If your company sounds like a cult, you may be right.

“Well, you know that my wife and I don't have children.

And we don't need them.

You are our children."

Blanco's phrase, the charismatic boss that Javier Bardem embodies in

During a speech to your employees, it may not sound strange to some workers.

The idea of ​​the company as a family, in which everyone has a value for being who they are, beyond the results, but in which a corresponding implication is requested, because the good of the father and that of the children are inseparable, It has been heard by many employees of small and medium-sized companies.

In some of the larger ones, participating in a special organization that can change the world and that everyone knows helps to feel part of something bigger than oneself, and that, in addition to a salary, offers an attractive reinforcement of identity.

Working is something routine and sometimes hard, and any extraordinary motivation to get the most out of employees is welcome,

In 1953, the psychiatrist Robert Lifton defined a series of points common to institutions that, like sects, try to mold individuals so that they fit perfectly into the group.

“One of them is control of the environment.

The group controls who the person can and cannot relate to, trying to alienate them from family and friends.

This is something that happens, to a certain extent, in the Big Four [the large auditing and consulting multinationals known for their long working hours].

Only with the number of hours you have to put in, the main relationship of the worker is with the work and their environment”, explains Íñigo Rubio, president of the Ibero-American Association for the Investigation of Psychological Abuse (AIIAP).

Of these types of companies that are extremely demanding with the worker, Rubio mentions another common trait with sects: the demand for purity.

“There is always a demand to give more and a continuous feeling of guilt for not doing enough,” he says.

“In addition, as you climb the hierarchy of the organization, you have more power, but on many occasions you are more and more trapped, and all with speeches that in one case promise salvation and in another a job in exchange for years. of total dedication”, he concludes.

Some time ago, the exploitation of the worker by the company was something more clear and even accepted by both parties.

Now, through a discourse that sells belonging to the company as a form of personal development, relationships are more equivocal.

In an interview published by this newspaper,

The South Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han referred to the mechanism that can encourage abusive behavior by some companies: "You live with the anguish of not always doing everything you can [...]".

Now one exploits oneself by imagining that one is realizing”.

You go to work for a salary in a company, not in the military

Miguel Perlado, expert psychologist in sects

Churches, like other large organizations that want to promote the union of their members, among themselves and with the institution, are well aware of the value of rituals to achieve this, and some companies also use them.

In the 1930s, in the US, IBM workers had a book with songs to praise the company and its leader, Thomas Watson, and some songs can still be heard on their own website.

IBM has already abandoned that custom, but at Walmart, an American multinational department store with more than two million employees worldwide, they still do what is known as the Walmart shout, a collective harangue accompanied by some motivational instructions that they end up remembering that the customer always comes first.

Miguel Perlado, a psychologist expert in sects, helps people who are involved in abusive group dynamics that do not necessarily happen within sects.

"I have worked with sects, but also in the context of theater or music, where dynamics of abuse of power can occur, of unequal relationships that serve to control the individual or that favor abusive behavior with women," he explains.

He has also collaborated with companies seeking to improve their labor relations.

"There are business contexts in which practices that we consider abusive outside can be idealized, because they monopolize the lives of workers and leave them no space for their personal lives, but within the organization they are a sign of involvement and dedication," he continues.

The psychologist warns that the limits between what is an intensely motivated policy and abuse can be blurred.

"Mercadona or Lidl, in the first stages of recruitment, carry out a very motivational activity, loyalty and identification with the company," he says.

"You have to pay attention and respect people's areas of intimacy, because these motivational activities are aimed at people's identity, and they are asked to retrain so that they include a part of the company in that identity," he concludes.

“Our task is to provide people with discernment criteria.

See if I am dedicating myself too much or if the company demands too much”, indicates Perlado.

“We all have a need to belong, and in our cultural environment that can be provided by the company,

But not everyone lives the same business culture in the same way.

Amazon's 14 leadership principles, a true bible of that great corporation, put the customer at the center and demand levels of demand focused on collective success, sometimes at the expense of workers, which have drawn intense criticism of the company .

So much so that Jeff Bezos, shortly before leaving the company's management, added two more principles, one of which focused on the need to be the best employer on Earth.

However, a former employee of the company, who does not want to give his name, believes that "corporate principles are not a way to reprogram people, but to organize them when you have so many people from so many different countries and cultures working together."

“Everyone learns to talk about their work through those principles and it makes it quite reasonable to talk to an Indian, a Japanese or a Russian.

You speak from the culture of Amazon and not from your personal culture, and that makes it possible to work in a transnational company, ”she says.

"The fact that a group may have sectarian characteristics or coercive behavior does not imply that all members of the group are unhappy or that they suffer or exercise the same level of abuse," says Rubio.

“As Eric Fromm explains in

freedoms and rights have been gained during the 20th century, but that freedom can sometimes be distressing because it makes you more responsible for your life and your decisions.

There are people who may yearn to give up their freedom in exchange for greater security or to feel part of something bigger, ”she adds.

Many abusive behaviors are sold in a positive light, as a way to get workers to know each other better and to be more attached to the company and the leader.

“Just like in a couple, a relationship of abuse or excessive control can be approached from another point of view, as something beautiful, as two inseparable people;

abusive behavior in business or even in a cult does not start with a malevolent motivation.

People, at first, believe in the mission they have to carry out,

and often the leaders of the sects believe the story they are telling and do what they do with good intentions”, Rubio exemplifies.

Being aware that the risk exists and identifying it when it becomes a reality is a step to avoid falling into behavior more typical of a sect than of a job.

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