Avoiding workplace conspiracies....

There are many people who will tell you that the current rise of conspiracy theories is nothing to worry about. That the transition of conspiracies into the mainstream does not present any major problem, but I am inclined to disagree for at least one very clear reason. Increasingly in the several workplaces that I am involved with I am seeing an increase in what would perhaps best be described as conspiracy based paranoia amongst colleagues and even extending out to clients and customers. I am also seeing purchasing decisions being influenced by conspiracy theories at a large scale. What concerns me is the way that this can translate into problems in the workplace. Business is difficult enough in these challenging times without having to deal with errant employees creating fictitious difficulties because they have bought in to conspiracy theories.

Lets be clear about something. On a personal level I find conspiracy theories to be slightly amusing, slightly interesting insights into the human psyche. I occasional have a little fun with people around me on these themes. I am of a scientific bent and tend not to buy into most conspiracy theories – as an example, one I had fun with is a less well known one that all Walmart stores have an owl statue hidden on them somewhere because the founders of Walmart were part of the Skull and Bones group that worship the Owl God Moloch – have a look, next time you are at one, you will almost certainly see an Owl statue – the fact that this is because the Owl statue is designed to frighten off pigeons is largely irrelevant, it is a bit of fun. Now when I had a little play with this and pointed out the owl statue on my local Walmart, and then a couple of others locally a colleague of mine began to get a bit nuts and started confiding all sorts of paranoid thoughts to me about the company we both work for as well as various governments and institutions.

Again, this could be brushed off as just a minor distraction, but for this chap, his conspiracy delusions were such that he was not able to work at his full capacity because he was constantly analysing what his colleagues were doing and second guessing their motives rather than focusing on his own work. This ended up costing the company at least two project contracts that he was involved with, and there was no doubt that the conspiracies he was worrying about within the workplace were complete nonsense. In the end he had to be disciplined over some of the things he was saying to colleagues and even bosses. It turned out that he had been heavily into conspiracy theories for years and that it is likely that immersion in these theories had a profound negative effect on his psychological balance.

Conspiracy theories can be fun, but they are only ever a bit of nonsense. I'll be blogging more about why conspiracy theories are a nonsense shortly, but for now, just trust me, they are all money making scams and can be safely ignored, and most importantly they have no place in a workspace environment....