Insulated Decider, meet Isolated Deliverer.

There's a Black-Market of Self Esteem in companies many bosses probably don't have a clue about.

Dig deep enough into any organization and you will find an invisible ghetto. It's non-sanctioned, off the org chart, and carries great potential. For good, when re-engaged. Or harm, when ignored. Unlike most ghettoes, this one has power. As a rule, that power is exercised against corporate "values" or directives. At the least, it's usually ambivalent to them, which is almost as bad.

Just as nature is "self-organizing", groups of people coalesce into social systems automatically. In companies, Isolated Deliverers do this all the time. As an isolated deliverer, you may feel you have no access to the sanctioned perks or opportunites of those above or around you, that the structure doesn't match your ideals, or the PR doesn't match the reality. If you read the papers or just the company memoranda, you simply know this to be true. What do you do? Well, if you feel shut out and unable to play the game, you make up your own game.

Naturally, you're disappointed to be "out", but you adjust your standards according to your circumstance: Standards of Intrinsic Reward, and Standards of Group Excellence. You create a virtual environment where you can feel good about yourself. An affinity group of the disaffected maybe. Look close enough and you'll find that groups like these have a mayor, heroes, jesters, wanderers and more, especially in larger companies. The archetypes abound in these groups just like any other. And, as non-sanctioned as it may be, it is a cohort. It has a social structure:

1. Pecking order
2. Rules of the game
3. An admission requirement

Sound vaguely familiar? How does this manifest in your organization? If you have any stories or examples, I'd like to include them in future posts on the topic.

(What's an Insulated Decider? You have to ask?)

[update: forgot to include the request for stories]