[HN Gopher] The Gervais Principle, or the Office According to "T...
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The Gervais Principle, or the Office According to "The Office"
(2009)
Author : pmoriarty
Score : 186 points
Date : 2022-10-22 13:30 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ribbonfarm.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ribbonfarm.com)
| mhh__ wrote:
| Don't forget Stephen merchant! (The show is his idea)
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| That company hierarchy pyramid really made me feel depressed.
| Someone list me some CEOs that aren't sociopaths. Is Bezos one?
| Yvon Chouinard, the Patagonia guy definitely isn't it seems like.
| oneoff786 wrote:
| Bezos ignoring Shatner's attempts to explain his profound
| experience going to space in favor of celebrating with alcohol;
| whilst Shatner is standing there as a recovering alcoholic who
| lost his wife due to alcohol related stuff seemed pretty
| sociopathic to me.
| Beltalowda wrote:
| Did Bezos know about Shatner's alcohol problems? I watched
| more Star Trek than most, but I had no idea before this
| comment, and I have even less of an idea about his wife. Not
| everyone is clued up on the latest celebrity gossip.
| FabHK wrote:
| Frankly, at that level he should have competent staff that
| briefed him.
|
| Akin to giving a Chinese guest a watch and white flowers as
| a present - sure, he might not know that it's a faux pas
| [1], but he should have structures in place to prevent
| basic slip-ups.
|
| [1] both associated with death/funeral
| tomrod wrote:
| Since Shatner was Bezos' guest, Bezos should have known.
| While you may not have personally known about it, it has
| been widely reported.
|
| Basic hospitality is important. Most folks are rightfully
| indignant when an interviewing company haven't read their
| resume, while virtually all companies want interviewees to
| have read the company public website.
| synu wrote:
| Realistically he was probably considered something like a
| prop more than anything.
| tomrod wrote:
| Yes, this would be a sociopathic treatment of people.
|
| People are not props.
| oneoff786 wrote:
| Even if he didn't, it was a terribly apathetic behavior
| while shatner tried to reflect on the emotional impact of
| the trip.
| Beltalowda wrote:
| Yeah, I remember seeing the clip on HIGNFY, and he came
| off as a bit of a jerk regardless. Just saying it's not
| necessarily _as bad_ as some people seem to assume it is.
| Swizec wrote:
| Lots of non-sociopath CEOs in the small-medium business scene.
| Go look at the MicroConf crowd some day, bunch of good people
| right there.
| flavius29663 wrote:
| The question is: will only the sociopath led medium-companies
| become large companies? Or do large companies choose a
| sociopath leadership while becoming large?
| candiddevmike wrote:
| In my experience, every company eventually gets led by a
| sociopath. Every worker has the same story about how the
| old boss was so good to employees etc and then replaced by
| some ruthless profiteer. Companies prosper (profitableish,
| lots of innovation, employees are first) under the former,
| and are eventually pillaged and killed under the latter.
|
| I think our current economic/social climate forces the kind
| of gervais principle balance over a long enough timeline.
| The gervais principle generates predictable profits.
| Upgrayyed_U wrote:
| This mirrors my experience as well. In the small and
| medium-sized business area, the "sociopaths" are the
| large businesses and private equity firms looking to
| acquire the smaller businesses. Or often it's the
| business owner who's the only sociopath in the business,
| but they are far enough removed from day-to-day
| operations that the people working underneath them don't
| recognize them as sociopaths.
|
| Another thing I've learned is that the more time you
| spend with executives, the easier it becomes to recognize
| this behavior. Go to any large chamber meeting in any
| large-ish city in the U.S., and I'm sure you will find
| plenty of sociopaths (in both the literal and the Gervais
| Principle sense).
| fwipsy wrote:
| I recommend disregarding the terms ("sociopath", "clueless",
| "loser") used in the article, they're unnecessarily cynical and
| iirc originally used as a joke. This article takes a basic idea
| about corporate structure (something like "in any company, some
| people chug along, some people work hard, and some people are
| in it to win, and they have the following dynamics") and makes
| it sound awful using loaded language.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" in any company, some people chug along, some people work
| hard, and some people are in it to win, and they have the
| following dynamics"_
|
| That's an oversimplification.
|
| Sociopaths are not just "in it to win". They will do whatever
| it takes to win, and trample as many people under foot as it
| takes takes them to get ahead without a twinge of conscience.
|
| The clueless in the article aren't merely working hard,
| they're also true believers in the organization who _" build
| up a perverse sense of loyalty to the firm, even when events
| make it abundantly clear that the firm is not loyal to
| them."_
|
| Unlike the clueless, the losers see clearly and do the bare
| minimum to get by and will (like the sociopaths) abandon the
| ship when it starts to sink, unlike the clueless, who will
| loyally sink right along with it. While they're in the
| organization, _" they traded freedom for a paycheck ..
