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Explaining Corporate Culture Through "The Office"
Writing in the ribbonfarm.com blog, Venkatesh Rao uses The Office to explain and illustrate a theory of management he calls the Gervais Principle (after the TV series's creator). Taking off from Hugh MacLeod's cartoon laying out a corporate hierarchy in layers of Sociopaths, the Clueless, and Losers, Rao riffs on and updates the Peter Principle, in these terms: "Sociopaths, in their own best interests, knowingly promote over-performing losers into [clueless] middle-management, groom under-performing losers into sociopaths, and leave the average bare-minimum-effort losers to fend for themselves." Don't know about you, but this analysis suddenly makes sense of much that mystified me in my sojourn in corporate America.
That makes better sense for slashdotters.
/I believe you have my stapler.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Where I work a sure fire way to get promoted is to do exactly what your boss says, no matter how stupid or badly thought out. The boss is alwaye right.
The result is that middle management is crammed with hyper reactive former engineers who jump from task to task on a seconds notice and literally cringe when the phone rings.
The final result is that out product line is a mess of modules built with incompatible tool chains, and our actual code is a mess of short term hacks.
Fuck.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Any bureaucracy. Government as well.
Sadly, all are lofty goals eventually come down to a sociopathic bureaucrat acting solely to benefit himself.
Perhaps I'm oversimplifying, but I've always had a slightly different view of corporate culture...especially at the very top. I is easily summed up thus: Whether the water is salty or fresh, shit floats to the top.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
But this article is like using Startrek to explain scientific principles and a reference for first contact. And we could even call it the "Kirk principle".
The force is not with you and you are not a jedi.
It took me two years to realise that this was a deliberate boss strategy by a clueless middle manager who was overpromoted, and was using it to freak out his underlings. More usually the multi-personality boss has only two personalities, the before lunch and the after lunch, resulting from a lunchtime session with his or her personal psychoanalyst (Dr. Jack Daniels).
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Sociopath's aren't necessarily a bad thing. They'll do whatever they have to for their benefit. If their benefit happens to benefit the company, SYNERGY! Symbiosis. Everyone's happy, capitalism works.
It works out, because even if some leeches find a way to benefit from what is disadvantageous to the company, there's someone higher-up who more directly benefits from the success of the company, and will either push the leeches in the right direction, or throw them out. The system works.
It only falls apart when the company is big enough that leeches go unnoticed higher up the chain.
I must admit that the corporate world is slowly turning me into a sociopath as well. I have lots of things that need to get done, diplomacy takes forever, and the brutally honest (naive) approach gets you in trouble. So, whatever simple tricks will get things going, in the direction they need to go, are fair game.
Yes, it takes a special balance of pathologies to make someone a manager, and when dealing with them, the only way to go is at least slightly dishonest manipulation. The standard forms of motivation that work with normal human beings just don't work with the collection of neuroses that coalesces into the form of a manager.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
IIRC, the Kirk principle was to kill it if it was male and f*ck it if it was female. At least in the early Trks.
The three categories are pretty much the occupants of the A, B and C arks. Cue the mutant space goat.
Sounds suspicious to me - more like the same "this can't be my fault, its [my parent|my spouse|society]'s fault" bullshit.
So what makes anyone think that this sort of behaviour is confined to the corporate world? Just consider academia. I mean, if there wasn't exactly the same kind of thing going on there, there would be no PhD Comics (a.k.a. "Dilbert for Academics"), right?
A.
A very similar theory was outlined in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. There, a planet was in apparent danger. The population was to be evacuated to a new planet in three ships. The first ship would contain the leaders, the third ship would contain the workers and artists. The second ship, the B ark containing amongst others hairdressers, tired T.V. producers, and insurance salesmen, personnel officers, was encountered by Arthur and Ford en route to a new planet.
The B ark left first to make sure the population would be comfortably received on the new planet. The other two arks never followed.
transcript
DNA is the ultimate spaghetti code.
WHAT?
