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Political Correctness gone mad?

By David Thomson, CEO, Close Invoice Finance

Businesses and organisations these days have to go to extraordinary lengths to ensure that no one could take even the slightest offence from anything. Sometimes this need cramps peoples' style, stifles creativity and makes the tough task of running a business that much tougher. Just to illustrate the point, I'd like to share with you some of the more entertaining aspects of political correctness that I've come across recently. Some of them may even be true!

Apparently, a number of organisations won't allow employees to eat hot cross buns because the shape of the pastries in question might be offensive to Muslims. The next step might be to ban croissants because the crescent shape is a key Islamic symbol and therefore offensive to Christians.

Employees attending "diversity workshops" have allegedly been advised not to use supposedly insulting terms like "nit-picking" and "brainstorming". Apparently, the term 'nit-picking' is offensive because it originated at the time of the slave trade, when slaves had their hair examined for lice. And 'brainstorming', is a no-no word because it can be regarded as insulting to people suffering from mental illness.

One web site claims that staff in a coffee shop refused to serve a customer who asked for a "black coffee" on the grounds that he was using racist language. He eventually got his desire after he agreed to describe the beverage as 'coffee without milk'. Would he have got into the same, er, hot water had he asked for "white coffee" or "white sugar", I wonder?
Perhaps the simple sentence, "The fireman put a ladder up against the tree,
climbed it, and rescued the cat" might in some politically correct fantasy end up reading as follows: "The firefighter (who happened to be male, but could just as easily have been female) abridged the rights of the cat to determine for itself where it wanted to walk, climb, or rest, and inflicted his own value judgments in determining that it needed to be "rescued" from its chosen perch. In callous disregard for the well-being of the environment, and this one tree in particular, he thrust the mobility disadvantaged-unfriendly means of ascent known as a "ladder" carelessly up against the tree, marring its bark, and unfeelingly climbed it, unconcerned how his display of physical prowess might injure the self-esteem of those differently-abled. He kidnapped and unjustly restrained the innocent animal with the intention of returning it to the person who claimed to "own" the naturally free animal, but it immediately fled his grasp, having withstood more insult and injury than it could bear".

What the above examples demonstrate well is the length some businesses and organisations are prepared to go to avoid the slightest possibility of controvisy. This often seems based on a desire to be 'extremely' politicaly correct or a desire not to alienate any potential customers. Being 'resonably' politically correct is a good thing and should be encouraged. Doing it in an obsessive way to sell more seems to be excessive and in itself 'politically incorrect' because it is being done for financial rather than moral reasons.
This issue does, of course, have serious ramifications for all of us in business.

Employment laws are becoming very burdensome for the hard-pressed small business. New rights for maternity leave are putting more and more burden on employers. Not to mention paternity rights.

Things might start to swing against women of childbearing age. When pregnancy/maternity issues just become too much hassle, employers may end up being prejudiced against employing women in this age category. While this is unfair and should not be encouraged, the end result may well be that older workers get more of a look in, which is a good thing.

So given all these issues, who, for example, should we include in our consumer advertisements? Which client case studies should we put on their web site? Is using a same sex couple in these situations politically correct or incorrect?

Some observers fear we could all end up paranoid nervous wrecks in our quest to be all things to all people and universally liked by everyone. Or should we follow the advice of leading business strategists and focus on exploiting niche markets and ignore anyone outside this tightly defined group? Or adopt the 80/20 rule that says that 80 per cent of profit comes from 20 per cent of the client base whether or not this 20 per cent is a politically correct mix of males, females, whites, Muslims, gays etc?



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