Apathy: The Culture-Killer

May 13, 2008 · Filed Under Business, Change, Culture 

Do you even care?

Apathy is perhaps the single worst thing in life, in my opinion. Most people think love is the opposite of hate. In reality, apathy is the opposite of love.

Love is full of wonderful things like caring, devotion, passion. However, apathy is simply the absence of these things - or any other emotion or desire to care. Even hate is an emotion - it, at least, is something you feel.

Much as darkness is the absence of light and cold is the absence of heat, apathy is the absence of concern. Do you know someone who is apathetic - not neutral - he or she really doesn’t care? It shows a total disregard for you as a person and for the ideas you are attempting to convey if you encounter this in one of your presentations. Worse, it can mean poison to your company culture if it is allowed to fester and spread.

More importantly, I’m not really talking about someone getting his or her  feelings hurt. I’m really stating that there is very little, if any, learning opportunities for this. If you are mad and storm out of the room, I can assess and figure out what not to do next time (assuming that is the reaction I was not going for).

However, someone that is a “seat warmer” doesn’t offer any value, negatively or positively.

Get a clue here, people… you can either live your life or exist in it. Sure there are things we do which we must, but choose to live your life - commit to a path and walk it. Root out those things you are apathetic about and get rid of them in your life. Managers and owners, you need to wake up and cut this poison out of your culture if you have it.

Image Credit: Woodbridge.net

A special thanks to Corey Smith for helping me keep my pronouns straight.

Ken Stewart’s blog, ChangeForge.com, focuses on the collision between the constantly changing worlds of business and technology. Ken is also the Director of Technology at Kearns Business Solutions.

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