| mortgage their lives away, and hope to die before their money
| runs out."_
|
| While the losers have no more loyalty to the company than the
| sociopaths _" they do have a loyalty to individual people,
| and a commitment to finding fulfillment through work when
| they can, and coasting when they cannot."_
| dasil003 wrote:
| The original article is a classic because it paints a very
| vivid picture that is emotionally resonant with anyone who
| has dealt with the banality of corporate life. However it's
| important to remember that The Office characters trended
| towards caricatures over time, and individuals are not
| archetypes.
|
| To that point, GPs characterization of chug-along, work-
| hard, and in-it-to-win-it rings just as true without
| pigeonholing people and better maps to the attitudes of
| people I've known well enough to have a deeper
| understanding of their psychology. Some specifics:
|
| "Doing whatever it takes to win [...] without a twinge of
| conscience" does not describe the majority of C and VP
| levels I've known. Certainly a lot of the unpleasant
| decisions that need to be made (eg. layoffs) are easier if
| one is truly a sociopath, but in practice how do you know?
| The reality is that upper level management has huge orgs
| where most individuals don't know them personally and yet
| is impacted by their decisions. When the impact is negative
| it's often easier to believe that management doesn't care
| about them versus understanding why it might be the best
| thing for the company.
|
| I also think that loyalty is much more orthogonal to
| archetype or effort level, and the idea that "clueless in
| the article aren't merely working hard, they're also true
| believers in the organization" does not really ring true.
| In reality, people at all levels can have varying degrees
| of loyalty to a company. A better model is the Dead Sea
| Effect--people will tend to stay if they don't believe they
| have better options. This is naturally going to affect
| middle-management more because they have achieved a higher
| status, and it's subject to all the noise of imposter
| syndrome and Dunning-Kruger, but it still applies to all
| levels.
|
| Finally, I disagree that "Unlike the clueless, the losers
| see clearly". The losers don't necessarily see anything
| more clearly, they just aren't playing the same game.
| Manager tells them what to do, they put in the minimum
| effort to do it, punch the clock and go home. Are they wise
| because harder work never would have earned them any extra
| reward? Or are they creating a self-fulfilling prophecy
| through poor performance? Honestly it could go either way.
| buscoquadnary wrote:
| So I read this article before and found it interesting.
|
| Then I read this article that reviewed and now put less stock in
| the Gervais Principle
|
| https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/book-review-the-gervai...
| orthoxerox wrote:
| Scott is very smart, but he's never worked for a large
| enterprise. The book has been written for the Clueless who
| are... clueless about their situation. They work hard, try to
| meet their KPIs, reach their annual goals, fill their DEI
| quotas, but somehow people who are worse at meeting these
| formal targets get promoted ahead of them.
| IsaacL wrote:
| It's funny, I was rereading this article and Scott Alexander's
| review just now, before I saw that it had been reposted on HN.
|
| Scott makes some good points but I think he simply lacks
| experience in the kind of big corporations Venkat describes. I
| think the Gervais Principle can be observed most readily in
| large, old-economy firms operating in zero-sum industries. It's
| probably more predominant on the east coast than the west
| coast, and even more predominant outside of the US. That's not
| to say that small, new-economy, west-coast, non-zero-sum
| companies won't demonstrate the same patterns, but they will
| almost certainly appear more weakly, in different forms. (And,
| of course, firms in the middle will show the same patterns in
| middling amounts.)
|
| I first read these articles back in university, thought they
| were _amazing mind-blowing red-pill insights_ , then promptly
| discovered on entering the working world that I had too little
| experience to utilise this kind of thinking.
|
| A few years later I decided that a more principled, honest
| stance makes sense: be productive, set goals, figure out what
| you're doing before your do it, decide what you want and then
| go after it, don't take on work that you can't handle, etc. If
| you do that, you should be able to avoid politics (or so I
| thought). This strategy works very well... up to a point.
| However, after a few more years, and lots of reflection, I've
| realised that the dynamics Rao describes are visible in pretty
| much any group of people over a certain size. You just have to
| observe closely over a long period of time.
|
| Even the most political workplace will look normal 90% of the
| time... the political interactions are subtle, ambiguous, and
| almost always inseparable from ongoing relationships or
| interpersonal dramas. Heck, 95% or more of "politicking"
| consists of interpersonal skills, "emotional awareness" and the
| ability to communicate. The Machiavellianism only really comes
| into play amongst people who've shown that they can do their
| jobs, have a decent circle of friends (or "friends") in the
| organisation, and have some idea of what they'd do with
| organisational power. These are the "table stakes" that Venkat
| refers to; before you obtain these, attempting to play the
| political game is pointless.
