I don’t know to whom I should credit this statement, but it sounds about right. In college, people had a chance to spend their time doing the things they enjoyed, academically and socially (probably not professionally, for those who worked). After this deviation through academia and counter-society, people generally went into much more structured organizations in work, family life, or whatever else.
However, high school was much more of a cattle herding process where most of the people were put through mostly similar programs for mostly similar reasons. No one could really deviate from the goal of graduation. Further, those who excelled, at least in public school, like mine, were either those who were exceptionally intelligent, or those who got along well with their teachers in whatever term can be most appropriately substituted for brownnosing.
When you settle into your first job, you quickly realize that your professional life is much easier if you can cultivate relationships with the right people in the organization. Often, but not always, this means substituting your own creativity and work with what you think the people in charge want. Every organization in which I was involved had many examples of those who were completely willing to do whatever their bosses told them without any moral reservation, regardless of how deplorable the possible result. Depending on the organizations and the ability of its managers to cultivate creativity, the people within generally excel or become deeply disillusioned with the system. What remains is a few people who are willing to substitute their freedom for the belief that they will be rewarded because of their "yesman-ability". These rewards may be in the form of recognition, promotions, raises, or additional power within the organization. In any case, people often and willingly make this trade, just as many did in high school. Because almost all professional organizations are hierarchical, they must be authoritarian and therefore the people that rise to the top benefit much more from their favor they curried with the managers, officers, and directors than their merits, professional ability, or any other skill they possess. This is certainly not always true; often people excel because they are needed, but let's face it, most people don’t want to go to the mattresses with people they don't like. It's usually a personality rather than merit based system.
Yesmen usually rise to the top. My favorite example of this process is the leadership structure of the LDS church (Mormons) which is described at some basic background here. There is a long process on the climb from local leader to president and at the very top, there are 12 men that form a quorum so exclusive and vetted that there is virtually no possibility of any significant change ever occurring. (A black member of the LDS church did not have the same standing that every other male did until 1978!) In the Mormon hierarchy, the vetting and weeding out occurs at the local level. Young and ambitious members make their bones there and of those only the most loyal yes men, the men who never question, the men who never dissent, are those who rise to the highest echelons.
The LDS church is an extreme example. Most organizations do not have the ability to invoke the name of God and divine inspiration. Most corporations for example, must shake up management from time to time to respond to market fluctuations, competitors scooping up market share, and the loss of key personnel with access to power structures.
If you allow it, life can certainly be a lot like high school. There are personality types that really benefit from that structure. The rest of us must rely on our own creativity to make things tolerable. As more people exercise that creativity, both professionally and socially, we may well be able to recast the paradigm into something that benefits people in general, instead of people who kiss their teachers' ass.
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