“Who authorized this?”

I remember when my new department head first came to meet with me. 

As part of a reorganization, he had inherited my group and was in town to understand what it was I did. 

Excited to share my work, I naively described that we were one of the first banks to introduce an enterprise social network, and 85,000 employees had started using it. I shared example after example of communication and collaboration across divisions and locations. Of how employees now had a voice, and how we built communities and even movements. Of how the bank had never seen anything like it.

I was too excited to notice his increasing discomfort and consternation. But when I paused I could see he was incredulous at what he was hearing, and not in a good way.

“Who,” he asked in his stern German accent, “authorized this?”

The conversation went downhill from there. My new boss and boss’ boss were not interested in how we empowered employees and improved the way we worked. They cared about control, and about preserving their authority.

It's been more than a decade since this happened, but I still remember feeling confused and belittled, knowing this chapter in my career wouldn’t last long. Painful as it was, this experience gave me the determination to write and self-publish Working Out Loud, and later form my own company to help employees experience self-determination at work. As Thich Nhat Hanh writes, “No mud, no lotus.”

Do you have a story like this? Perhaps you or someone you know were told to “stay in your box” rather than do something you knew was right for the company and its people. Perhaps you knew you had more to contribute but weren’t allowed to do so.

How did you feel? What happened as a result?