I had a sig, but
...and become a manager. It's hard work with lots of moving parts that need to keep spinning and lots of things that need to be done by this or that timeline. My team members respect me and do as I ask because I'm not full of shit.
But when I reflect on managers that I've had, a significant number have been seriously mentally ill. I refused to work for one recently when I realised he was paranoid schizophrenic (and I know what I'm talking about on that one).
Those managers appear to have been chosen because of their mental illness which makes them unable to empathize with their underlings and spend most of their time in controlfreakery or worse to keep the people below off balance and never know whats going on.
Not too many sociopaths but plenty of managers with schizophrenic spectrum type disorders.
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
Any hierarchical form of government has these problems. What we need is democracy, not more management buzzwords. The problem is that in hierarchy, people have power over each other, thus don't trust each other, and this inhibits free flow of information and makes all sorts of games possible.
I recommend a good book http://www.amazon.com/Maverick-Success-Behind-Unusual-Workplace/dp/0446670553/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255506737&sr=8-1 which explains this by nice example.
I'm going to invent a theory about soldiers and armies and stuff. I'll do it by watching "Band of Brothers" and "Saving Private Ryan".
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Every time I read this sort of stuff, or watch The Office, or read Dilbert, I'm glad I've never worked for a company with over 20 employees.
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
Interesting how easy it is to classify (former) colleagues as sociopath, clueless or loser, yet how this gets harder to do on ourselves.
Not everywhere is like Dilbert, but everyone has known PHBs and know how destructive they can be. But I'm not one of them.
I would definitely not suggest you're a PHB, you sound like a good team leader. It is however very rare for a group of people to all have the same opinion; which is exactly why a 360 is so damn interesting.
Late show corporate governance pyramid.
- Socio-sexualo-path alpha leader
--- Sexually committed middle management
----- Sexually aspiring upper staffers
------- Non-yet-sexually acquainted lower staff
Don't attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence.
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity" -Hanlon's razor
"When you have two competing theories that make exactly the same predictions, the simpler one is the better." -Occam's razor
Exactly right. As the SNAFU principle states, true communication is possible only between equals. If someone has power over another in an organization, the subordinate would rather tell his/her superior pleasant lies rather than the truth, for fear of being shot as the messenger of bad news. There's a famous story that illustrates this quite well:
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
Gervais was not just the creator of The Office but also played the role of David Brent.
who thinks "corporate culture" is an oxymoron?
It's too much like being back at work. No thanks.
It's all whinging that passes off as entertainment in the "Office." Quit whining and be your own boss.
I think therefore I can't be ~TTNH
The problem is education.
For those that understand the American college/university system. How many of you remember that student that binged drank all weekend was a master at getting and reviewing test from the year before, but actual knowledge of anything was superficial at best. Basically skated through college.
Well, these people are out in the wild now. And they need jobs. They are not qualified to do anything technical. But they aren't necessarily stupid either - just lazy. They are learning on the job. The ones that are actually have a brain will eventually figure out what works for them. They will lather-rinse-repeat.
About all you can hope for is that the people in the company will focus on their jobs and just their jobs. The CEO keeps the financial ship afloat. The marketing / business development people stick with trying to figure out what the customer wants (and stop telling me to add "USB" without telling me what for ) and engineers design the best products they can with the given resources.
If you ever want to see clueless, go talk to your HR department about insurance options. At best, they can tell you which one theoretically costs the company less.
BTW. If you're disappointing now, wait to you figure out what "executive compensation" is.
Series like the Office and books like the Peter Principle makes "the sour pill go down". By that I mean that it gives the average guy a safety vent for frustration and irritation created by random acts of management as well as corporate cruel and unusual operations. It basically lubricates the workforce, and while they think they are part of a large group ridiculing management and the corporate culture, the end effect of this effort is not change or revolution, but, au contraire, submission, acceptance and cooperation.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
Lately in the US we've been obsessed with cultivating as large of an electorate as possible, no matter how ignorant (see MTV's Rock the Vote campaign for but one example), when what the founders intended was for a small but representative educated electorate - the kind of people who usually have a stake in the legislation at hand. That is why only property owners were originally allowed to vote. But once again the liberal concept of compassion has provided an unintended avenue of weakness and has lead to all manner of idiotic decisions in the name of compassion.
