How Are Cultural “Norms” Holding Back Your Employees?

We recently returned from a trip to Norway (there Sherven is spelled Skjerven) and Poland (Sniechowski is my husband’s Polish surname). One of the issues that always concerns us is to what degree are people encouraged to reach their full potential and how do cultural “norms” interfere. As you may know, one of the key issues we focus on as executive coaches is to help people in Overcoming the Fear of Being Fabulous.

Well, we were only in Oslo one day when at dinner that night our hosts (the best friend of my brother from high school and his Norwegian wife of roughly 40 years) began to explain what it’s like to live in a culture that is steeped in “janteloven.” And rather then do a poor job of defining it myself, I’m going to give credit to David Nikel for doing a terrific job of it!

The passage below is from “What Is Janteloven?” written by David Nikel
https://www.lifeinnorway.net/2015/06/what-exactly-is-janteloven

“The term janteloven can be traced back to Aksel Sandemose, a Danish-turned-Norwegian author, whose works of fiction included references to these “laws” in the context of small-town Denmark (taken from an English translation on Wikipedia):

“You’re not to think you are anything special
You’re not to think you are as good as we are
You’re not to think you are smarter than we are
You’re not to convince yourself that you are better than we are
You’re not to think you know more than we do
You’re not to think you are more important than we are
You’re not to think you are good at anything
You’re not to laugh at us
You’re not to think anyone cares about you
You’re not to think you can teach us anything

“It is wrong to say this is the origin of janteloven behaviour though, as Sandemose was seeking to capture something that already existed in Scandinavian society. This suggests this way of living is deeply ingrained in Scandinavians and passed down through generations. Although not explicitly taught, these societal needs are reflected in many children’s books and songs of today.”

Certainly my half-Norwegian, half-Swedish father passed it along to me and my brother—albeit without the label of “janteloven” but with strong insistance to be humble, modest, and never, never, never brag about what you had accomplished. He even believed that it was immodest to say “thank you” when receiving a compliment because that would mean you agreed with the compliment. Certainly this attitude held him back in the world as it did my brother. And I’ve been dedicated to freeing myself from it for many decades.

And that’s why “Overcoming the Fear of Being Fabulous” is so central to the executive coaching my husband and I do.

As we continued our trip and went to Gdansk and Warsaw we pursued our continual research into this arena of cultural and familial “unconscious hold backs and allegiances.” While there is no label that anyone we spoke with was aware of, they all said some version of, “Oh we watch each other all the time. And when someone rises up we all talk, ‘Have they been bribing? Stealing? Sleeping around?’ The culture pressures us to stay the same, and not stand out.”

In Australia they call this the “Tall Poppy Syndrome”—if someone grows “taller” than others than the shorter “poppies” cut that person down. My husband Jim experienced this when we were brought to Melbourne years ago to run seminars and provide some trainings. At an all men’s meeting he stood up to give his presentation and almost immediately several of the men called him down asking who he thought he was and telling him to sit down like everyone else.

In Asian cultures there are similar injunctions to “know your place.” We’ve heard several stories from managers who were told by Asian women who reported to them some version of, “Please don’t talk about my successes. Other people on the team will be threatened and want to bring me down.”

So, with all of these examples, I leave you with these questions: How are cultural “norms” holding back people on your team, in your company? What can you do to expose the need to overcome these success-throttling “norms”? I look forward to reading your Comments.

(Photo: Shame by Rob Chandernais/Flickr)

Judith Sherven, PhD and her husband Jim Sniechowski, PhD https://JudithandJim.com have developed a penetrating perspective on people’s resistance to success, which they call The Fear of Being Fabuloustm. Recognizing the power of unconscious programming to always outweigh conscious desires, they assert that no one is ever failing—they are always succeeding. The question is, at what? To learn about how this played out in the life of Whitney Houston for example, and how it may be playing out in your own life, check out their 6th book: https://WhatReally KilledWhitneyHouston.com

Currently consultants on retainer to LinkedIn providing transformational executive coaching, leadership training and consulting as well as working with other corporate and private clients around the world, they continually prove that when unconscious beliefs are brought to the surface, the barriers to greater success and leadership presence begin to fade away. You can learn about their core program “Overcoming the Fear of Being Fabulous” by going to
https://OvercomingtheFearofBeingFabulous.com

Their 7th book, short and to the point, “25 Power Speaking Tips That Will Leave Your Audiences Wanting More,” is available in kindle at: https://tinyurl.com/25PWRSPKGTips

And if you are involved in marketing, you may be interested in their 5th book “Love Your Customers and They Will Love You Back” https://tinyurl.com/lovecustomersbk