04 Jun #279 – What Is Your Organization’s “Do Unto Others” Culture?
In our most recent post (#278–Integrity Idea 078: Don’t Settle for “Gold”), we urged faithful leaders to cultivate an organizational culture in which people are motivated and equipped to go beyond the Golden Rule in human interactions. We believe Jesus raised the bar with the “new commandment” in John 13:34 to love others as God would love them.
The Golden Rule and the New Commandment are what we call “do unto others” standards, but they operate at the redemptive end of the “do unto others” spectrum. In this post, we will look at some less redemptive “do unto other” standards that can operate in organizational cultures. We will also look again at how a a toxic “real” organizational culture may be hiding behind a redemptive “stated” organizational culture.
The “Do Unto Others” Spectrum
“Do unto others” standards represent ways people treat each other in a community. Although individuals are responsible for the standard(s) they adopt, organizational cultures can push people toward certain standards based upon what is tolerated, punished, encouraged, or rewarded. People can also apply different standards when pressures mount, deadlines loom, tensions rise, or egos clash.
We think it is helpful to look at seven “do unto others” standards (you can probably think of other variations).
• The Revenge Rule: “Do unto others as they have done unto you.”
• The Reciprocity Rule: “Do unto others as they have done for you.”
• The Payback Rule: “Do unto others as was done unto you.”
• The Pay-It-Forward Rule: “Do unto others as was done for you.”
• The Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would like done unto you.”
• The Platinum Rule: “Do unto others as they would like done unto them.”
• The New Commandment: “Do unto others as God has done unto you.”
The Revenge Rule
The Revenge Rule is the reversal of the Golden Rule. Rather than treating others as you would like to be treated, you treat others in the bad ways they have treated you. It reacts to others’ bad behavior with more of the same. The Revenge Rule is personal to the person who has treated you poorly. It is “an eye for an eye” to get even (unlike the Biblical “eye for an eye”, which was a limit on punishment in a harsh society).
People who react based on the Revenge Rule undermine the cultivation of an organizational culture of faithful integrity that prioritizes relationships, community, human dignity, and flourishing. Relational breaks can stop the flow of information, knowledge, and assistance that are necessary for an organization’s leaders to make the best decisions and for the organization to do its best work and maximize Biblical flourishing.
The Reciprocity Rule
The Reciprocity Rule reflects the positive side of the Revenge Rule. A person treats a colleague well only to the extent that the colleague has treated them well. It is certainly better than the Revenge Rule, but it lacks the altruism of the higher “do unto others” standards like the Golden Rule. It is “you scratch my back, and I will scratch yours“.
Reciprocity is not motivated by a transcendent plumbline like the Golden Rule. The Reciprocity Rule requires someone to “do good” first. Without a transcendent plumbline, the initial act or the reciprocal act could be motivated by self-interest, which is a driving force in a business as usual culture.
The Self-Interest assumption of business as usual does not prioritize or encourage caring relationships or community–it creates an environment based on competitive behavior and mistrust. Because humans are relational beings created in the image of a relational God, such an environment is dehumanizing and contrary to God’s design for human interaction and for working together.
The Payback Rule
Unlike the personal nature of the Revenge Rule, the Payback Rule is institutional or cultural. A person justifies treating someone poorly because they were similarly treated poorly by someone else. It is an excuse for carrying on toxic traditions.
The Payback Rule is the standard that is used to justify hazing in fraternities or on a sports team. It is the standard used by a senior person in an organization to justify overworking junior workers, because they were similarly overworked when they were junior, or requiring a junior person to pay the bill/drive the rental car/carry the bag, because they had to when they were junior. It is the standard used to justify creating information or wisdom silos because others in the organization do the same. It is the standard used by a person to justify refusing to take the time to help less experienced colleagues because no one took the time to help them when they were inexperienced.
