The Emperor's New Clothes and The Modern Workplace

I don’t know how many of you, in your childhood, heard or read this story: The Emperor’s New Clothes, written by Hans Christian Andersen in 1837. The other day, while searching for an old book, I chanced upon an abridged version of this story book and was thrilled to read it again. It was written two centuries ago but has so much relevance even in our current corporate & political sphere.

As the story goes, this king loves clothes and would change them often, admiring himself and requiring others to admire his trousseau. Two con men who scheme to make lots of money by capitalizing on the vanity of the king, pose as tailors. The "tailors" gain an audience with the king saying that they have mastered the art of tailoring and have discovered a way to make a fabric so light and fine that it is almost invisible & mystical. They further proclaim that the stupid and incompetent people cannot see it at all and only the wise & competent lot can see it. The king is of course gullible. He hands them a sack full of gold coins and commissions them to tailor the cloth into a royal & exclusive outfit.

After a while, the Prime Minister is sent to monitor their progress. When he is shown the cloth, he, of course, sees nothing. To hide his incompetence, Prime Minister sings laurels about the beauty of the cloth to the king. The tailors on the assigned day appear in his majesty’s court and present an imaginary outfit to the king. The king not wanting to appear stupid or incompetent like the Prime Minister, applauds the tailors for the magnificent work and mastery and upon persistent request of the courtiers, decides to wear it to go on a parade so that his entire kingdom can witness and admire the beauty of the outfit. All present admire the beauty of the cloth and beg the king to show it to his subjects.  

The two tailors volunteer to fetch the imaginary train of king’s outfit as he commences the parade. The people are keen to see not only the cloth but also to make fun of their friends or others who are too stupid and incompetent to see it. Of course, they are disappointed & scared when they cannot see it for themselves but are too conscious to admit it and fear being ridiculed so they all say that the outfit is exquisite and befitting to the king. But a farmer’s child cries out, "But the king is not wearing anything at all!" The father tries to silence the child but, its too late. When the crowd realizes that the child has confirmed everyone’s belief that the emperor wasn’t wearing anything at all, the crowd cheers and jeers and goes beserk with laughter. However, the emperor continues with his parade, because to turn back, he would have to admit that he was fooled.

So how does it relate to Modern Workplace? What are the key takeaways?

1) The two conmen take advantage of the king's gullibility to get what they want. They don’t care about damaging reputation or bringing discredit to the king and driven by the greed. Their values display self-centeredness and dishonesty. As a result, they bring disrepute to the king and don’t think of the long-term repercussions on the king’s or kingdom’s credibility.

Takeaway: Our identity is linked to our organisation!!

We are all responsible for the reputation and credibility of our organisation and our team. We can not isolate ourselves or only think of our own interests in a team. We need to be a team player. We cannot isolate ourselves from the company. We are all in it together. Any harmful consequence due to our action is going to have a domino effect on the organisation as a whole and vice-versa. We will get impacted too and lose credibility with our customers if our organisation’s credibility is lost. Also, if the organisation incurs any loss in the form of revenue, reputation, credibility, customer; it does have a long-term implication on us. As we constitute the organisation.

2) The king displays vanity and gullibility. The conmen take advantage of this and con him of not only his wealth but reputation too. He takes advantage of his position & enjoys the authority and no one in his court wants to confront, disobey or point out his folly as they fear for their position and safety. They want to be in King’s good books and pretend to admit something as they don’t want to be in minority and hence appear foolish and thus be ridiculed or punished. The king even after realising that he has been conned, doesn’t want to admit that he has been fooled and continues with the parade so that he can hold on to the false pride.

Takeaway: Sycophancy is best avoided!!

The fear of judgement is a crucial factor that drives our responses and actions. The courtiers and public feared for their pride and safety. They felt majority is right and wanted to hide their perceived incompetence with the fear of being ridiculed or harmed. In a corporate environment each person wants to impress and side with the leader to save his/her position, growth as well as pride. No one wants to be called out even if they know they are right in a meeting or have the right answer or no that the decision may be detrimental, they don’t call it out as they don’t want to upset their manager or want to be singled out or ridiculed. Also, many subordinates resort to sycophancy to cover their flaws, their incompetence and feel that their job is protected without putting in actual effort and just by praising or adhering to “yes boss” or “boss is always right” they have safeguarded their jobs. The boss if vain or gullible loves to have such subordinates around so that he/she feels important and hide his/her insecurities. Also, seldom we have seen the bosses admitting or owning up their mistakes, they look for people to pin the blame on or refuse to admit that they have committed a mistake and hold on to false sense of pride. This leads to not identifying the right issue and the damage continues getting bigger or simply brushed under the carpet and thus ignored. The short- term result is favourable for them but in the long run, such bosses fail to make informed decisions, exercise judgement, make wise choices and earn respect. And when the damage is done, they lose out along with everyone else. 

3) The child speaks the truth without any fear or prejudice. It is easy to speak the truth when there is no attachment to any particular outcome and when we are fearless. The child makes no judgment about the king's nakedness - he just states that he is and he doesn't feel scared to call out the truth. He says it as he sees it. One small statement of reality brings out the truth. This liberates others to deal with their reality and their fear that they were scared to confront or admit.

Takeaway: Be confident & brave!!

The child has nothing to lose and so can afford to be fearless in his description of the king.  Often, the fear of losing makes it virtually impossible to be literally fearless. We need valor instead. Valor is confronting our fears. It's what we see soldiers do on warfronts and brave people do in offices. We should never miss any opportunity to speak or to hear the truth. We should have the confidence to confront our fears and put our convictions out and forward. This confidence will come with being honest to ourselves, introspection & accepting the truth. We can build confidence by working on our development needs and fueling our strengths. And when we are confident, we will be fearless to voice our convictions.