behavior I thought I understood, mainly because I didn't like/agree with enough of what seemed to be the group's norms. I didn't like/agree with them for several reasons, including: 1) my understanding of the situation in Eastern Europe made me think that the mission took the security precautions farther than needed to work in that environment; 2) the security precautions the mission did seem to take looked like it entailed unscriptural aspects; and 3) they conflicted with my personal ministry interests (i.e., I wanted more personal ministry involvement than seemed to be allowed for me).

To a certain extent I think it could be said that I flouted the group norms, but to a large extent I wasn't always sure exactly what those norms were to flout, in which case my deviance would be more closely related to failure to internalize group norms rather than flouting them, because internalizing them would have led to greater understanding of the norms. In other words, I didn't know the norms to be able to flout them because I hadn't internalized them or the ones I was aware of.

In addition, some norms which, taken on their own, I might not otherwise have had an issue with, I did in the Vienna mission context because I saw the norms as a composite unit rather than as discrete elements from which I could pick and choose. So I extended my leeriness about specific elements of the mission to encompass the whole of the mission.

***

"Both conformity and deviation, when viewed as aspects of exchange, involve rewards, costs, and profit to the individual... The costs of conformity are implied in the rewards the individual forgoes in achieving interpersonal rewards. Instead of working hard on a task to realize the rewards of intrinsic job satisfaction, for example, the individual participates in group activities or interacts in ways not relevant to the task to achieve group-oriented rewards." (p. 593)

This is an interesting take on my relationship with the mission. What did (or do) I perceive to have been the possible rewards and costs of conformity? Since I didn't conform very well, my answer to this is somewhat speculative.

Ideally, the possible rewards might have been more extensive ministry in Eastern Europe. I think that is the primary thing for me that would have been a reward I would have valued. On the other hand, the costs might have been foregoing a lot of personal (i.e., people contact) ministry, limiting myself to the mission's narrow ministry interests (i.e., biblical instruction), taking on values and participating in actions that went against my conscious and/or which I thought were unbiblical.

I'm not sure what the chances might have been of my getting to have more people ministry, because there are several possible things arguing against that, including the fact that I was to be the secretary of the person who is now the head of the whole organization. So it's possible I might have ended out just following him around as his secretary all these years, perhaps with occasional ministry trips into closed countries. Also, there's the issue of my dad and the possibility that that might have precluded me having an intensive behind the iron curtain people ministry with the mission.

Looked at in this light, it doesn't seem surprising that I had trouble conforming to the mission's apparent demands of me. (I say "apparent" because they seemed to me to be the mission's demands, but the mission might say otherwise.)

***

"In group situations, an individual may seek to improve his social standing, which is another way of saying that he seeks to increase his reward-cost-profit outcome, but in doing so he may find that the behavior emitted toward increased conformity results in an immediate increase in costs and an unchanging level of reward. If the individual perceives few alternative channels for reward in his life setting, he may continue to reduce immediate profit in the hopes of achieving increased profits at some future time. This pattern is seen as vying for group rewards through heightened conformist behavior." (p. 594)

I could have taken this stance vis a vis the Vienna mission, and undoubtedly there were some there who had done this kind of thing. The thing that kept me from doing this, however, was, I think, primarily my Christian idealist values system. That is, the norms of the mission conflicted too greatly with my own to allow me to change. The fact that I thought that many of their demands were unnecessary, the possibility that there was extra-Christian involvement (e.g., via the military chaplains), and that some of the things seemed outright unbiblical all argued against my compliance with the mission. Nevertheless, I did "perceive few alternative channels for reward in [my] life setting" and this is at least part of the reason why I had so much stress and dissonance about my relationship with the mission. The other thing would be everything I had put into that being my career.

***

I have to break off here, but I think there is more about deviance that might be worth looking into in this article, so we'll continue with this thought in my next post. I've got to go run some errands now.

259. Organizational Behavior File, Pt. 8 (Zaleznik, pt. 1)

This next article is another book chapter:

Zaleznik, Abraham. (1965). Interpersonal relations in organizations. In J. G. March. (Ed.). Handbook of Organizations. Chicago: Rand McNally, p. 574-613.

Since "organizational behavior" is a broad subject, I'm trying to mix it up by picking out articles on different topics.

