The Truth About Managing People, Third Edition

Truth 43. We’re Not All Equal: Status Matters!

Many of us like to think that status isn’t as important as it was a couple of generations ago. We can point to the hippie movement, equal rights legislation, the rapid growth of small entrepreneurial firms, flat organizations designed around teams, and technologies like e-mail and Twitter that bypass hierarchies as forces that have made organizations more egalitarian. The reality is that we continue to live in an essentially class-structured society.

Despite all attempts to make it more egalitarian, we have made little progress toward a classless society. Even the smallest group will develop roles, rights, and rituals to differentiate its members. And we’re finding that even high-tech organizations ...