Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2006, Page 62
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
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