"I place economy among the first and important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our choice between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and in our comforts, in our labors and in our amusements. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy."
-Thomas Jefferson
Wow, I was ready to write this off as retarded, but it has an absurd amount of merit and I am thoroughly impressed.
I definitely see a lot of this happening in the work place, and it makes a lot of fucking sense. This definitely requires more research and thought, I know it will take a while for these ideas to sink in, before I have a better grasp of it. I am not sure yet exactly how this understanding can be exploited, as it seems to be more of a free market (or as it says Darwainism) approach to the organizational environment. I would be interested to see an analysis using this framework on how organizations with aggressive cultures with high burn out rates, are instinctively using this principle to cut out the clueless and possibly the over performing losers. Not that I am abdicating that such aggressive cultures are right for all organizations.
Under this classification, I'd be an under performing loser cum sociopath.
My background:
Dip. Programming
BEcon & BFin
MBA
CFA
This is my footer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Honestly, what good does labeling folks do? If you want to help matters, identify the behaviors that don't work, but name-calling, while perhaps cathartic to some, doesn't engender any sort of helpful solutions to the problems that management has with communication and leadership. Of course that's probably not the intent. The truth is that most problems in management are equally shared by subordinants (at ALL LEVELS of a hierarchy) because no one knows how to effectively communicate problems without fear of how those problems will affect #1... Often because of ranking systems and fears of negative impacts on performance evaluations folks have nothing to say, and so it just gets passed along. And it turns out that management isn't trivial, especially the further removed one gets from the actual products a company delivers, so that's when they need more frank and open communication, but ironically they get less of it.
http://www.beanleafpress.com
This is a really, really good blog post. Really made me think.
To understand the essay, you have to separate yourself from the culture stigma of the word "loser" to grok that he is not talking about "living-in-your-parents-basement" losers, he is talking about a defined category of person who is in a position where they are being taken advantage of by the company, and know it. Basically, any worker in America.
Here's where it gets interesting. Venkat talks about enlightened losers becoming slackers. I immediately thought of the anecdote about underperforming elementary school kids. Are they underperforming because they are not that bright? Or is it because they are not being challenged enough, are bored, and need to be promoted to the gifted class? This all ties back to the management lesson of challenging your people.
Here is where Venkat, I think, makes one error. He bases the categorization of slacker losers upon the fact that they are not being paid well enough for their talent. But not all workers look at their paycheck as their only form of payment. Many people here on slashdot would perhaps be happy with a smaller paycheck if it was an awesome working environment where they could be challenged every day to do cool, neat things and write lots of code.
In any case, great reading.
"You cannot find out which view is the right one by science in the ordinary sense." - C.S. Lewis on Intelligent Design
When I read this post I've recalled some texts from Christophe Dejours. He is a french scholar who has some very interesting and deep books about this subject. I suspect he is virtually unknown to american readers. Give him a try.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christophe_Dejours
Interesting in light of the fact that the only people that I actually see pin up Dilbert cartoons outside their cube are managers. I'd think, if white people can't use the N-word, then managers shouldn't be able to use Dilbert cartoons. But what you say rings true to me.
I also think that's the reason the 1st amendment enjoys the strong protection that it does in America, while the rest of the constitution gets continually crapped on. The iron fisted Hitlers and Stalins of the world have short lived reigns. But if you can convince people they have a say in what happens to them (even if they have no influence), then they'll put up with almost anything.
Very well. My acquaintance is over there. His name is Bill.
You may be right but there comes a time when even the best controls slip.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
parent is worth modding up. armchair activism should be getting far more attention in this light than it actually is.
the revolution will not be tweeted.
the services we enjoy to promote 'anti-' activities will not stick around to assist us when the owners of such systems will not be benefitting from the outcome.
