First, it makes sense. A teaspoon of wine in a barrel of sewage makes a barrel of sewage. A teaspoon of sewage in a barrel of wine makes a barrel of sewage. This isn't just a snide saying. It applies directly to, say, the safety of drinking water. That obsessive search for what might be wrong has held an evolutionary benefit for millions of years.<p>There's also a social power in it. We claim that we want to lead via inspiration and charisma, and that carrot-driven approach works at the big-picture level, but most people who succeed in business, day to day, get their way by exaggerating the negative consequences of whatever they don't want. "I want X" is to put yourself out there and risk being called a bike-shedder. "The company is fucked if not-X" makes it sound like you're looking out for the group... unless you do it too often. So much of the tension and negativity in corporate life comes from the accumulations of these phony existential risks (and the bad decisions resulting from people, especially at the top, buying into them).<p>(This is not to say that one should directly apply the stick, i.e. be a bully. You don't want that. You want to convince people that there is objective harm to the group, out of your control, that will befall it, if not-X is chosen. If you're the one holding the stick, then you'll be seen as an extortionist dickhead, but invocation of <i>external</i> sticks is quite powerful; see: religion.)<p>Then there's the art of the complain-brag. The best way to diffuse envy of an elevated position is to make it seem like it actually entails a lot of suffering. "I envy you guys on the floor; I just sit in meetings all day." From CEOs to middle managers, people pretend their jobs are unenviable, because it makes the organization more stable that way. But the picture that people end up with is that things are unpleasant from any direction and unlikely to get better. Plenty of people <i>do</i> like their jobs, but they're not allowed to say as much to the plebs. People will tolerate much more inequality if the people above them in the ranks appear not to be enjoying the position.