I like road-safety slogans, but I hate "Be a treasure, not a burden"
It's not that I hate slogans themselves.
Road-safety slogans, for instance, mostly make sense to me.
"Slow down." "Look both ways." "Stop at the stop sign."
These say something specific.
You know who should do what, and how. Doing it can actually prevent an accident. The slogan connects to real behavior.
So I think slogans like that are just fine.
The problem is a certain kind of slogan used at work.
In particular, lines like these:
"Be a jinzai (a treasure), not a jinzai (a burden)." (In Japanese, this is a pun on two words that sound identical: "talent" written with a character meaning "treasure," versus a made-up word using a character meaning "crime.") "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil." "Change your mindset." "It's all about attitude." "Stop complaining and be positive."
When words like these get used to dump management's responsibility onto the people below, they turn my stomach.
A slogan only works when the basics are sound
A slogan isn't bad in itself.
A few short words can share a way of acting or a set of values. They can be something to come back to when you're unsure. In safety and quality work, short, memorable phrases are sometimes genuinely useful.
But there's a precondition.
The people using the slogan, meaning managers, evaluators and whoever designs the system, have to be decent at their jobs.
If that falls apart, a slogan becomes nothing more than a sermon.
Say the slogan is "Report, update, consult" (in Japan, this habit of keeping your boss informed is shortened to "hou-ren-sou" and drilled into every new hire).
If your boss really listens to your reports, doesn't crush you when you ask for advice, and gives you the decisions you need, that slogan works.
But what if you get yelled at for reporting? You ask for advice and get "Figure it out yourself." You flag a problem and get treated as if you're stirring things up for no reason.
Telling someone "reporting matters" in that situation is just passing the buck.
In other words, a slogan only works in a zoo where the zookeeper is competent.
If the keeper is a sieve, the slogan isn't used to fix the cage. It's used to shut up the monkeys inside.
I call this the "competent zookeeper" premise for slogans.
Why road-safety slogans are easier to accept
Road-safety slogans are easier to accept because they boil down to concrete actions.
Slow down. Stop. Check. Keep your distance. Don't look at your phone.
It's clear what you're supposed to do.
And everyone shares the same risk: an accident.
You could get hurt. The other person could get hurt. Pedestrians could get hurt. Cars get wrecked. Lives change.
So even a vague "be careful" slogan carries real weight.
Of course, slogans alone aren't enough for road safety either. You also need structural measures: road design, traffic lights, signs, enforcement, education, safer vehicles.
Even so, it's easy to understand being told, as an individual, to "check" and to "stop."
Workplace pep-talk slogans are a different story.
"Be a treasure." "Change your mindset." "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil."
These are far too vague about what to actually do.
What do I have to do to count as a treasure? What makes me a burden? Who decides? Is it really better not to look when I see a problem? Is it better not to listen to inconvenient voices?
Use a slogan without settling these questions, and it becomes a handy personality label.
Why "Be a treasure, not a burden" gives me the creeps
At first glance, "Be a treasure, not a burden" sounds positive.
Become someone who adds value. Don't be someone who drags those around you down. Maybe that's all the speaker means.
But the problem is who does the judging.
Who decides who's a "treasure" and who's a "burden"?
If the evaluation criteria are clear, the managers are fair and the organization is set up properly, fine, I can understand it.
In reality, though, that's not always the case.
You get handed work nobody has defined. Who's responsible for what is fuzzy. Nobody has been named to make the call. The people above won't decide. Things get changed after the fact. Point out a problem and you're treated as someone who disturbs the mood.
Tell someone in that situation "don't be a burden" and it isn't improvement. It's closer to a threat.
The real subject is a flaw in how the organization is built, yet somehow it turns into a matter of one person's character and attitude.
That's what's creepy.
"Burden" is just too convenient a word.
Someone you don't like. Someone who raises annoying points. Someone who points out a hole in the structure. Someone who makes the higher-ups' responsibility visible. Someone who asks for clarification on a vague instruction.
You can casually brand any of them a "burden."
That isn't developing people. It's sticking labels on people.
The moment the 3-monkeys slogan breaks down at work
"See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" isn't necessarily a bad saying either, depending on what it originally means and how it's used.