The workers are too afraid for their jobs to pin up Dilbert. It would be seen as insubordination.
Uh, "if it looks roughly mouse-shaped according to my infra-red sensitive pit, eat it"? --Chris Burke 09-08-10
At the root of all of this bullshit is the selfish desire for more of something than anyone else has, to one-up, to compete, to p0wn, exploit, to have and wield power over others.
I seriously think we need to rig society in such a way that selfishness is effectively disadvantaged. We can start with a money-free economy, that'll remove 95% of the sociopathy discussed here. People can go back to doing what they do for love of craft rather than love or need for money.
Someone here mentioned that no matter what happens in the management levels, the bottom levels keep the company operating and moving forward. Perhaps we need to remove the management levels in order to improve efficiency. If a company can operate without managers, and I bet it can, then so can all levels of society and civilization.
I sort of agree and sort of don't. If people try to change the situation radically without having a good handle on the problem I think that the situation is just likely to repeat itself with different people on top, like Animal Farm.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
So you can regret that (metaphorically, I am still talking about organizations), the bluebird and the butterfly become extinct while the starling, rat and cockroach thrive. But you are going up against a natural law here. Saying "somebody should do something about it" doesn't get you anywhere.
In group behavior: 'because they're evil/morons/sheep/crazy' is not 'insightful' it's 'oversimplified'
To this day I'm convinced that the problem with corporate culture in the West is that people with business majors are running companies. The rationale seems to be if you majored in business, economics, etc that somehow you have a more intimate understanding of business and are better equipped to manage a business. The thing is how many people actually get into this field because they're passionate about it and how many do it simply because they believe it's the easiest way to land a job? I'd wager the vast majority of people are in the latter category. How many of these people chose a business major because there was nothing else they were interested in but felt they had to go to college to land an acceptable job? They probably should have taken a trade but that, apparently, is beneath most people nowadays.
So you've got these passionless, ignorant (regarding the nature of the business where they work), drones who manage to climb up the corporate ladder by virtue of their degree. The people who actually have the skill and perform the work (engineers, programmers, designers, etc) have more of a tendency to get stuck because they're perceived as most valuable in the position they're currently occupying. And of course, it's human nature to protect yourself once you're in a position of authority. And interesting contrast to this are government workers who rarely have to worry about job security and for that reason could care less about the job they do.
Needless to say, not everyone is equipped to manage. Everyone says they want to be a manager simply because of the prospect of earning more money but when it comes down to it they're not willing to deal with the stress and responsibilities the job demands. Although, larger companies seem to come up with all kinds of fluff titles in order to give their employees the illusion that they're progressing. But if there were more technical people in high level positions I believe we'd be seeing better American products, less outsourcing and more efficiency. It wouldn't solve everything, because we're still dealing with humans, but it would help.
I think Asia is a good reflection of this. Engineers and designers routinely are the people running companies. Business majors end up in marketing, sales and accounting, where they belong. So you've got people with more intimate understanding of the nature of their company's business. However, managers in Asia can be brutal in a way Westerners can't imagine and in a way they couldn't even get away with here. They're extremely demanding and can be openly insulting towards their employees. They routinely resort to name-calling. I've had friends who have had papers thrown in their face because their manager was unhappy with something they had done. I've heard of people getting slapped, although that's very rare and nowadays people are more likely to take legal action. But this sort of thing happens everywhere, Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc. Although it's likely worse in places like China.
Certainly, there's a level of elitism there. I have a friend who started his own company a few years ago and is tough on everyone who works with him. I have another friend who stopped working with him because she couldn't stand his tyrannical attitude. He's even rough with his own wife when it comes to work. But I've seen that level of demanding expectations from him even when it comes to service from a waiter in a restaurant or a hotel employee. Whatever problems he may have, I can't deny that he doesn't produce high quality work.