|
| I concluded that up until the age of about 27-28, it's best to
| focus on building up your core skillset so that you can gain
| "table stakes". As a general rule, people under 25 can't beat
| people over 35 in political games, and shouldn't even try. (For
| people in-between, it's complicated.) However, _over_ the age
| of about 28-30, understanding the political games suddenly
| becomes much, _much_ more important. Even if you only want to
| use your powers for noble ends. (Example: supporting a junior
| employee who has unintentionally earned the disapproval of the
| boss.) With the context of a few years worth of work
| experience, Venkat 's article makes a lot more sense.
| (Especially after sincerely attempting to walk the path of
| honesty, integrity and productivity, and observing its
| strengths and weaknesses.)
|
| It's possible that Scott and his friends either work in very
| nice companies, or that that don't notice these dynamics going
| on around them. I have a simpler hypothesis: they're Losers (in
| Rao's sense) -- they might be well-paid losers, highly-educated
| losers, socially and financially successful losers, charming
| and sociable losers, but Losers nevertheless. When Rao calls
| someone a Loser, all he means is that they've given up on
| maximizing their potential wealth and power in exchange for a
| steady income (which may still be very high) and belonging to a
| particular crowd. It's not necessarily a bad thing, and for 90%
| of people, it's a reasonable trade.
|
| There's no special pot of gold or magic crown you win by
| becoming a "sociopath". It simply means that you've decided to
| step outside of the box defined by the local social structure
| and to walk your own path. Whether that path is good or evil,
| logical or insane, spiritual or depraved, is from then on
| entirely up to you.
|
| That said: based on what I've read about politicking in
| rationalist circles, and in EA circles, and at Google
| promotional reviews, and at other FAANGs, and at large silicon
| valley startups, and at small silicon valley startups, (and
| presumably amongst small indie bloggers who get targeted by the
| New York Times) I simply conclude that this kind of behaviour
| occurs all around Scott and that he simply isn't aware of it.
| pfisherman wrote:
| I guess? There really is no escape from politics. It's even
| worse in the relatively low stakes environments of academia
| and non profits.
|
| Also, I think that everybody who wants to work at a big
| corporation should do an enterprise sales job at point in
| their career. It gives real insight into how decisions to
| pursue large and expensive initiatives are made in these
| types of organizations.
| vlunkr wrote:
| I love The Office, but I don't believe that the writers actually
| have some deep knowledge of business psychology and hierarchy. It
| seems pointless to attempt a deep analysis through that lens.
| jorvi wrote:
| Pretty much this.
|
| It's the same thing as Lord if the Rings fans trying to ascribe
| deeper value to the curve at which Frodo tosses his Lembas
| wrapper away and it signifying the same trajectory as Middle
| Earth is on.
|
| Or The Wire / Breaking Bad fans digging way too deep for
| meaning.
|
| To be clear, I deeply appreciate all three above-mentioned
| stories, and they do have lots of multi-layer symbology, but
| sometimes a thing is just a thing.
| dkarl wrote:
| It feels like an observation that could be more easily made
| from the outside. On the inside of a company, we're wrapped up
| in everyone's immediate motivations for every decision they
| make, and we can see at a micro level that everyone is doing
| their best in their own eyes to get from it what they can, but
| from the outside you could see a larger pattern of the
| attitudes and beliefs of people at different levels in
| corporate hierarchy.
|
| Personally, even if this is not from some deep intellectual
| tradition of management theory, it helped me see things that
| I'd been staring at my whole career without understanding. One
| way it changed my perspective is that it helped me realize that
| the loyalty of middle management strivers is real, the realest
| in the company. I used to assume that company rah-rah and
| loyalty rhetoric was meant to increase the performance and
| affordability of front-line workers, i.e., that the leaf node
| employees were the target, and middle management was the
| delivery mechanism. Middle management parroted loyalty rhetoric
| to their employees to show upper management that they were
| carrying out their plans in a capable way and could be perhaps
| trusted with a promotion.
|
| But that never quite made sense. Inspirational company rhetoric
| is actively irritating to most employees. It's an odd misfit in
| the front lines of a large company who feels inspired by
| company boosterism, and they either learn to keep their
| enthusiasm under wraps, or they are disliked by their fellow
| workers, who embrace the Loser mentality. Since all the company
| rah-rah stuff seemed stupid and unproductive, my theory about
| why companies did it was that it was a peculiar blindness of
| the otherwise smart people who run companies. But now I realize
| that if you see middle management as the target, and front-line
| workers as collateral damage, the cult of loyalty makes a lot
| of sense. Looking at managers now, I can see that a lot of them
| buy into it on an emotional and intellectual level, and they
| believe that it will contribute to their rise in the
| organization. It works on them! That's why companies do it!
|
| I know people who told their managers that they thought company
| morale campaigns were creating resentment and cynicism among
| their fellow employees. They did this in a spirit of openness,
| as something that management should be aware of, and they
| suffered real though unofficial consequences. From a cynical,
| utilitarian perspective, the retaliation they suffered was hard
| to make sense of. It was petty and ineffective. But it makes
| sense if you realize that they were attacking an intensely felt
| part of their managers' self-identity, and their managers'
| reaction reflected personal hurt, not rational calculation.
