The folly of organization, part II

Author’s note:

This was not supposed to take this long (part I being published two three months ago) and for that I apologize. I intended to finish this before heading off to Burning Man but I wasn’t satisfied with this piece at that time. I have also strained to take a not-so-bleak perspective here to contrast the rather fatalistic tone of the preceding piece (and the Foundation of Human Organization before that); that has proven to be quite a challenge.

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Aldous Huxley, amongst his many good words, said the two following things:

“So long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons, Caesars and Napoleons will duly rise and make them miserable.”

and

“The greater part of the population is not very intelligent, dreads responsibility, and desires nothing better than to be told what to do. Provided the rulers do not interfere with its material comforts and its cherished beliefs, it is perfectly happy to let itself be ruled.”

We organize as a basic part of our social nature, and that organization reaches a summit in that organization we call government. We accept dysfunction in organizations (particularly government) due to the two observations made above - the leaders we call forth, and our indifference to what they do (up to a point). At this top level this is really just the reductio ad absurdum of the same behavior at smaller scales (and with typically less dreadful consequences).

The differences come in how those who are led (the majority of us) respond to success¹ or failure of the leadership, and structurally, how we are connected. Per Huxley (and Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence²), we can be very ambivalent to leadership as long as that leadership doesn’t impinge too much on us. It doesn’t even matter if that impingement is deliberate or due to incompetence, it is the degree that matters. Create enough discontent and not only may your own rule come to an end, but the entire apparatus of governance may be overthrown. The unfortunate thing about overthrowing governments is that they so rarely end up making life for the masses better. Even the American Revolution, which is probably the best case scenario, arguably failed (given that the Civil War would be necessary to resolve one great dispute).

There are four A’s I’m going to spend the rest of this essay on: Autonomy, Authority, Accountability and Apathy. These are the keys to organizational dynamics and how badly an organization will tend to suffer dysfunction.

Autonomy is the ability of individuals to join, and more importantly, exit organizations.

Authority is the control exerted over members by leadership.

Accountability is the mechanism for membership to have control over leadership.

Apathy is the tendency of the membership to be indifferent to the behavior of leadership.

Autonomy

This is our own internal decision making function, and typically we will make a decision to join an organization. Some amount of autonomy is always sacrificed by accepting membership in an organization; that is what it means to follow the leadership of the organization when they decide a course of action. It may not be what we would choose ourselves, but it is part and parcel of being a member. The question of autonomy becomes stickier when we talk of organizations into which we are born, e.g. government (nation-state in particular). This is best understood in the context of deciding to exit an organization. Under most human organizations, exit is always an option; it is the cost/consequences of exit (for the individual member) that constrains the use of that option. Moving from one church to another has far less cost than leaving the faith altogether (where the worst of the cost may be deferred to the afterlife). Leaving one country for another requires at least the permission of the gaining country - so there are legal barriers and economic costs over and above the disjuncture of family and social ties. All of that weighs in the balance of that act of autonomy.

There is an unfortunate and unavoidable aspect of autonomy that causes people to look to others for decision-making - that is the responsibility for the consequences of the decision made. This goes to my second quote from Huxley above, as well as Hoffer’s view on the masses (in The True Believer), and to why we submit to authority in general. Doing so absolves us, within our minds at least, from responsibility - particularly shielding ourselves (somewhat vainly) from the negative outcomes. We can say, again if only to ourselves, well - that wasn’t what I would have chosen. You no doubt will note how that can lead to “we were only following orders”.

Authority

Authority is the ability of leadership in an organization to actually make the organization function. Absent all authority, there is no organization. Authority can be minimal, but it must exist for a group to be organized. It can be vested directly in people or in institutions (which are still people of course but they act within the constraints of that organization). Authority is always granted by the membership, even under charismatic leadership; authority over an organization that has been abandoned by its members is an empty thing. As discussed previously, those who desire leadership tend to be of a different character (and motivation) than those who do not, so there will always be a divide between leadership and membership beyond the mere exercise of authority.

Members abide by, and implement, the decisions from the leadership. Doing so is part of the sacrifice of autonomy they make to be members. This may be as trivial as following a coach’s instructions in some team game to the extreme of a soldier executing the orders from his chain of command at the risk of his life.

A significant element of authority is the concomitant status of being a leader - those who want leadership crave that status. This goes to the first Huxley quote above - that when we (the membership - or citizens more directly) venerate leaders, we will have visited upon us leaders seeking veneration. The only way out of that trap is for the masses to resist that kind of worship; the problem with that is the masses are all too inclined to provide exactly that.

Accountability

This is the tool the membership can use to keep authority in check and if given the opportunity, leadership will weaken accountability. High levels of authority ideally will have high levels of accountability built into the structure of the organization. Nothing is more toxic than lack of accountability in a high authority organization (and this is best exemplified in deeply calcified bureaucracy).

In small scale, less formal organizations, accountability can be enforced by group member exit. This can vary from the quiet loss of a few members to the raucous near total abandonment of the organization³. This can happen because the cost of exit is low, and substitute organizations are easily joined. The threat of the exit of members may induce a change in leadership, either via new face(s) or a commitment to behave differently from the current leader(s). This ability to exit is rooted in individual autonomy - the will of the person to do so. This does not mean an exit decision is always an easy one, but, so long as it resides in the individual member within the organization, autonomy is not entirely subsumed and accountability can be sustained.

The larger the organization, the more challenging it is to maintain accountability, both due to the nature of bureaucratization (which characterizes large organizations) and the dilution of membership autonomy.

Apathy

This is the tendency of the membership that weakens accountability, though it can also weaken the organization as a whole. At the national level this is the second Huxley quote in action, but there is a twist there - apathy politically can be a sign of contentment with the status quo not necessarily ignorance or negligence on the part of the electorate.

Individuals are typically members of many organizations, and it isn’t tenable for them to be deeply committed to all of them equally, so apathy is bound to characterize their relationship to one or more. When concern isn’t demanded, say due to dissatisfaction with leadership, apathy isn’t necessarily bad.

The problem comes when apathy leads to disengagement and disillusionment with the organization and its mission. When an organization is foundering is the time when the membership most needs to demand accountability from leadership and challenge authority as it is being exercised.

Conclusion

The health of any organization is all in the interplay of these four elements and of course the size of the organization itself. Layers of organizations within organizations (as say with government) adds complexity and may require a degree of abstraction (as with government, the people are always the ultimate ‘members’ even when considered as citizens at the various political subdivisions, and nation as a whole).

It does require the individual to be aware of all of this, and we tend to not want to do that or at the very least to do so only as much as we deem absolutely necessary. That is ultimately the hardest part - that there isn’t an easy solution, and we are almost always seduced by the promise of one⁴.

1. This is obviously a loose use of the word. Success can mean simply not screwing up so badly as to cause a revolt.

2. “and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”

3. Rest assured, there will always be some people that will continue to support bad leadership, generally because it has benefited themselves in some way.

4. Writing a fatalistic piece is also much easier - ‘this is simply what we are doomed to live’ kind of thing. Even getting to this conclusion has been a challenge - because it doesn’t offer a very satisfying answer, either in the positive or negative.