Americans are pretty bad about having pride in anything. And I've noticed this tendency to blame someone else for their own problems in order to justify their own shortcomings. Experience crap service at a store and what is the excuse the employee will give? They don't earn enough to care or their manager is a jerk. That's not an excuse. But they've all got this entitlement mentality and don't value quality. And with employees like that why should a manager care about anything but t
Mod internet tough parent up.
things like The Office and Office Space are more documentaries than comedies to her.
She's doomed to worked with a group of drama queens in her line of work.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
> Sadly, all are lofty goals eventually come down to a sociopathic bureaucrat acting solely to benefit himself.
Just be sure to remember that when the bureaucrats installed by ObamaCare are making life and death decisions over you...
, and while they think they are part of a large group ridiculing management and the corporate culture, the end effect of this effort is not change or revolution, but, au contraire, submission, acceptance and cooperation.
I don't think this article was written to try and induce change at all. I think the intent of the author was to explain the way things are, and I don't think he thinks he's part of a ridiculing group. It is true, though, that by explaining the way things are, he is probably helping lubricate the workforce, which may be a by-product and not an intent of his post.
That happens regularly in the United States already. Every 4 years, in fact.
I love to use Hanlon's razor here at work, but I'm afraid that if I ask a simple question ... Are you evil or just an idiot ... I'd get into trouble. The problem is, I need to know what I'm dealing with so I can route around it properly.
The problem is, that if you try to route around idiocy as if it is malice, you end up looking like a class 1 Asshole. While conversely if you try to route around malice as if it were idiocy, you end up looking like a moron.
The problem is, either way, certain people are failing at their jobs, either by malice or by idiocy, and there is nothing one can do. So, I just do my job, the best I can and go home at night and don't give a shit about life at work when I'm not there.
Yes, I'm aware people think the same thing of me. I just don't give a shit, which also masks itself as either malice or stupidity most of the time, which is something Hanlon's razor doesn't really account for.
I call it Archangel's corollary to Hanlon's Razor.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Even for money.
You sure that this is not just rationalizations? Calling top management all psychopaths seems bitter. There is randomness in the markets, you know. It is entirely possible that they are all randomly promoted and then after that, due to their 17 million dollar pay cheque, we all feel bitter.
It's sort of like how we make fun of professional athletes for being stupid when they get the girl and they win the tour de france -- it's just jealousy.
I agree that things are never perfect and the wrong people get promoted, but if they weren't getting paid 17 million dollars a year would they be sociopaths? Or would we have another name for them -- less insulting?
In terms of discourse, these forms seem very dangerous, totally inaccurate, and an appeal to emotion.
Sociopathy may look like a 'disease' but it's really a condition, and it's not 'curable'. Only the behavior can be modified, often with conditional behavioral therapy/CBT. But the sociopath usually doesn't see the errors and is unmotivated to want to modify their behavior.
Sociopaths can become "compensated" in several ways, replacing the missing conscience with something else in order to behave in ways that don't get them ostracized, imprisoned, murdered, or executed. Focusing on limited targets, for instance, could lead to a successful career in sales.
One common compensation is to become "rule-bound": Internalizing a moral or legal code and following it closely. This can lead to acceptable behavior. (But interacting with a rule-bound sociopath can be hazardous because if you don't follow HIS particular rule set he may identify you as a villain and causing you harm may become permitted - or even required - by his rules.)
One of the most effective compensations is to learn Objectivism. (Teaching it is just about the ONLY prison-based reform program that leads to a dramatic reduction in recidivism.) It is an internally consistent argument deriving the non-aggression principle from pure self interest (and explicitly rejecting altruism). Sociopathy/Psychopathy is not particularly correlated with intelligence, which means there are a lot of smart ones. So they need something they can believe in to show them what's in it for them to treat others fairly and forgo the pleasure of a successful attack or looting.
(It's interesting to watch the interaction of Objectivists (many of whom are compensated psychopaths) with other libertarian sorts. The Objectivists believe they have the one true way to be free and are constantly offended by the decisions made by the others - but required by their own rules to let the others behave in these "wrong-but-non-aggressive" behaviors. B-) )
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Yes, with this level of incompetence, it's a wonder that any corporation or government entity is able to run anything.