|
| I never understood those things until I read this blog post. I
| always assumed that the cynicism about company values started
| at the lowest level of management, that management was a tower
| of atheists acting out the company religion for the sake of the
| believing suckers at the bottom. But that was a poor fit for
| reality compared to the Sociopath/Clueless/Losers structure.
| galacticaactual wrote:
| Irrelevant. Things resonate with people because they accurately
| describe underlying structures of reality, regardless of
| whether an accurate description was the original intent.
| izacus wrote:
| The writers at some point decided that Michael Scott is a
| character we should be sympathetic with and started writing
| episodes that expect us to feel bad for him.
|
| It's when I dropped off the show, I like Steve Carell, but I
| couldn't get past the fact that the show forgot just how the
| characters are awful people.
| karmakurtisaani wrote:
| I think it's often the case that when a story is created, the
| creator(s) don't necessarily have this detailed
| philosophical/psychological overview of the characters and the
| essence of the show. Rather, they have their own life
| experiences and ideals for the story and characters("there's
| always that idiot boss and that one guy who does nothing").
| Analyses like this one then provide us with a point of view
| that puts the vision of the writers into a larger perspective.
|
| So it's not necessarily like the writers aimed to create
| something along these lines, rather, what they created fits
| perfectly to this narrative. That's what makes reading good
| analyses so satisfying.
| maigret wrote:
| True. You need to understand something to explain it. You
| don't need to understand something to observe and describe
| it. Obvious example is how birds fly, which was mostly
| explained recently only.
| vasco wrote:
| I've tried to make this point before in conversation in
| relation to many forms of art and I just had to comment that
| your reply is very on the money and very concise. Gonna take
| some inspiration, as I've struggled many times to convey
| this.
|
| Most people just think that unless the artist "intended it",
| analysis is worthless.
| fullshark wrote:
| I think they both made well thought out and intuitive choices
| in storytelling that reflect greater truth, like most great
| film/TV. British version the more bitter truths of course.
| synu wrote:
| The worst manager I ever had used to keep a copy of The Prince at
| his desk. He definitely looked at other people the way this
| article seems to encourage you to.
| michaelscott wrote:
| A bizarre choice if they were middle management; the running of
| a kingdom in the Prince is only really directly applicable to
| highest levels of C-suite management.
| synu wrote:
| I guess it was their aspiration, but they behaved so
| apallingly to other people that they never went anywhere past
| middle management.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| Machiavellian principles like "it's better to be feared than
| loved" seem to be quite applicable to any level of
| management, not just the C-suite.
| kache_ wrote:
| cringe.....
| gherkinnn wrote:
| He probably never read it anyway.
|
| And you missed a chance to replace it with Le Petit Prince.
| Nomentatus wrote:
| I hadn't realized it before today, but Jerry Pournelle (a science
| fiction writer) pioneered here (with two groups, not three, which
| is an advance in understanding.)
|
| "Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any
| bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people":
|
| First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the
| organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an
| educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch
| technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural
| scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective
| farming administration.
|
| Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization
| itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education
| system, many professors of education, many teachers union
| officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc.
|
| The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain
| and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules,
| and control promotions within the organization."
|
| https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html
| ItsMonkk wrote:
| This reminds me a lot of the Conflict vs Mistake framing[0]
| which is expanded on by his Tragedy of Legible Technique
| article[1]. It also reminds me a lot of the Steve Jobs Product
| vs Marketing clip[2].
|
| > When the Director of the CDC asserts an opinion, she has to
| optimize for two things - being right, and keeping power. If
| she doesn't optimize for the second, she gets replaced as CDC
| Director by someone who does. That means she's trying to solve
| a harder problem than Zvi is, and it makes sense that
| sometimes, despite having more resources than Zvi, she does
| worse at it.
|
| It seems to me like the issue is actually in rent-seeking,
| where the more rent-seeking you have available, the more the
| marginal mistake person converts into a conflict person. In a
| world of perfect competition there would be no room for
| conflicts, and only once you have freely available rents does
| the land-grabbing phase begin. When your rules are written by
| the conflicters, for the conflicters benefit, it's already to
| late. They'll certainly never compromise on the simple correct
| path.
|
| [0]: https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/01/24/conflict-vs-mistake/
|
| [1]: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/webmd-and-the-
| tragedy-...
|
| [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4VBqTViEx4
| guerrilla wrote:
| That assumes a static hierarchy. Cooperatives could fix most of
| that though, since anyone becoming a problem could be recalled
| from their position.
| throwaway280000 wrote:
| Of relevance to this point might be Union Democracy:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Democracy
|
| It examines a particularly democratic union which seemed
| unusually able to withstand degeneration into an oligarchy.