In this particular article, I'll be skipping a lot of pages. Some of the things I'll be skipping at the beginning of the article include discussions of aspects of research on the topic and relevant "psychodynamic theories". I'll be picking up in the section "Structural Theories of Interpersonal Behavior," and the sub-section "Performance." In this sub-section of the chapter, the author discusses Erving Goffman's theory of "likening interaction to a stage and play" (p. 586). One of the elements of this theory is that there are separate sets of behaviors for "on-stage" and "backstage" regions.

***

"On-stage activity, however, is sustained by the modes of behavior permitted only in the backstage region of the relevant group. We note, therefore, modes of behavior recurring in one region that are quite different from modes of behavior occurring in another region. A region is simply a situated time and space with its consensually established definition as to the purposes of interaction, the relevant individuals who are engaged in interchanged, modes of behavior that are expected within the situation, and ranges of deviation permitted within the expectations." (p. 587)

Following this discussion the author presents a quite lengthy hotel-context example directly quoted from one of Goffman's books. While that example is helpful, it is too long to quote here; nevertheless, I'll be keeping it in mind as I discuss the Vienna mission context.

First of all, I think it would be helpful to consider what might be "on-stage" and what might be "backstage" in the Vienna mission. On-stage might include: 1) relations and interactions with churches and supporters back home; 2) relations and interactions with Austrians; 3) relations and interactions with believers in Eastern Europe; 4) relations and interactions with officials and others in Eastern Europe. On the other hand, back-stage might include such interactions as: 1) relations in the office with other staff; 2) relations with other staff outside the office, but in Austria; 3) relations with other staff in Eastern Europe; 4) relations with other staff in North America or other home-country contexts. I'll take these one-by-one.

Regarding interactions with churches and supporters back home, the mission was very clear in wanting only a certain image presented to this class of people. It was rather direct with me in this regard when it demanded that all my circular prayer letters be censored by them first and also in demanding that I shorten my prayer letter list. They may have other ways of assuring this set of interactions meets their criteria, but, since I didn't serve a second term with them, I'm not aware of how they might have tried to control such things as furlough relations. Also, they tried to limit my in-person interactions in Austria with supporters by not allowing me time off to spend with visiting supporters (which I was guaranteed in writing by office policies) and by not wanting a friend/supporter to come and help out for a short time (contrary to the common practice of others coming in similar fashion). The mission wanted a certain image portrayed back home of their activities, which precluded mention of a lot of what happened "backstage" including things that would have been more embarrassing than security-risking. This might be compared to government administrations classifying embarrassing documents. In this way, supporters back home received a monolithic white-washed view of the mission. It was monolithic in the sense of being presented in unison by all mission workers.

Relations and interactions with Austrians were similarly "monolithic" in as much as there was a single definition of the mission that was presented to local outsiders; that is, that the mission was a "publisher". This might be sort of like witnesses to a crime corroborating their story of how a crime had unfolded. In addition, how much and what kind of contact with Austrians was also controlled by the mission, although this seemed to be more individualistic, so that certain individuals in the mission would be allowed more contact with Austrians than others. It seemed to me that those with long-term office-based ministries were often allowed more Austrian interaction. I'm thinking, for example, of someone in the design and layout group and a textbook writer especially. Both of these people had been with the mission for a number of years and did little travel into Eastern Europe. Even if I hadn't been "deviant" I still would not have fit the criteria for length of service (and thus proven trustworthiness) for extensive Austrian interactions.

There were, again, a whole different set of rules (spoken or otherwise) defining how the missionaries were to interact with believers in Eastern Europe, which would mostly be the students and their families. Mostly this would involve instruction as to cultural sensitivity, as these outside contacts would be astute enough to not press for details of the work not otherwise offered willingly by the visiting missionaries.

In contrast, deception was used vis a vis interactions with Austrian officials and others. The mission might balk at the suggestion of the use of deception, but the fact was that we pretended to be other than what we were. A very explicit example of this was that in the briefing for my trip to Romania I was instructed as to how to appear to be Romanian to others (such as on the train). We would, for example, pretend to be asleep to avoid others trying to talk with us, since speaking would be a dead give away. We also dressed the part to appear like a local. We couldn't hide our foreignness from authorities needing documentation from us (such as visas), but we could frame the purpose of our visit in terms other than what it really was.

