"us, them"

Don't you find it ironic that so many groups that are working together helping to support a cause are also working against each other? It is referred to as the "us, them" syndrome.

Board members can exclude Executive Directors from social functions and key strategic decision-making because the Directors are not one of them.

Executive Directors and senior management can set strategies that impact clients without consulting their front-line staff who are the ones dealing with the clients regularly.

Staff members can treat clients like they are sub-human and can feel that clients don't need the same priviledges as they do.

Agencies can treat funders with disrespect. They will take the money, but they don't feel the funders have the right to question how they use the money or what impact it will make.


This list can go on, but these are the common types of complaints I have heard over my ten years of providing workshops. Eliminating these attitudinal barriers are not easy because they are not obvious to most unless you are looking for them and yet the victims of these attitudes do not forget easily. I can hear and feel their anger.

Why do we create these barriers? Do we like to have power over others as others perhaps have or have had over us? Do we still like to be in the "in" crowd and demand others to recognize this fact?

Yet, when people can overcome their "us,them" attitudes, it is truly heartwarming. I remember working at an agency and there was a former cop working the security desk. This man was unpleasant to our clients and their children. For months, he would frown, but suddenly one day, I saw him smiling and playing with one of the young children. His whole countenance had changed. The child had been continually smiling at the man until one day he could no longer keep his distance. From that day, the man couldn't have been friendlier to those who were friendly to him. In this instance, it was a race issue. I say was because he no longer saw race as a difference. He began to see the child like any other child, and I am sure his days became pleasanter.

As part of the human race, we seem to look for differences and in some countries we celebrate differences, but is it at the expense of finding what makes us all the same first?

Something to think about!

Labels: managing non-profits, us them attitudes

posted by Brenda Northey @ 4:54 PM