This standard justifies bad behavior by pointing to past suffering or to toxic business as usual practices being carried out by others in the organization. Instead of breaking a toxic cycle or setting a better example, it reinforces the business as usual behavior–passing dysfunction from one generation of employees to the next and from one area of the organization to the next. Like the Revenge Rule, it undermines cultivation by faithful leaders of an organizational culture of faithful integrity that prioritizes relationships, community, human dignity, and flourishing.
An example of the Payback Rule in action was recently in the news. A Wall Street Journal exposé looked into the practice of overworking young investment bankers. The article was titled “How Bank of America Ignores Its Own Rules to Prevent Dangerous Workloads“. Despite policies and procedures designed to protect junior bankers from working unhealthy numbers of hours, senior bankers continued to impose long work hours on junior colleagues because it was seen as a “rite of passage”:
One major impediment is senior bankers who see the early years as their profession’s rite of passage. That prompts some of them to ignore safeguards meant to protect the people who work for them.
Medicine is another profession with a Payback Rule culture. An article titled “Career beasts and how to cope with them: From toxic workplace culture to healthy competition” observes:
Hierarchy, high‐end competitions, self‐sacrifice that start from medical school and continue throughout the entire medical career and traditional teaching methods have led the way for bullying in Medicine. . . [I]ndoctrinating doctors‐in‐training into an old and abusive teaching system was until recently “the hidden curriculum” in medical education.
The Pay-It-Forward Rule
Like the Payback Rule, the Pay-It-Forward Rule is institutional or cultural. It keeps alive redemptive practices in an organization. For example, a more senior person who was mentored might see it as their responsibility to mentor more junior workers. A senior person who benefited from their seniors having an “open door” policy keeps their door open to junior colleagues.
However, like the Reciprocity Rule, the Pay-It-Forward Rule is not tied to any transcendent plumbline of how people should behave. It reflects the institutional goodness of others just as the Reciprocity Rule reflects the personal goodness of others, but that continuation could be motivated by self-interest. The Pay-It-Forward Rule keeps good practices going, but it doesn’t have the power to start good practices.
The Golden Rule
We discussed the Golden Rule at length in post #278. Most people are familiar with the Golden Rule, even if they are Biblically illiterate. It has roots in the Old Testament and was quoted by Jesus.
You shall love your neighbor as yourself. (Leviticus 19:18)
So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. (Matthew 7:12)
And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them. (Luke 6:31)
The Golden Rule has been a guide for ethical behavior for centuries. There are faith/work ministries built around the Golden Rule as the ultimate answer to faith/work integration. Tim Keller has called it one of the “first order beliefs” that God has written on the heart of each person. We just know it is the right thing to do.
Unlike the Reciprocity Rule and the Pay-It-Forward Rule, the Golden Rule has a transcendent plumbline. It has the power to initiate redemptive behavior, even in an otherwise toxic culture or in response to toxic behavior. But the Golden Rule assumes people are the same.
In post #212, we introduced Gary Chapman’s book on the importance of appreciation in the workplace called The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace: Empowering Organizations by Encouraging People. Chapman identifies five languages of workplace appreciation. As with Chapman’s five love languages, people tend to follow the Golden Rule and show appreciation in the way they would want to be appreciated, but that may not be how the person they are trying to connect with values appreciation.
The language of appreciation must be individualized to be effective. A leader’s blind spot is the appreciation language least important to them, because they will fail to see its value to others.
The Platinum Rule
We also discussed in post #278 the term “Platinum Rule” coined by Milton Bennett in a 1979 (or possibly even 1966) essay titled “Overcoming the Golden Rule: Sympathy and Empathy“. Bennett’s Platinum Rule adds empathy to the Golden Rule. Whereas the Golden Rule only requires a person to understand their own needs and desires, the Platinum Rule requires someone to understand the other person’s needs and desires.
The Platinum Rule gets past the “all people are not the same” limitation inherent in the Golden Rule.
The New Commandment
Post #278 was devoted to explaining why the highest “do unto others” standard is the New Commandment in John 13:34.
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.