At least a bureaucrat can't pocket the money you paid him by denying you the healthcare. Insurance executive can -- actually this is the only way for him to get paid in the first place.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
The worst part of it is, you are right, unfortunately. I've seen way, Way, WAY too much/too many of what you've said in your statement, & in mgt. in this "art & science"/field of computing @ least (as well as other levels in companies).
In fact - It's a big part of the "why" of why I decided to contract out my services many times, rather than being a 'full-time employee'...
(E.G.-> Over the course of my life, 45 yrs. now almost? I've just seen TOO many folks get screwed out of pensions & benefits, often with them being fired JUST before they're about to 'get there' - &, I mean the type of people that ACTUALLY GET THINGS DONE, whereas the 'fakes in mgt.' (& I am being NICE stating that), keep their jobs no matter what (or, is "offshoring" putting many thousands of engineers & techs out of a job a fantasy? I don't think so - it IS, a harsh reality!).
That alone had put a "BAD taste in my mouth", because I didn't like what I saw.
I do look @ the example of others & think to myself "We're all the same to the 'MBA fakes'" & I am not 'better' than these folks were (I am just a human being who is a "working class stooge" trying to eke out a life, like most of us I figure).
Those self-same "MBA Fakes" (sociopaths as most of you are calling them)? They are the way you all describe, & the WORST part is, @ least coming from a Comp. Sci. CSC/CIS/MIS view of IT/IS/MIS?? Imo @ least - they do NOT belong leading men who do a technical job, if they have not done it themselves, for @ least 5++ yrs., hands-on "in the trenches" & having been promoted to the post of managerial roles then, only.
You don't see much of that, unfortunately (AMD is an exception lately - afaik, their CEO is a "true geek" & they do well enough, even vs. a leviathan/titan like INTEL is) & then you had "King Billy" of MS - a "geek @ heart" imo, & yes, also a businessman too (people can be good @ more than 1 thing @ times & he clearly is, as there is little arguing w/ his results).
Guys of THAT nature/calibre? Few & FAR between. You can't find them growing on trees, so the next "equitable substitute" is what you often end up with: These "MBA FAKE" Sociopath types, as I call them!
(AND, yes - "Strangely enough" here? I possess a FULL Bachelors of Science in Mgt. from a highly respected college, & an A.S. in Comp. Sci. to top it off (the latter 2 yr. degree imo, is worth a LOT more in terms of what you learn, imo @ least, vs. the former business degree (with MIS minor)).
I've been @ this lunacy for the past nearly 16 yrs. now in the trenches, along with finishing my schooling in that timeframe on the CSC degree, because my plan was to move up to mgt. but, only after I had DONE THE JOB "MY BOYS/TROOPS" will be doing... Why?
Well - Just so I UNDERSTAND THEM, as people, first (via knowing their tasks & struggles) as well as the tech involved to a GOOD solid degree (so I can aid in my ability in making better decisions, with advisement considered by underlings, IF it is valid for THE COMPANY more than anything (I figure it this way - IF the company is strong? SO AM I & so will my 'troops' beneath me be as well). Lastly, IF NEED BE? IF "deadline looms" too close? Well, because I've done coding/network admin-tech tasks too, & analyst roles?? I can be another "working set of hands" IF need be to make said deadline.
(I did this "longer road not usually taken", also, so they that type of guy respects me more, in that I 'grew from w/in the ranks' so-to-speak, & not from being related to the top shareholder, or because I have an MBA only & knew the right people there & "joined a power clique" looking to further consolidate it's own powerbase & gains (@ the expense of others, & yes, the company too).
The types you guys are bitching about? THEY ARE THE PROBLEM WITH THIS NATION (USA), imo & strongly that. The truly terrible part is, they are NOT doing a good job, because after all? All I have to say is what