I was at a construction site the other day and noticed something quite peculiar: One of the workers there, was trying to insert a square wooden peg, into a round metal hole. Setting aside the lunacy of the act, I kept observing the said worker with the corner of my eye while I was talking to the project manager.
After several attempts to insert the peg by kicking it, he gave up. And just as I was thinking “Well, so much for that!” he returned with a sledgehammer! He was hammering the peg with such force, that even if I wasn’t watching him, I would have definitely felt the vibrations on the ground below my feet!
And so, after a few minutes under immense pressure, the square peg gave way and started entering the round hole!
I find this experience to be a great analogy to another situation that I had encountered not too long ago: A friend had changed job and although he loved his new role, he found the culture of the place to not be to his liking. He even went so far as to call some of his colleagues “unethical.” But the worse thing for him as he described it, was that as long as he was in the office, he caught himself behaving more and more like his new colleagues, even though he disagreed in principle, on many things with them.
We all experience normative pressure in all facets of our lives. Sometimes, we don’t even realize it.
But if you do catch yourself changing your behavior to an extent that you find to be incompatible to your principles, there’s only one remedy and that is to leave the environment that is affecting you. You can stay and fight to change the culture of course if you feel like it, but you have to understand that your chances of winning this battle are tiny. Because, just like with the square peg, chances are that when you are put under too much pressure, you will give in and get into a round hole. And the material that will be “left out” of the hole in the process, will be your principles. Are you ready to change them?