Whereas the Golden Rule only requires a person to understand their own needs and desires, and the Platinum Rule requires someone to understand the other person’s needs and desires, the New Commandment requires emulating how God would love the other person.
The New Commandment calls for understanding as God understands and then loving as God loves. That requires an understanding of Biblical beliefs, principles, and priorities as well as a relationship with God. For a faithful leader seeking to lead with faithful integrity, the New Commandment standard of “do unto others” requires an understanding of the importance of healthy communication and interpersonal skills to the functioning of an organization of humans and to the interactions of those humans with all the people the organization touches.
Organizationally, the New Commandment standard demands going beyond embedding Biblical concepts of relationships, community, human dignity, and flourishing into the organization’s culture–it requires a more overt effort to help people understand how God loves.
`{`Culture`}` forms as a result of signals employees get from the corporate processes that structure their work priorities. (Lou Gerstner)
Although we have been focusing on several “do unto others” standards, the title of the post is “What Is Your Organization’s ‘Do Unto Others’ Culture?” Answering that question requires a faithful leader to undertake an honest assessment of the nature and health of their organization’s current culture. Understanding the “real” culture of the organization is a critical step on the path to leading with faithful integrity through business a better way toward Biblical flourishing.
Understanding the “Do Unto Others” Culture
As we have said many times in prior posts, purpose and values define the culture of an organization, the culture shapes the behavior of the people in the organization, and the behavior of the people drives the results of the organization.
Culture is important because it defines the day-to-day experience that various stakeholders have with the organization. It is how employees experience their work-day, how vendors experience contract negotiations and contract performance, and how customers experience interacting with the organization. Unlike lofty purpose statements and value lists, culture is where the rubber meets the road and the boots hit the ground.
If the culture of the organization is not reinforcing its desired purpose and stated values, it is likely eroding them. Whether an organization’s culture ultimately encourages and leads its people to do the right things, in the right ways, and for the right reasons goes back to its purpose, as translated through its values and communicated by its leaders.
Jacqueline Brevard, who served as Chief Ethics Officer for Merck & Co., Inc., made the following observation:
There is both a formal culture and an informal culture within an organization. In the formal culture, companies can say all the right things and have all the appropriate infrastructures in place. The informal culture is what actually happens within the company, how people behave, how they are rewarded, which rules are followed and which are not.
Regardless of what “do unto others” standard is posted or otherwise reflected on an organization’s website or in its stated purpose or stated values, employees will experience, and respond to, what they perceive to be the real purpose and real values. Their experiences and responses form the real culture. In the words of Lou Gerstner, former CEO of IBM:
What is critical to understand here is that people do not do what you expect but what you inspect. Culture is not a prime mover. Rather it is a derivative. It forms as a result of signals employees get from the corporate processes that structure their work priorities.
Proverbs 29:19 (NIV) warns that “servants cannot be corrected by mere words; though they understand, they will not respond.”
For example:
• The website may say “We live by the Golden Rule” and there may be wonderful processes in place to communicate and reiterate that value, but if the managers and employees in the organization perceive that individual achievement toward Profit as Purpose is really what is encouraged and rewarded through behavior (e.g., if the culture drives or inspires people to perform at higher levels and contribute more to profitability through mechanisms like bonuses/commissions/promotions and the fear of elimination or demotion), a key role of the informal organizational culture of the business will be to see co-workers as competitors or as a means to personal success, at the expense of the Golden Rule.
• The website may say the Golden Rule is a value, but if senior managers perpetuate toxic practices toward junior co-workers, those co-workers are likely to continue the tradition as they progress up the ranks, either because they want to “Payback” or because they perceive it is what their senior colleagues expect and will respect. After all, does the senior person continuing a toxic tradition want to see themselves in contrast to a virtuous junior colleague living out a higher “do unto others” standard?
The Bank of America situation is perfect example of a real “do unto others” culture hiding behind a very different stated “do unto others” culture. As background, in 2013 a Bank of America intern in London died of a seizure that was “possibly brought on by fatigue“. Bank of America instituted an investigation and, in 2014, instituted new policies to protect young bankers from being overworked.