Now I turn to "backstage" interactions:

As to relations in the office with other staff, there really was a whole microcosm of life invisible to the casual eye. I hope I have by this time gotten that message across, and that some of the behind the scenes goings on were other than what one would expect of a conservative Evangelical Christian mission. The overriding issue which would differentiate the mission from your average mission would have been their view on "security" and all that that entailed. I don't think that it would surprise anyone that there were security efforts going on, but the extent and type of security precautions might not be so expected or even acceptable, say, to other conservative Evangelical Christians, or even to supporters. Since I've dealt with this so much elsewhere (a good chunk of this blog to date), I won't belabor it here.

As to relations with other staff outside the office, but in Austria, there were different sets of rules governing some of these interactions. If the interactions took place in one of the staff's homes, interactions might be much like those in the office itself, but if it took place outside the home, such as in a restaurant, then some of the rules governing interactions with Austrians would also apply in such cases. Also, there were rules, I think, as to who one should socialize with, and these rules were primarily instrumental in nature. In my case, for example, interactions with other singles and the other secretaries, and social interactions with my boss and his family would have been expected to be pivotal extracurricular relationships and interactions for me, although I think that interactions with mission workers who lived nearest me would also have been condoned. My sense is that such interactions served to widen the control net, so that members of the mission were mutually accountable in wider spheres of their lives and that those one worked closest with and might have known the most about the particular demands of a position of issues regarding the individual would have been enabled to better define the mission's relationship to the individual member. I think that it is through such interactions that the mission might have learned more about the individual's personality, knowledge and insights, and abilities, especially in areas perhaps not readily evident in the office environment. On the other hand, the mission could also learn through such interactions of potential problem areas in the individual. These social interactions were also used as a means of social control which could, for example, confirm or sanction the individual.

Regarding relations with other staff in Eastern Europe, this would mean relations with workers one was traveling with or relations with workers living in Eastern Europe. These relations shared some similarity with relations with believers in Eastern Europe and with others in Eastern Europe. However, the "in-country" missionaries would be more privy to the mission workings and as such could also be related to in ways fitting of this fact, albeit with security precautions in place because of the relations taking place in the communist country. Also, the in-country worker would not know a lot of what was going on at the mission itself as part of the segmentation of knowledge, which was a protective barrier for the in-country workers as s/he could, to a certain extent, honestly hide behind this ignorance in his/her relations with nationals.

Relations with staff in North America (or other home-country contexts) was similar, I think, to relations with staff living in Eastern Europe, except that the consideration was not the immediate communist context, but rather the felt need to present a monolithic image in the West to protect the work in the East. In this context, there had to be a certain amount of openness about the work, but within bounds and couched in mission-defined terms. Also similar to relations with co-workers in Eastern Europe was the fact that state-side interactions with colleagues were also characterized by limited knowledge of what went on in the Vienna office, because of the segmentation of knowledge, especially for security's sake. The state-side workers, however, might not have been aware of the extent of their ignorance of what was going on in the Vienna office, while the Eastern European in-country workers would have been more likely to have had some awareness, even if only in general terms, of the types of activities they were ignorant of going on at the Vienna office.

I think this covers, at least in broad-stroke terms, the various on-stage and backstage normative behaviors of the Vienna mission.

***

I'm not done with this sub-section, but there's too much left to discuss in it, and I need to get going, so I'll pick up where I left off here in the next post.

16. Adult Development & Me

I was reviewing some of my notes from my class (a long time ago now) on adult development and learning. I wanted to find something succinct and to the point that fit here, but, unfortunately, I haven't been able to find anything. So this is going to be a bit of a hodge-podge.

The last hundred years or so have seen a lot of theorizing about adult development, based on things like physical aging, social normative roles, personal development and growth, etc. Of course, all the theories are criticized for something or the other and none of them completely describe the whole process or apply universally to everyone everywhere. That doesn't seem like a lot of help, but all this discussion does help a bit in bringing up various issues.

One thing I remembered, even before reviewing my notes, about these theories, is the idea that society (wherever you are, in whatever social group you belong) pretty much sets expectations about the basic path you should follow from birth to death. Maybe you remember this old song that sort of sums up this basic idea:

Malvina Reynolds

1. Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky-tacky,
Little boxes, little boxes,
Little boxes, all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same.

2. And the people in the houses
All go to the university,
And they all get put in boxes,
Little boxes, all the same.
And there's doctors and there's lawyers
And business executives,
And they're all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same.