| [deleted]
| jmyeet wrote:
| It reminds me of the quote: "the bureaucracy is expanding to
| meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy".
|
| The thing about the Iron Rule (which I agree with) is that it
| appears in online forums too. In placaes like Wikipedia, Stack
| Overflow and various forums the community divides into three
| groups:
|
| 1. Content creators: those who past and answer questions, etc;
|
| 2. Moderators: those who write and enforce rules and standards;
| and
|
| 3. Lurkers: those who simply read.
|
| The second group, while useful, has to constantly be kept in
| check. No matter how originally (and concurrently) well-
| intentioned, there will always be a tendency to create and
| enforce more rules to solve perceived and actual "problems".
|
| I'd be interested to know what psychology drives people to join
| the moderator camp.
| wsb_mod3 wrote:
| I think they main incentive that drives people to initially
| become moderators is the desire to keep the community they
| operate in clean and rule abiding.
|
| In well-policed communities where moderators actively listen
| to users, or where people feel reporting and flagging
| mechanisms work, I would imagine people generally feel
| empowered enough that they are satisfied remaining a regular
| user.
|
| I don't think many moderators seek to expand their rulesets,
| as it really just becomes additional (often free) work for
| them. Increasing and enforcing more rules is a cost that is
| only worth bearing when what isn't being actioned is causing
| enough damage to warrant the additional work.
| Nomentatus wrote:
| I've too often seen moderators decide that their job is to
| prevent controversies; often leading to them forbidding any
| poster from contradicting any other poster; creating a
| "first misinformation wins" forum. This is less work for
| them, way less cognitive work but it creates ridiculous and
| unfortunate results.
| wsb_mod3 wrote:
| Do you mind giving a few examples? I can't think of any
| communities like that.
| Nomentatus wrote:
| These were disease-centered facebook groups mostly, but
| also writers groups, etc. The common idea was "If you
| disagree, just move along. Don't comment."
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| jasmer wrote:
| Thank god for the clueless, who keep the world running.
|
| I share some of the author's cynicism, but the thesis is a bit
| flawed.
|
| There's a very key mistake, often made from a populist
| perspective (those who have never had power) that somehow the
| people at the top are able to 'freely move' through society. They
| cannot. Most often, they are in a gilded cage, and they are never
| as rich, powerful or as mobile as we think.
|
| Execs are often sociopathic and skittish precisely because they
| are in a precarious situation. Do you really think that most
| executives can just pop off to another, massively high paying
| job? No. They are mostly stuck. They have public profiles and
| have to be careful of what they say, who they interact with. They
| have to 'socialize' with the right groups. Their wealth does not
| buy them that-that much more and that slightly nicer cottage, ski
| vacay, private school etc. drain the accounts really fast.
|
| Almost anyone who is 'working at a firm' - even as an executive -
| is not that powerful. If they could, most people would just
| retire. If someone chooses to work instead of retire, well that's
| probably a sign of commitment and integrity which is the opposite
| of sociopathy.
|
| Exec layer is definitely full of whacky people and cynical
| Machiavellians who are protecting their power and nothing more
| sure, but they are not 'mobile' and not there by choice.
|
| Also, from a populist perspective, a lot of corporate actions
| seem Machiavellian, but they are not. Just realist. Made by
| possibly an entitled class, who make mistakes. But when you have
| to move people around, hire and fire in large numbers, some
| people will get burnt, and sometimes in a way that doesn't feel
| or is not nice, and that will happen even with the most
| competent, well-meaning leadership.
|
| So yes, if we look at the world purely through the lens of self-
| interest (and for some, there's no reason to fathom anything
| more, which is sad), then even with the above characterization it
| still seems pretty bad. Except thankfully, most of people don't
| share this cynical view, and usually find much more purpose in
| what they do than their salary. Teachers are perhaps the best
| example of that.
| shubhamjain wrote:
| When I first read this, I found it too cynical for my tastes. But
| now, I can say it's a bit relatable. Being a software engineer, I
| don't find the "bad" bargain I have for myself that bad. I am a
| happy "loser."
|
| But over the years, I have observed-- multiple times--obviously
| talented people who have been slogging for a shitty company for
| years. It takes them forever to realize they are wasting their
| time and have to take some action. Some never realize, too.
|
| Usually, they are people who have been promoted by the
| organization. They were early employees. They believed in the
| vision and found it hard to lose hope that things might change.
| The "Clueless" as the article notes.
|
| But there can be an easier explanation as well. Partly, it's also
| sunk-cost bias. It's possible they do recognize the terrible
| place they are in. But find it incredibly hard to cut their
| losses. The organization can always dangle the carrot of "the
| turnaround is around the corner", "we will promote you soon",
| "the team depends on you".
|
| A parallel is stock investing. I once invested in terrible
| company. Even though the deluge of bad news never stopped, it
| took me four years an my investment falling by 60% to admit that
| I need to admit I made a bad decision and sell my holdings.