The Wall Street Journal exposé followed the death of another Bank of America banker in New York in 2024. Here are some of the quotes reflecting how the real culture around junior work has not lined up with the stated culture.
Roy Wang . . . said he meticulously logged his overtime hours. But when human resources told his bosses he was working too much, a manager told him to report only as many as were allowed by the bank’s policies.
The Wall Street Journal spoke to more than three dozen people familiar with the working conditions at Bank of America . . . . Many described how superiors instruct junior bankers to ignore policies that limit working hours.
Some banks rolled out “protected weekends” to guarantee employees at least one day off a week, but many at Bank of America said those policies are frequently ignored by their managers.
One major impediment is senior bankers who see the early years as their profession’s rite of passage. That prompts some of them to ignore safeguards meant to protect the people who work for them.
Several current and former bankers at Bank of America said they were asked to violate those policies or directly witnessed them being contravened. They said many senior bankers across the institution tell junior bankers to avoid logging their actual hours, leaving them to work 15- or 16-hour days “off the books” for weeks.
One associate, who left the bank this year, said it was routine to work 95-hour weeks while toiling on deals. The banker left not long after bosses appeared to retaliate against the employee’s choice to take a week of vacation in the fall.
It is clear that Bank of America’s stated culture is to be one of the “best places to work”, and their website touts the recognition they have received. In response to the Wall Street Journal’s questions, a Bank of America spokesperson said, “our practices are clear and we expect all employees including managers to follow them. When we’ve learned of violations, disciplinary actions have been taken.”
Bank of America’s 35-page Code of Conduct dutifully requires compliance with all policies and requires people to “watch for and report concerns about possible violations“.
Answering the question “What Is Your Organization’s ‘Do Unto Others’ Culture?‘” is about undertaking an honest assessment of the nature and health of the organization’s current culture, and an honest assessment of culture requires an honest assessment of what employees experience to be the real WHY behind the organization’s purpose, values and culture. In a larger organization, an assessment may also uncover the existence of sub-cultures operating in different ways to undermine the organization’s desired purpose and values.
In the pursuit of faithful integrity through business a better way toward Biblical flourishing, a faithful leader must undertake such an assessment to understand whether the real “do unto others” culture aligns with the organization’s Re-Imagined Culture.
PERSONAL NOTE (from PM): Practicing law in a large Wall Street firm for nearly 23 years, I mainly experienced the Payback Rule and the Pay-It-Forward Rule. Associates were expected to work very hard because the partners they worked for had worked very hard as associates (the Payback Rule) and continued working hard as partners. Partners gave associates much responsibility because they learned through having been given much responsibility (the Pay-It-Forward Rule). I tried to practice the Golden Rule–it was the best and highest I knew at the time. “Empathy” never really entered my work vocabulary.
ESSENCE: In our most recent post, we urged faithful leaders to cultivate an organizational culture in which people are motivated and equipped to go beyond the Golden Rule in human interactions. We believe Jesus raised the bar with the “new commandment” in John 13:34 to love others as God would love them. The Golden Rule and the New Commandment are “do unto others” standards, but they operate at the redemptive end of a “do unto others” spectrum. There are some less redemptive “do unto other” standards that can operate in organizational cultures, some of which can be quite toxic, such as the Revenge Rule, the Reciprocity Rule, the Payback Rule, and the Pay-It-Forward Rule. “Do unto others” standards represent ways people treat each other in a community. Although individuals are responsible for the standard(s) they adopt, organizational cultures can push people toward certain standards based upon what is tolerated, punished, encouraged or rewarded. A toxic real organizational culture may be hiding behind a redemptive stated organizational culture. In the pursuit of faithful integrity through business a better way toward Biblical flourishing, a faithful leader must undertake an honest assessment of their organization’s culture to understand whether the real “do unto others” culture aligns with the organization’s Re-Imagined Culture.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.