3. And they all play on the golf-course,
And drink their Martini dry,
And they all have pretty children,
And the children go to school.
And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university,
And they all get put in boxes
And they all come out the same.

4. And the boys go into business,
And marry, and raise a family,
And they all get put in boxes,
Little boxes, all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same.

These lyrics speak of a certain socio-economic class in mid-20th century USA, but the words could be changed to fit other relevant expectations for different times, places and groups of people.

I wasn't quite born into this class, but one side of my family was sort of like that, but more on the academia end of things rather than in the business world.

The point is, though, that after I graduated from my undergraduate schools I pretty much didn't meet any of the normative expectations for my age. So that makes it hard, too, for me to immediately fit into new situations. In the USA there is more lenience for diversity, but still, you have to fit in somewhere, and I usually have a hard time finding a niche in new places.

Another thing we learn from adult development theory is that there are often these crisis periods in life that people are supposed to grow from. Generally, these crisis periods are said to happen at certain ages, give or take 2 or 3 years, and involve somewhat specific issues. Again, those crisis periods sort of bypassed me and since I've lived in different places where their crisis periods and issues might have been different anyway, I'm really a mess as far as fitting into some neat little social norm.

A third thing is not exactly taken from adult development theory, but I think it's related anyway. Studies have looked at how children of one nationality raised in another culture fare in relation to their identity and those divergent cultures. This applies, for example, to expat children of missionaries, business people, or oversees military workers. I think, though, that even though I didn't experience living overseas as a child, that I can relate to some of these things. Some children are able to use their bi-cultural experiences as a strength, but others feel lost in both cultures and a misfit not really belonging anywhere, and others might identify more with one culture than the other and more or less reject the other culture.

When I lived in Russia, especially, expats were few and far between where I was. I think when I first got there I was likely the only one at the time. And I became disillusioned with these sort of "ugly Americans" who would come there acting like the Russians were idiots or didn't bother to learn anything about the Russians, including the language. So I often sort of avoided foreigners.

Certainly day in and day out I was around only Russians and spoke only Russian, except to teach English. I even spoke Russian with other English teachers, even though their English might have been very good. That was never anything I particularly wanted, but that's just how we interacted. So when I came back to the USA it was often somewhat difficult and even my English was a bit rusty, especially as I wasn't used to speaking fluently and using idioms freely.

If it's true that who we are, at least in part, is a compilation of our experiences, then I'm a misfit everywhere. Who can understand what I've seen and experienced? Who can really understand my reactions and conclusions then either?

During World War II their were rumors coming out of Germany of horrors at the concentration camps, but we (the USA, at least officially) didn't believe them. It seemed to incredible that these things could really be happening. Well, I'm not going to say that anything about my life was that bad, but it was certainly way out of the experience of most people in the West.

With all of this in my background, I have to sort of become somewhat oblivious to what people think of me. I understand that people, just by looking at me can't have any real idea of my background. Sometimes if it really affects how I'm treated I get irritated, but I mostly try to forgive their misconceptions because it's understandable.

I need to get going now (again). We have a scorcher here and I need to tend to my plants and also look at my finances to see if I can take care of a few things or if I have to wait till I get my SSDI deposit.

Till next time...

~ Meg

10. Addendum to Last Post

After thinking about my last post, I realized I probably come across somewhat bitter or even angry towards my mom, and I guess that's not completely inaccurate. I mean, I think she was wrong to suggest that I'm just here enjoying the high life (and that's not the only recent erroneous assumption she's revealed about me). It hurts to think that that's what she really thinks about me, too.

I don't really know what's going on between mom and my brothers because I've had to back away from them while I try to just deal with my own situation and try to keep myself from drowning (that's figurative, of course). But I really hold my brother in New York state more responsible for framing the issues and giving my other brother and mom in Seattle conceptions about me.

But even that's not so simple either. I do think my brother in NY has done some things I think are wrong, but I think he feels cornered and he's just trying to keep his life together. Maybe a comparison to something else will help.

When I was living in Russia I was twice attacked (briefly in both instances, thankfully) by German shepherds (which many people keep as watch dogs at least in the area where I was living). Where I was winter days could get as little as about 5 hours daylight, so I might not actually have been out that early, but it was still dark outside. I was heading to the tram stop and was walking on the sidewalk along the street. There must have been a good 3 to 5 yards (meters) between the sidewalk and the apartment building, but I think the dog felt threatened because he was sort of cornered or something, but he just lunged at me and made teeth holes in my knee-high winter boots. I was sure glad I was wearing those boots!