| ep103 wrote:
| The tone of the article is extremely negative. Sociopath,
| Clueless, Loser. And that leads to a generally negative framing
| of everything and all of the people in question.
|
| The general concepts: some people act as capitalists, some
| people find meaning in their work and lose sight of the
| capitalistic nature of work, and some people find meaning
| outside of work and do so by doing the bare minimum at work and
| not playing the capitalist game, are valid archetypes, however.
| aynsof wrote:
| Eric Dietrich has a softer framing for this: instead of
| sociopaths, losers, and clueless; you have opportunists,
| pragmatists, and idealists [0].
|
| In my opinion it works just as well, without any of the
| negativity or cynicism of the original Gervais article.
|
| [0]: https://daedtech.com/defining-the-corporate-hierarchy/
| yoyopa wrote:
| this is complete bullshit. we've discovered much more complex
| geometry than the pyramid. we don't have to cram our
| understanding of society and organizations into such a primitive
| metaphor. it's also not advisable to call your audience
| sociopaths, losers and clueless.
| mechanical_bear wrote:
| I think we found where you fit in the hierarchy friend ;-)
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" organizations don't suffer pathologies; they are intrinsically
| pathological constructs"_
|
| This rings so true, in my experience. Sociopaths at the top also
| seems to be the rule rather than the exception.
| tomrod wrote:
| I really used to buy into this mental model. There are certainly
| some points that seem to correspond to my lived experience.
|
| At this point though, I've been through each of the tiers and
| have never been either cluelessly obsequious nor a sociopath --
| so I have my doubts that the model is worthwhile despite being a
| good laugh!
|
| For those that haven't read it:
|
| - Tier 1 - fresh younguns or burnt out talented people who are
| there for a check (there is a lot of discussion regarding this
| tier). GOT reference: Sam Tulley
|
| - Tier 2 - middle managers -- clueless, "true believer" types.
| GOT reference: many! Eddard Stark, Tommen Lannister, Jaime
| Lannister
|
| - Tier 3 - sociopaths: bosses at the top of the hierarchy. GOT
| reference: Tywin Lannister, Joffrey Lannister
| k__ wrote:
| I'd buy into the model, but I think it misses a few things.
|
| A sociopath doesn't have to be successful.
|
| Alpha losers might think of them as sociopaths.
|
| And people move back and forth between the roles.
|
| Besides that, it's certainly a more complete model than the
| alpha/beta/omega one.
| kqr wrote:
| TFA does give an example of an unsuccessful sociopath. There
| are far more sociopaths than there are positions of success.
| b3morales wrote:
| Joffrey was a Clueless if ever there was one. He had no grasp
| of strategy, no skill at manipulation, no understanding of how
| to present himself. His mother on the other hand was a
| Sociopath's Sociopath.
| tomrod wrote:
| I agree that he was clueless. He was also a sociopath and
| nominally in charge, though not by his own choice. A patsy
| set up to fail.
|
| And I 100% agree on Cersei.
| theptip wrote:
| I think it's important to distinguish DSM Sociopath
| (Joffrey) from Gervais Principle Sociopath (Cersei).
|
| Both abbreviate to "sociopath" but they are very different
| concepts.
|
| I don't think Joffrey qualifies as a GP Sociopath at all,
| as GP notes. While he was "in charge" he didn't play the GP
| Sociopath game, and so was quickly removed. As the OP notes
| it's possible for Clueless to be placed in positions of
| power in plenty of cases, for example when a fall guy is
| needed, or a puppet. So just wearing the crown doesn't mean
| he MUST be a GP Sociopath.
| k__ wrote:
| It's really helpful to identify sociopaths. They know what's up
| and make things happen, but not friendship material. Kinda
| dangerous when you interact with one without noticing.
|
| Losers are cool and mostly harmless. The alphas can be a bit
| annoying sometimes, but most of them can be good friends.
| TheRealDunkirk wrote:
| I had a boss who was a complete and utter sociopath (by the
| article's definitions), but there were few people I'd rather go
| to the pub and have a pint with. Dangerous combination. Gotta
| watch out for those. What he couldn't otherwise make happen
| through force of will, he could through personality. He's the
| CIO at some middling company now, and there's no way I'd
| connect to him on LinkedIn.
| tsol wrote:
| Why are people afraid of these sociopath types? I'm new to
| the corporate world, but it's not like they're going to just
| randomly attack you right?
| Nomentatus wrote:
| Agreed, they will not attack randomly. They'll attack you
| fiercely the moment you try to do something right, or
| something that helps your corporation or a customer in any
| way that doesn't help them. So only if you are ethical in
| any way are you in danger.
| kache_ wrote:
| Because they cannot read between the lines
|
| Don't hate the player, hate the game. Your general in the
| upper strata has to play the game, it's the job. But you
| can also get a beer and become friends with him or her.
|
| Sociopathic behavior is genuinely useful to participate in.
