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Enron‘s hard assets could no longer be depended on to keep the stock price rising at
Skilling‘s desired rate of 20 percent a year.... Enron‘s mandate was to become more nimble,
more flexible, more innovative – or else. The speakers… had droned on about that mission
for hours. Most of that day, Skilling prowled the perimeter of the ballroom, making sure that
his acolytes were, in his words, ‗getting it‘―.
In this, and other accounts of Enron, communication emerges as essentially one way – from
the organisation‘s top leaders, to those at the bottom. Its purpose was to reinforce the
demanding goals set by Enron‘s leaders. Corrective feedback was not sought. In fact, it was
stifled. The purpose was simply to transmit a new corporate code, and ensure its rapid
implementation. People were expected to escalate their commitment, and transform their
attitudes to be ever more consistent with the needs of the organisation‘s leaders. The
dynamic is similar to that of many non-corporate cults, as documented in a growing case
study literature into the area (e.g. Hassan, 1988 Tourish, 1998 Stein 2002).
4. Promoting a Common Culture
Much of the most influential management literature in the last two decades, inspired by the
work of Peters and Waterman (1982), sold the notion of what amounts to a monolithic
organisational culture, to be determined exclusively by senior managers, as the key to
overall success. The importance of this resides in the notion that organizational cultures
consist of cognitive systems explaining how people think, reason and make decisions
(Pettigrew, 1979 1990). If cultures can therefore be controlled by those at the top, the
overall impact on people is likely to be enormous. In such schemas, the views of non-
managerial employees, women and/or minorities are unlikely to be considered (Martin,
1992).
It has rarely been pointed out that the most intense organisational cultures (invariably
determined by those at the top, with minimal input from below), are to be found within
cults. In particular, such organisations promote all embracing cultures, decreed by the
leader. These are built around totalistic world views, with which everyone is supposed to
agree. The ideal state is one of monoculturism, in which difference from the vision of the
leader is banished to the margins of the group‘s tightly policed norms. Total conformity
along these lines leads to the disabling and well documented phenomenon of groupthink, an
infection which thrives particularly well in the overheated atmosphere of cults (Wexler and
Fraser, 1995). This is particularly relevant to the study of modern business organisations.
As a growing volume of literature testifies, workplace surveillance systems increasingly seek
to produce conformist (i.e. compliant and pliant) individuals in the workplace. Thus,
corporate culture initiatives (Kunda, 1992), performance assessment systems (Townley,
1994), teamworking (Barker, 1993) and information gathering systems (Zuboff, 1988) have
all been explored from this perspective. It has been argued that such approaches seek to
regulate, discipline and control employee subject selves, while camouflaging such intentions
in the more benign rhetoric of family values and empowerment (Martin, 1999).
Within systems characterized by surveillance, and in which strident demands for intense
commitment becomes the norm, the demand for purity is central. This is expressed with
particular sharpness within cults, where ―...the experiential world is sharply divided into the
pure and the impure, into the absolutely good and the absolutely evil‖ (Lifton, 1961, p.423).
Dissent is demonized, rendering it all the more unappealing, since people quickly grasp that
to associate with dissenters is to volunteer for a Salem style witch-hunt. They are
constantly informed that the group‘s vision offers a superior insight to any other perspective
on offer. Dress codes, language, and styles of interaction are all highly regulated (Tobias
and Lalich, 1994), reinforcing the monochrome environment that has come to define the
members‘ social world. Typically, the culture is one of impassioned belief, incessant action
to achieve the group‘s goals, veneration of the leader‘s vision and a constraining series of

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group norms designed to quell dissent. Within cults, the dominant culture is likely to be
totalistic, punitive, self-aggrandizing and all embracing in its messianic scope (Tourish and
Pinnington, 2002). Culture, in such contexts, becomes another form of social control
(Willmott, 1993 2003).
A further paradox within cults is that individual consideration shifts from being positive to
critical in nature. As a voluminous literature testifies (e.g. Tourish, 1998), once the recruit
has been ―won over‖, and made an intense commitment, the group seeks to ensure the
further embrace of its norms, by a relentless process of criticism and attack. Individual
consideration of a positive kind (Dr Jekyll) alternates with its alter ego (Mr. Hyde).
Relentless criticism gradually erodes people‘s confidence in their own perceptions (Tourish
and Wohlforth, 2000), creating a form of learned helplessness (Seligman, 1975). ―Love‖ –
always dependent on the unconditional expression of enthusiasm for the goals of the
group‘s leaders – alternates with abuse, in a disorienting cycle that leaves recipients feeling
fearful and powerless. Context is crucial. Having made an initial commitment, possibly of a
dramatic kind, recruits are motivated to engage in further behaviours consistent with the
commitment originally made – the principle of commitment and consistency (Cialdini,
2001). When this blends with learned helplessness, it reinforces even further people‘s
already strong inclination to over-identify with the norms that have been decreed by the
group‘s leaders. The leaders, meanwhile, have adorned themselves in the garb of
omniscience and infallibility. Paradoxically, and providing it has come after a period of love
bombing, criticism from such sources reinforces the person‘s attachment to the group‘s
belief system and their sense of loyalty to its leaders.
Moreover, abuse generates multiple insecurities, further strengthening leadership power.
Whatever its precise content, insecurity reinforces ―the construction of workplace selves and
the reproduction of organizational power relations‖ (Collinson, 2003, p.530). In particular, it
seems likely that when people are insecure about their self-identity and their status the
nominal freedom of their position (after all, they retain the choice to leave) will be
experienced as a form of existential angst, intensifying their sense of vulnerability. It has
long been known that people have an innate tendency to conform to authority and power
under a variety of conditions (Milgram, 1974). If they are rendered fearful in the manner
described here, and when the most modest expression of dissent attracts punitive attention
from those above, it seems even more likely that people ―might try to find shelter in the
perceived security of being told what to do and what to think, viewing this as a less
threatening alternative to the responsibility of making decisions and choices for themselves‖
(Collinson, 2003, p.531). When the group environment assumes that all change must start
at the top, the leader knows best, the leader must have a compelling vision and that one
unifying culture is a precondition of effectiveness, inherently cult like dynamics of the kind
described here may be unleashed. It is clear that many of these assumptions are now
standard features of the leadership culture in many corporate organisations.
The Case of Enron
1. “Rank and Yank”, and the Elimination of Dissent
Side by side with largesse and ego stroking, a punitive internal culture was established, in
which all that had been so painstakingly gained could be withdrawn at the whim of senior
managers. As Fusaro and Miller (2003, p.51) remarked: ―Despite all the effort that Enron
expended in selecting the right people to hire into the company, it was quick to fire them.‖
The most striking illustration of this was in the organisation‘s appraisal system, known as
―rank and yank‖. An internal Performance Review Committee (PRC) rated employees twice a
year (Gladwell, 2002). They were graded on a scale of 1 to 5, on ten separate criteria, and
then divided into one of three groups – A‘s, who were to be challenged and given large
rewards B‘s, who were to be encouraged and affirmed, and C‘s, who were told to shape up