6 September

There’s a saying, “speak truth to power”. Meaning telling the ‘powerful’ what’s really happening, rather than stay silent because of their ‘power’. I scare quote ‘power’ because just about every photo you can find of bullying for example (like the one on this post), accurately tells a very different story about power. Power is always a group thing, bullies don’t act as individuals. Powerful managers don’t either, they get away with what they do not because individuals don’t speak truth to them, but because people collectively don’t. For every whistleblower or kid at school or average employee who confronts power, there are a whole group standing and watching on the sideline, saying nothing, and another group egging the bully on. That’s the ‘power’. As another saying goes, bad things happen when good people (plural) do nothing. Power is an empty, cat-kicking, pass-the-buck term we use to excuse our own behaviour.