REPLY Why don't organizations function better? (SD6626)

[SDMAIL Schuette, Wade]

Posted by  "Schuette, Wade" <wschuett at jhsph.edu>

Tom and Jean-Jacques discuss parastism and I'll toss in a few comments.
 
I recall from Artificial Life simulation literature that parasitism is a very 
successful strategy in essentially all virtual worlds, and occurs quite
rapidly.   
 
In organizations it occurs at the top as well as at the bottom, and
corruption is an extreme case that often defies resolution.  This then
is a core problem of all organisms and we might look across the 
spectrum to see what solutions life has come up with.
 
In general employees contribute more than they cost or we should
simply fire them all and we'd make more money.   Firing a random
10% of employees seems to be a popular but ill-advised strategy
for a CEO to look good to stockholders.   In reality, it is quite 
hard to see across several levels, particularly into deep specialized
silos, and grasp at a glance what someone does for a living and how.
 
That said,  while it is important to detect rapidly if an employee 
has problems,  there are far more responses than simply firing them.
Finding out what's wrong and fixing it may help.   Maybe they are
depressed because someone one or two levels above them is 
a parasite, and the real problem is distant from the visible symptoms.
 
So, I'd suggest that expecting a CEO to have superhuman eyes is
impractical, and consider going more with McGreggor's classic "Theory
Y" approach, where "people" are part of "small teams" and the team
can be the detector and the reshaping force, preferably trying to fix
what's wrong when something goes wrong. 
 
If the problem is "at home" and not due to the workplace, maybe that's
where one management option is to be tough and fire such people, 
compounding their problems.  Employee assistance programs might 
come first, as replacing experience is expensive. 
 
Overall, however, as with a "culture of safety", social norms may be the
most powerful way to avoid problems in the first place, with a strong,
polarizing culture of visibility and transparency, and a strong force to 
get rid of people rapidly who prefer the darkness and isolation, whether
they've screwed up yet or not, as they will. 
 
In public health literature, the value of social connectedness is 
enormous in terms of health outcomes from essentially every type
of disease or disorder or accident.  Connected people have a type
of "active strength" architecture and avoid getting into messes in 
the first place with a little help from their friends.  
 
Of course, all that argues that a highly competitive and secret
context, typical of what MBA's seem to prefer, is a dangerous
breeding ground for parasites and corruption. 
 
One last thought.   The human body's immune system has to go around
and look for things that are "not me" and fix them, decisively.  Sometimes,
bad things manage to hide deep inside a bone or next to a metal implant,
where they are hard for the "police" to locate and get to.   Perhaps akin 
to corrupt officials who are too high for most people to get to.  Then what?
 
That may be the role of disconnection-triggered cell suicide (apoptosis) - if 
a cell becomes disconnected from the body, it simply shuts down.  If people
become disconnected from society, they tend to shut down, drop out, or 
commit suicide as well.    Maybe that's an effect, like some drug-effect, that
could be amplified with a culture that puts a very strong emphasis on 
unity, so that dropping out and trying to take advantage of everyone else
becomes massively depressing and the system restores itself without
anyone outside having to detect the problem.   
 
Again, a culture like the USA that prizes "individual freedom" very highly
may have anaphylactic shock at the very suggestion of a strong normative
culture of togetherness and openness.
 
Still, it seems that the "virtues" of individual freedom and lack of 
concern for the fate of others so long as "I have mine" may be cultural
breeding grounds for such parasitism and related failure modes. 
Cultural norms can be very suppressive too, of course -- but so far
I haven't heard a better way of trying to address the problem than 
having extremely good eyes and emulating Jack Welch and firing 
people the moment they mess up -- and that sacrifices experience
and punishes risk-taking, leading to other forms of slow death. 
 
Still, it seems some sort of emergent system effect (aka "culture")
would have to be the way to cope with good cells/people gone bad, and 
the failure-modes of that addressed as part of the solution's hard work. 
Our bodies may be our best example of one way that works.
 
Wade Schuette
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Posted by  "Schuette, Wade" <wschuett at jhsph.edu>
posting date  Fri, 14 Sep 2007 18:06:01 -0400