I think my brother might be in a situation sort of like that dog: to protect himself he's lashed out at me, making me the fall guy.

I'm not a psychologist, but I know that the mind can do funny things as far as justifying actions or finding reasons for things. I don't want to go into detail right now about what happened last year when I was living in his apartment, but let's just say it ended very badly, which is how I ended out back here. I think he's been desperately trying to hold his life together, and I saw some things that I thought were wrong, and I couldn't ignore. I don't think he's a bad person, but I do think he feels emasculated and, to a certain extent, powerless, so he lashes out like that dog that bit my boot. But the long and the short of it is that now he's framing the issues with the rest of my family, so that they can help uphold the public image he wants to portray. At least that's what I think, but that's also somewhat of an over-simplification of things too.

The problem with the way he's handling this, though, is that I've already paid very heavy prices (repeatedly) in my life for standing up for what I believe in (although I haven't always done it perhaps the best way), and one thing that's helped me keep my head together is the thought that at least I've tried to be true to my values and beliefs despite sometimes very heavy pressure to acquiesce. I still believe that the things that were bothering me in New York are wrong, and at this point I saw too much to easily dissuade me from that view. So I'm a threat to him, and the question is what will it take to break me to get me to give in and change my mind. Once you get to know me better, you'll understand that it would really take a lot for that to happen.

I don't want to ruin my brother's life, and I wanted to find a better way to address my concerns, but I didn't know how, and then mom opened the can of worms and I've paid the price for it.

One theme I wanted to bring up eventually in these posts, is the idea of "Capalini-isms". Every social group has their social norms and ways to uphold them. They also have collective stories and histories, rituals and the like. In this vein, I wanted at some point to begin to address some "Capalini-isms", at least they''re family truths/norms as I understand the family. I wasn't really going to start on this kind of discussion yet, but I think this would be a good place to say that recently I've been thinking that the family has sort of a "win-lose" approach to relations within the family. That is, in any given area or aspect of life, in relation to each other, someone is a "winner" (comes out on top) and someone is a "loser" (comes out on bottom). This goes for supposedly good or desirable areas, such as wealth or good health, as well as bad or problem areas, such as poor health or "blameless" victimization.

The positive areas are probably pretty easy to understand, but the negative ones might need a bit of explanation. Here are some examples of how this thinking goes: "I'm sicker than you, so more deserving of the family's sympathy, help and attention" or "I've been nustreated worse than you (and obviously faultless in the matter) so my bad situation is more obviously not my fault than your situation - what's your excuse?". There are alternatives to this way of looking at things, which maybe I'll discuss in a later post.

I think maybe because of my position in the family (oldest child, only daughter) I never really understood this social rule in the family until this past year. I didn't realize there was such a strong "win-lose" mentality. I don't like that at all, but it would be hard for me at the moment to express that, because part of this mentality says that if someone disagrees with this system, it's most likely because that person is jealous of someone else in the family who is better/worse off than s/he. And if a person disagrees with the system who is actually coming out on top in such comparisons it's most likely because s/he is too modest. At the moment I'm coming out on bottom, but they also don't know about my new health problems. However, it really is fine with me that they don't know about them, because that's not the main issue here. The main issue is that this whole system and also the things I disagreed with my brother in New York about are the real issues in my opinion.

But I feel trapped in this whole thing not only because I can't figure how to get this self-perpetuating system to stop so we can reconfigure it all to be what I think as a healthier way of thinking and relating to each other, but I also am not in a health position to be able to take on the extra stress to face this all head-on as it needs to be addressed (although even if it were to be addressed head-on, I think it should also be addressed delicately so as to find a constructive way to deal with it and not just crush the whole family thing to smithereens. I'm not sure exactly how to do that.)

Of course, as I say this, I know there is a lot that you don't know and so this probably sounds rather cryptic. I don't really mean to be cryptic, except that it really is a mess, and I can't explain everything here right now, so you'll have to get it in bits and pieces. Also, I can feel my fibromyalgia reacting to this stress and it's also time for me to get on with my daily activities (although I already did my morning stimulator session and had 2 rounds or meds/supplements, so it's not like I've not done anything).

Sorry to subject you to this mess. Next post will be a pleasant one, I promise.

~ Meg