Don't look for pointless gossip. Don't get swept up in rumors. Don't join emotional fights.
As a piece of wisdom, I get that.
But once it's applied to workplace improvement, safety, harassment, undefined duties or who's responsible for what, the meaning changes.
See no evil → Even if you see a problem, keep quiet.
Hear no evil → Don't listen to the people on the front line.
Speak no evil → Don't make improvement suggestions or object.
That's what it becomes.
And at work, 2 more get added.
Decide nothing → Don't set rules, responsibilities or who makes the call.
Own nothing → In the end, push it onto the people below.
Put together, it goes:
See nothing, hear nothing, say nothing, decide nothing, take responsibility for nothing.
That's no longer 3 monkeys.
It's sieve management. (In Japanese, the word for "monkey" works as a suffix, "-zaru," and also sounds like the word for a colander, so "leaky management" is a pun I can't resist.)
Don't turn a structural problem into a problem of attitude
What I really hate is turning a structural problem into a question of the attitude or morals of the people below.
There's a lot management is supposed to do:
- Set the rules
- Define who is responsible for what
- Decide who makes the call
- Make the evaluation criteria clear
- Pick up problems when they come up instead of crushing them
- Don't make the person who reported something the bad guy
- Build a way to handle improvement suggestions
- Take responsibility at the top
They skip all of that and tell the people below:
"Change your mindset." "It's all about attitude." "Be a treasure." "Stop complaining." "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil."
That isn't changing awareness.
It's attitude-problem laundering.
You're just washing a problem of rules, design and management into a problem of personal feelings and morals.
"The system is bad" gets converted into "your attitude is bad."
"Responsibilities are unclear" gets converted into "you lack initiative."
"The people above haven't decided" gets converted into "the front line isn't moving."
That's wrong.
The squashed monkey's morality relay
Some of the people who use these slogans were themselves squashed by their bosses once.
I put up with it too. I kept quiet too. I endured unfair treatment too. So you shut up too.
That's how moral slogans get passed down to the next generation.
I call it the "squashed monkey's morality relay."
What they should really do is stop doing to others what was done to them.
Instead, they hand it to the next person.
And they say:
"That's just how working life is." "Everybody puts up with it." "Don't say unnecessary things." "Be a treasure."
That isn't education.
It's passing down a curse.
What separates a good slogan from a bad one
A good slogan has a few qualities.
First, it comes down to a concrete action.
"Check." "Stop." "Write it down." "If you're stuck, ask for advice."
Those I understand.
Second, it puts responsibility on the right party.
What you ask of the front line goes to the front line. What you ask of managers goes to managers. What you ask of the company goes to the company.
Mix these up and a slogan becomes buck-passing.
And third, it doesn't silence problems.
A good slogan makes it easier to report danger or a gut feeling that something's off. A bad slogan shuts that down.
That's a big difference.
If you really want slogans at work, these are better:
"Don't blame the person who found the problem." "Stamp out the undefined with checking, not willpower." "Handle every improvement suggestion with an owner, a decision-maker and a deadline." "Don't make the reporter the bad guy." "Don't turn what the higher-ups should decide into an attitude problem for those below."
Slogans like these can still work.
You can see the actions and the responsibility.
Wrap-up: the slogans aren't the problem, the way they're used is
Slogans themselves aren't bad.
Slogans that come down to concrete actions, like road-safety ones, are useful. Even in safety and quality work, there are times when short, memorable words are needed.
But it's a different story when workplace slogans become a way for management to dodge responsibility, or a device for enforcing silence.
"Be a treasure, not a burden." "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil." "Change your mindset." "It's all about attitude."
If these are used to turn structural problems into problems of personal character, attitude and morals, that's dangerous.
What's needed isn't piling morality onto the people below.
It's the higher-ups making decisions. Making clear who is responsible for what. Not crushing the people who report. Not making villains out of those who spot problems. Building a system for handling improvement suggestions.
Before chanting "be a treasure" in the monkey mountain, the zookeeper should fix the cage.
Before reciting the three monkeys, stop the sieve management of see-nothing, hear-nothing, say-nothing, decide-nothing, own-nothing.
Slogans are for making reality better.
They're not for looking away from it.