| Just have awareness of what's going on, and down cycle and
| up cycle your "talking in between the lines" as necessary.
| And have fun
| citizenpaul wrote:
| >(the office) I've been unable to figure out what makes it so
| devastatingly effective, and elevates it so far above the likes
| of Dilbert and Office Space.
|
| Dilbert is a hand drawn comic so it will never have the media
| reach of TV. It also tends to focus more on the details of the
| bureaucratic brokenness for people to laugh rather than cry at in
| daily life.
|
| The office is syndicated TV with a new episode every week. It
| simply has high rewatch value. The broken office bureaucracy is
| used as a plot device rather than the focus of the show. The show
| focuses on characters and how they react to work life which keeps
| the show more funny than sad.
|
| I would argue that Office Space actually was more effective than
| both of these other two. It was a one off movie from over 20
| years ago that people across age groups still regularly
| reference. You can only watch a movie so many times. There is not
| much opportunity for syndication or binge watching. After you
| watch it 20 times 20 years ago it kind of drops out of the yearly
| zeitgeist.
| cercatrova wrote:
| Mike Judge is also devastatingly effective. I know people who
| can't watch Silicon Valley because it's too real.
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| I was making an app to classify food if it had nuts or not.
| Someone on HN commented about hot dog or not app that was in
| the episode. I didn't have HBO so I wasn't even aware of its
| existence.
| Nition wrote:
| I've seen similar comments about Idiocracy.
| tptacek wrote:
| "The Office" we're talking about here is not a syndicated TV
| show with a new episode every week; it's a British mini-series.
| You're likely referring to the US version of "The Office",
| which ran for 9 seasons and was wildly different from the
| British show (the showrunners attempted to clone the original
| but discovered that David Brent's character suited Ricky
| Gervais far more than it did Steve Carrell, and course-
| corrected to a different kind of show.)
| elefanten wrote:
| Rao's article is definitely about the American version. Look
| at the character names and post-season 1 plots referenced.
| tptacek wrote:
| You're right, I'm wrong, apologies to everybody involved.
| couchand wrote:
| There has to be a first time for everything.
| e28eta wrote:
| From the third paragraph of the article:
|
| > I'll be basing this entire article on the American version
| of the show, which is more fully developed than the original
| British version, though the original is perhaps more
| satisfyingly bleak.
| mysterydip wrote:
| I like to watch Office Space again whenever I give my two
| weeks' notice somewhere.
| x86x87 wrote:
| Dilbert does have a cartoon TV series that ran for 2 seasons.
|
| https://youtu.be/J1KEPvuiQIs
| tomrod wrote:
| I remember watching it as a kid and realizing that cartoons
| could be not good... is it better several decades later?
| spoonjim wrote:
| Dilbert isn't for kids... it's for people who have spent
| time in a bureaucratic office setting.
| jacobolus wrote:
| What works as a 3-panel comic strip falls flat on its
| face when translated too literally to video. You need to
| hire good writers, director, animators, voice actors,
| etc. to make an effective video show, and you need to
| have an idea better than "show a sequence of loosely
| related 3-panel comic strip jokes, but animated".
| x86x87 wrote:
| There is a joke at some point in time where they say
| pathway electronics is going to merge with etech
| management. And they're gonna call the new company path-e-
| tech management. How would a kid get this joke?
| citizenpaul wrote:
| Wow that is bad. Its like they gave an intern a shoestring
| budget and told them to make something happen. The voice
| actors are like they just grabbed the nearest person and told
| them hey you are gonna voice these characters.
| thwarted wrote:
| The show isn't great, but these are hardly unknown cast
| members/voice actors. Daniel Stern, Chris Elliot, Larry
| Miller, Jason Alexander, Tom Kenny, Tress MacNielle,
| Maurice LaMarche, Kathy Griffin. This is nearly an all-star
| cast for the late 90s.
| fazfq wrote:
| I always feel like I'm the only one who enjoyed the series. I
| don't know what's so terribly bad about it. It's not The
| Simpsons, and it's not _that_ related to the strip, but it's
| amusing in many ways.
| Aloha wrote:
| It was hilarious, I enjoyed it a lot actually.
| ghaff wrote:
| I thought it was "OK" and probably wouldn't hate rewatching
| it. But it also wasn't very memorable or special IMO.
| x86x87 wrote:
| I liked it. There are a few bits I have integrated into
| my memetic universe. Eg: https://youtu.be/g8vHhgh6oM0
| https://youtu.be/KcPx-dHYASU
| ghaff wrote:
| Adams did try an animated Dilbert series but it didn't do very
| well or last very long (and wasn't especially good). There was
| a time when I really liked Dilbert--probably in part because I
| worked at a cubicle farm tech company that probably resembled
| PacBell where Adams worked in quite a few ways.
