The Mimicry Trap.Toxic norms are sticky. Don’t wear them.
- Cécile Bastien Remy
- 4 days ago
- 2 min read
One Insight
Cultures teach without speaking. If the room runs on adrenaline, you will inhale it. If the calendar rewards martyrdom, you will bleed into it. Mimicry buys you membership at a high interest rate: Sanity.
You start copying because you want to belong. You keep copyingbecause you think it’s required. Before long, you’re praising behaviors you’d never hire for and tolerating standards you’d never defend.
Refusing to mimic is not rebellion. It’s data. It is the signal that a norm is misaligned with the results you say you want. The leader who mirrors toxic habits reinforces them. The leader who stops mirroring offers a fresh start.
The Story: First job in Paris
My first Paris job was an engine of panic. Seventy-hour weeks. Forty-hour pay. “Fresh” faces in the morning and puffy eyes in the restroom. We were smart people behaving like frightened ones. I copied everything: the late-night emails, the brittle jokes, the silence when someone crossed a line.
Sleep vanished. My voice shrank. “Burnout” wasn’t a word yet, but the body doesn’t wait for vocabulary. It tells the truth. Mine did.
One Friday, at six in the evening, I was packed for a train. My boss dropped a mountain of invoices on my desk and demanded overnight numbers.
Months of mimicry cracked. I said no, left, and fully expected to be fired on Monday. That rupture didn’t make me a hero. It made me honest. And honesty changed the room.
One Tool: Norm Check Script
Before you copy a behavior, run three quick questions:
What’s our standard? Write it down. If no one can say it in one sentence, you are not serving a standard, you are serving habits.
What’s the impact? On customers (quality, speed), on people (sleep, trust), on results (profit, risk). If the norm taxes the very things you need, you’ve located the bottleneck.
What’s my boundary? Express it before you cross it. Boundaries are easier to respect when they are visible.
Now speak in a calm sequence:
“Here’s the standard I’m seeing. Here’s the cost. Here’s my boundary and a better way.”
Examples:
“Urgent by default is making us sloppy. My boundary: no midnight emails unless a customer is impacted. Better way: define real ‘Priority 1’ criteria.”
“Slide avalanche is hiding the message. My boundary: three-slide deck for Friday updates. Better way: one-page memo + three visuals.”
Make it stick:
Put the new norm on paper. Share it. Ask for feedback in one week. If people backslide, don’t moralize, instead: restate. Culture repeats what leaders reinforce.
Try it this week
Choose one harmful behavior you’re mimicking. Replace it with a clearrule. Tell your team why. Then live it for 14 days. You’ll be amazed how many people were waiting for permission to stop pretending.
Et Voilà!
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