Sumblog 11: The Standpoint Approach

This week we spoke more about Dorothy Smith, a woman who we met earlier in the semester. This time we learned of her work known as the “Standpoint Approach”. Dorothy saw that “the only way of knowing a socially constructed world is knowing it from within”. I could not agree more with this statement. I think it is important to realize that as thinking beings we are all biased in ways we cannot avoid based on our own personal experiences. We a lot more likely to get a “false reading” of a situation from an outsiders perspective. For example, when a CEO comes into a company for a brief time and makes large accusations based on his or her own perspective they are unlikely to get an understanding of how the company is truly being run. If the same CEO were to try a different tactic, much like on “Undercover Boss”, and disguise oneself as a regular employee, said person would be more likely to experience the reality of how that company was being run. People, in my experience, are likely to change their work ethic when they know someone from corporate is going to be visiting my place of work. We make the place look flawless and do all that is expected of us; however, things are run far from perfection when it is known that we do not have someone coming to inspect. I see Dorothy’s sociology as being applicable today. I think the CEO would also benefit from an experience like this because perhaps they would see why things are not always run smoothly; it comes from reasons such as being understaffed and under-equipped which is out of the control of the employees trying to run the business.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZYvt_pEolo

I choose this clip because clearly there is miscommunication between the worker and the owner of the business. There may have been reasons why the business was being run the way it was, and maybe not, but it is easier to look in from the outside and say “you are doing this wrong, we are shutting the place down.” To me that seems like the easy way out and I think Dorothy would say the Standpoint Approach would be beneficial to business.