To get any value from this post you really have to go and read the wonderful article by Venkatesh Rao The Gervais Principle, Or The Office According to “The Office”.

It was possibly one of the best articles written last year, and certainly one of the two best things I have ever read on the disease of organisations (not that this article or the other one were actually about that).

He links his theory to the TV series “The Office”, though it doesn’t have any direct connection to that; it’s just that that is where he saw the clearest examples (another example of satire being truer than reality).

A very basic summary is:

Sociopaths, in their own best interests, knowingly promote over-performing losers into middle-management, groom under-performing losers into sociopaths, and leave the average bare-minimum-effort losers to fend for themselves.

My random notes follow. This article might be edited in the future as I think of more things.

Sociopaths

• naturally distrust group thought/morality
• emphasis on independent thinking
• risk friendly
• manage the big picture

Clueless

• self-deceitful rationalisers
• believe in the group/organisation
• value the opinions and beliefs of others
• risk averse
• manage the people directly below them

Losers

• follow the group/organisation without believing in it
• have accepted their inability to affect change
• are the people who actually produce things

The people reading this will be Losers. Sociopaths have better things to be doing, and the Clueless will react very badly to material such as this. It breaks their suspension of disbelief, and they will have to either attack it, or ignore the bulk of it’s content.

An example of a Clueless reading the article and having to deliberately miss the point is highlighted in the first comment under this post

Organisational Life-cycle

Looking at the classic organisation life-cycle:

• Experimental startup
• Growth into productive startup
• Growth into small business
• Growth into Beaurocracy
• Death (merger, acquisition, bankruptcy, etc)

Start-ups are started by sociopaths (almost necessarily so). As they start to move into a profitable phase they need to hire losers, the only ones who actually produce anything. By definition, if you are producing something on the orders of someone else, that they are being paid for you to make, you are a loser. You are not getting the best value for your time. (This is the point that Marx went all ape-shit over. He didn’t notice the fact that the Losers/Proletariat can’t make things for themselves because they can’t think for themselves what to make. In this way, they are getting the best value for their time, because they can’t do any better. It just wouldn’t be the best value for other people’s time).

As the company grows, the number of Losers grows. The Sociopaths can’t manage them all. The projects are bedded in by now so they hire, or promote, the Clueless to be a safe pair of hands to keep things ticking over.

In order to be able to live with themselves (they are neither producing anything of value nor in a position of power) the Clueless have to deceive themselves that they are important. They convince themselves that what they do is worth while, and that more people like them are needed.

The levels of Clueless swell as the company grows until they are pushing out the Sociopaths at the top. This is when the company becomes a beaurocratic behemoth that the world at large ridicules. This is when you start to see the death throes of the company, and when outsiders start questioning how the company manages to keep going.

Soon after the company hopefully dies. Either through plain old bankruptcy or by being bought, merged etc. Sometimes however, this doesn’t happen. Many public sector institutions can’t die. The Civil Service, the NHS or the BBC can’t go bankrupt, can’t be bought, and can’t really be got rid of. Hence they spend a long time in their death throes. In this case the Clueless act as a parasite in an immortal host.

Hardworking, Lazy, Stupid or Clever

From Wikipedia:

As Chief of the Army High Command, Hammerstein-Equord oversaw the composition of the German manual on military unit command (Truppenführung), dated 17 October 1933. He originated a special classification scheme for his officers:

I divide my officers into four classes; the clever, the lazy, the industrious, and the stupid. Most often two of these qualities come together. The officers who are clever and industrious are fitted for the highest staff appointments. Those who are stupid and lazy make up around 90% of every army in the world, and they can be used for routine work. The man who is clever and lazy however is for the very highest command; he has the temperament and nerves to deal with all situations. But whoever is stupid and industrious is a menace and must be removed immediately!

I think this breakdown of people works well also. Instead of the stupid/clever axis though, I would be tempted to use something more like self-aware/self-decieving. What we traditionally think of as cleverness doesn’t really come into it.

This lead me to create this diagram:

There was a clear gap in the bottom right, that I filled in with the idea of the Sociopath Loser. The Sociopath Loser has the mistrust of organisations of the Sociopath, but without the ability to “play the game”, and general settles for a role outside the organisation, or plays a Loser, writing articles on what is wrong with organisations in their spare time.

This then lead to create this version of the hierarchy:

Thoughts

The Loser Sociopath, such as a drifter, is distinctly a separate class. This is separate again from the unpromoted Sociopaths, and unpromoted Clueless, who are temporarily amongst the Losers.

This ‘organisation’ is also society at large, where the Clueless and Losers make up society, and the Sociopaths, the leaders, are separate from it. They can’t make decisions on behalf of a society that they are part of. Governments aren’t entirely made up of Sociopaths. A great deal of Clueless have made it into reasonably high government positions, without being leaders or gaining power.

The Clueless could be there to provide a cushion between the Sociopaths and the Losers, or it could be that Sociopaths promote the Clueless as a human shield, or that Sociopaths put the Clueless there to keep things ticking over. The Clueless are risk averse and so wont take stupid risks.

I think the rationalising of Clueless is a key thing. They are in a difficult situation. If they were clear minded and honest with themselves, they would see that they are in a bad situation where they have no power or freedom, and yet don’t have the pride of producing anything. Necessarily the only way they can continue what they are doing is to lie to themselves. I’ve seen this myself many times, where people will go to extraordinary lengths to convince themselves why what they have been told to do is the Right Thing. Quite often they have misunderstood what they have to do, but then go about rationalising the wrong thing.

Personal

I am a Sociopath Loser. I have toyed at the edges of the Clueless and ran away in horror. I have also at times done the classic Unpromoted Sociopath thing of putting in less than the minimum effort; preparing myself for the next thing.

I think almost anyone who has commented on any of the articles is a Sociopath Loser, or maybe a Loser. True Sociopaths have better things to do. Clueless wouldn’t be able to do anything but attack or misunderstand. Losers generally wouldn’t have it in them to understand the article.

Further Reading

A Follow up article that Venkatesh wrote

A weird, but intelligent, response that someone wrote. The comments are well worth reading. I loved the opener “While I do speak PoMo well enough to understand most of what you wrote…”

A good response on how the theory applies in religious organisations, and of how it has already been of genuine use to someone