THE SACRED CLOWNS OF THE NAVAJO

It might be me being culturally insensitive but here I go anyway. The Navajo (the Native American tribe, not the four-wheel drive vehicle) have a balance in their spirituality that is reflected in their political and everyday life. Every thing has its complimentary opposite - sort of a spiritual checks and balances if you like. The top of many totem poles is frequently Thunderbird, reflecting its position in their deity pecking order. Balancing this, and therefore critical, is the Sacred Clown. This concept had a personification with one of the tribesmen assigned to act as their Sacred Clown on the ground. His role was to mock the powerful.

The Chief, the warriors and the medicine man were all targets of his parody. Amongst the duties of the powerful (and this is the key here folks), they had to protect the sacred clown or else face the wrath of the Thunderbird. So for example, after a celebration of a fishing trip, the Sacred Clown might do a little dance miming the struggle of the warriors against some really small fish and then throw in some sexual innuendo about men’s inability to communicate size correctly. Not only could the warriors not beat him up, they had to laugh along with everyone else, making overtly uncomfortable comments like “Good on ya mate” or the Navajo equivalent thereof. I’ve totally over simplified this but what a brilliant concept!

Our Westminster system of Government draws on a similar concept of ‘clown’ protection. That’s the theory behind parliamentary privilege. The King couldn’t behead smart-mouth Parliamentarians quoting what the King spent on socks. I’m sure the lack of a decent mass-media satirical outlet is giving current politicians way too long a leash.

Spirituality aside, I can see advantages to our organisational ‘tribes’ from this practice. Modern companies have totem poles, except today we call them “org charts.” With Sacred Clowns, the powerful would be kept honest. Processes would be transparent. Risks would be identified and communicated, making the powerful anticipate what the Sacred Clown might mock and therefore take action in advance. Talk about accountability! Sacred Clowns should be compulsory in organisations. Surely, many Human Resources departments would volunteer to take on the role of Sacred Clowns to the Executive Thunderbird? Would the Christine Rankin kafflufle ever have amounted to a hill of beans if WINZ had a Sacred Clown?

Spin and PR-speak is prevalent in external communication from organisations. It is understandable as organisations seek to manage headlines that might affect share values and so forth. Unfortunately, the same approach is becoming all too prevalent with communications within organisations. In an environment where people are afraid or unwilling to tell it like it is to the powerful, you end up with the scenario from the children’s story ‘The Emperors New Clothes.’ In an organisation undergoing restructuring (sorry – re-shaping) people with criticisms or opinions on risks may be less likely to raise them if they consider that doing so may lead them to be disestablished. (Sorry – their positions disestablished.) Send in the clowns.

Risk management is one of those functions that is coming into its own these days. Like harassment and safety, legislation is provoking organisations into a policy writing and training frenzy, providing employment for consultants which is nice. September 11 has reminded everyone of business interruption planning too. Managerial job descriptions are getting new accountabilities popped in such as risk management. Risk management begins with identifying risks, assessing their probability and potential severity, then drafting plans for prevention and mitigation. “It’s everyone’s job to manage risks.” It was every Navajo’s job to tell the warriors to catch bigger fish but they didn’t. I bet they would have been afraid to. Without the Sacred Clown, the warriors may not have taken their job so seriously. An arrowhead in the arm may heal but someone making fun of the size of your fish in front of the tribeswomen is something else entirely.

From a Human Resources perspective, we’d like to think that our Executives genuinely wanted us to always call it as we saw it when it came to risks associated with our people. Yeah right! (You’ve heard about the English teacher explaining that two negatives don’t make a positive and two positives don’t make a negative? To which the student replied “Yeah right!”)

A risk I’ve come across recently is the key person risk. This is the super-employee who is indispensable. Anyone has a question, super-employee knows the answer. They don’t just have corporate memory; they are the corporate memory. This person rarely is away and everyone jokes that they don’t know what they’d do without them. If that person got hit by a bus or recruited by a competitor or just burnt out health-wise, would you know what you’d do without them? You’d find out, that’s for sure. Enter HR risk management with identification, probability and severity assessment, followed by prevention and mitigation. Succession planning, documentation, some holidays and so forth. Sometimes indispensability is a cover for inefficiency or corruption too. I’m providing this example because I’d like to illustrate a caveat to my evangelicism about Sacred Clowns. A Sacred Clown may have mocked the office of Chief or Medicine Man but at the end of the day, those offices are held by individuals with feelings. A Sacred Clown may well draw attention to a key person risk by mocking the super-employee but no one likes being mocked. There was also a limit of one Sacred Clown per tribe. Performing that function unofficially was seriously frowned on. A modern organisation with many sacred clowns would be highly dysfunctional. Perhaps you work in one? No, I think the organisational Sacred Clown needs to be a one-person role and someone in HR needs to take up the challenge. Task one would be to get something in writing from the Thunderbird about protection.

I’ve met some Thunderbirds - CEOs and senior executives who go out of their way to mock themselves. As part of a general effort to not put themselves up on a pedestal and be more approachable, they do things like eat in the cafeteria, have open-plan offices and take their chances with the assigned parking. (OK - I made that last one up. No one in their right mind would give up an assigned parking space.) They ride scooters and play golf in the corridor. Most importantly, when someone does point out that the emperor is naked, what happens afterwards sends a message to everyone else. An environment where risks can be openly pointed out and a process kicks in so the messenger isn’t shot doesn’t need Sacred Clowns. We should make an effort to create this environment in our organisations to free up the clowns to concentrate on the politicians.

I’d volunteer to be a clown. Women love a man in uniform.

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