West of the Wall.

That jaunty little ditty by Toni Fisher referred to the Berlin Wall and the sadness it caused to a city and a country. Erected in 1961, cutting off millions from their friends and family, to this day is part of the psyche of all German people determined for that never to happen again. The "Wall" has often been used in business analogy when talking about security and corporate governance and the protection required for those agendas. The issue of course is the "Wall" was built on cultural ignorance, insensitivity and ultimately ineffective, so we need to be careful in the business usage today. Even after the Berlin Wall came down, we continued the analogies with "Chinese Walls" protecting companies from the evils of sabotage, espionage and the occasional cup of coffee with friends from competing companies.

I lead with the above to show that there are still situations in today's business where companies try to wall their employees from what they see as either competitors or concerns of proprietary and intellectual intelligence being compromised over a cup of java. Do you have friends in competitive companies? Do you have friends that work for companies still ringed in paranoia? Are you really a spy to be avoided? Does your company trust you?

I wonder when companies, with such strict adherence to legacy policies look at hiring new employees, do they do so with a controlling view or do they hire on trust and skill factors? In the business world it should be for the latter, so why brick them in with a wall of insecurity and old thinking. If people really wanted to find out relevant competitive information it can be easily attained with technology available to everyone today. As is often the case, companies from the Americas seem to be the ones most engulfed in their own paranoia, as if they believe all those CIA movies with "our Tom".

People nowadays don't stay in roles as long as they used to and next week those in competition could be working for a partner organisation, which would bring up the question of wether it was now alright to meet for a coffee or lunch? As trite as that may sound, it is often the case and shows up the idiocy of short term thinking. The worse case scenarios entail friends staying at competitive companies for years and years and losing contact because of that walled in thinking.

The egalitarian, inclusive, mateship view we have of our Australian lives, precludes us from ever being involved in a "Wall" environment, unless you include the "Rabbit Proof Fence", so why do people put up with it at the workplace? I have a particular friend this applies to and if neither of us decides to move roles in the next few years we will indeed lose contact and in the great scheme of life, that is a tragedy.

The "Wall" went up almost overnight and cut through the heart of a nation for decades. Even in the small business community we work in, it's hard to imagine we have learned nothing in the meantime.