|
| But Adams left (and I left) and, for the most part, Dilbert
| ended up mostly stuck in a 90s cubicle time warp
| notwithstanding some zingers about cloud from time to time.
| (Some of which hit amusingly close to home as the consultant I
| was later.)
| [deleted]
| lioeters wrote:
| Company hierarchy: Sociopaths at the top > Clueless middle
| managers > Losers at the bottom.
|
| That's a bleak view, but I've worked in organizations that fit
| the model. To think that this could be the norm.. What if the
| model could be applied to human society in general! With such
| power dynamics, no wonder we seem to be barely hanging together
| with tense, mutual disrespect.
| TheRealDunkirk wrote:
| All of human society is like this. We dress it up and call it
| different names, but it's just feudalism all over again and
| again. People who grew up in the US, in luster and afterglow of
| the post-war boom, thought that our 50's, 60's, and 70's was
| the way of the world. But we've fallen back in line with the
| rest of the world now, and the forced shift in the American
| perspective is jarring.
| k__ wrote:
| I think, it's only bleak because of the names.
|
| Sociopath are very lonely and losers can be very happy in
| comparison.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Some governments also adopt this kind of hierarchy. Faux
| democracies in particular look like this - the actual power
| sits in the hands of autocratic oligarchs (largely sociopathic
| in outlook), the 'elected politicians' who are in reality
| selected by the ruling oligarchs serve as the clueless middle
| managers, along with appointed bureaucrats who sit atop the
| various state agencies. These levels are rewarded with various
| kickbacks (hence they attain millionaire status, while the
| oligarchs have billionaire status). Sitting at the bottom of
| the pyramid are the so-called losers - the prison guards, the
| tax collectors, the local politicians and bureaucrats, etc.
| Their socio-economic status is pretty low, but it's at least a
| step above those who live in the slums and shantytowns.
|
| This model characterized, for example, Brazil during the
| fascist dictatorship era of the 1950s and 1960s, Indonesia and
| Chile under similar regimes, the Philippines under Marco,
| probably much of India, a great many African countries, and
| increasingly it's what the United States seems to be falling
| into.
| analyst74 wrote:
| Maybe I'm just naive, but I found this principle overly cynical.
|
| For example, the "sociopathic" intern can also be described as
| someone with healthy amount of disrespect to existing
| organizational structures and tries to bring innovation to a
| dinosaur firm. He took the risk and suffered the consequences
| like a man.
| Nomentatus wrote:
| Good point, there absolutely are "prosocial psychopaths" such
| as the neurologist James Fallon (I recommend his Youtube
| videos.) They can be exceptionally useful. I firmly believe
| that Steve Jobs was in this camp.
|
| But according to Fallon (citing research) the key to getting
| that nice place is exceptionally loving, caring, attentive
| parenting. Most of us don't get that, so the results are
| usually bad.
| eastbound wrote:
| I think the equate sociopathic to:
|
| - Able to take decisions upon someone's employment. In today's
| society, it's based on immediate performance and utility, and
| negates people's need. In other words, they're able to fire
| someone who's depressed, and block out emotionally from the
| catastrophic outcomes. In today's society, it's considered the
| correct way to lead, because it imposes meritocracy and
| encourages hard work. It's not very humane, but companies need
| to live. Not like, you know, people.
|
| - Socially inept. People who make friends and build a family
| life easily don't end up as carrierists.
|
| In both cases, even if I'm able to regurgitate that point of
| view which I don't agree with, I empathize with the managers in
| that it's necessary they behave this way. Perhaps I'm
| sociopathic.
|
| I'm a CEO, after all ;) (just 3-people company, not too much
| harm done, and they all got 30% to 60% salary increase this
| year).
| MontgomeryPy wrote:
| I would layer the 80-20 rule on top of this principle. For the
| 20% that get 80% of sh*t done, this doesn't apply imho. But for
| the other 80% it seems pretty accurate.
| codekansas wrote:
| This is a thought-provoking read. I'm currently going through
| Meta onboarding for the third time (once before as an intern and
| once full-time). The first time it was exciting; the second time
| it was interesting but seemed quaint, but still, neat for a
| first-time job; the third time it feels like a pipeline for
| molding the exact sort of Clueless people the article describes.
| stu_ wrote:
| Having worked in faang as well for a while now, I can attest
| that most people seem to be capable of jumping to their own
| startups very easily.
|
| Companies need to craft very enticing reasons to stay on as a
| 'Loser' (mostly via perks and pay) and even work harder to
| retain 'Clueless' since the latter is even more likely to leave
| and launch a startup being leadership focused. 'Sociopaths' are
| so few that they're easily gotten via acquisitions, or simply
| buy them.
|
| Just a perspective =)
| b3morales wrote:
| The premise of the essay is that a truly Clueless would never
| do that; that's Sociopath behavior. That said, they are just
| archetypes, and to the extent we take them as valid at all,
| every real human will have some mix of the traits. (Even the
| characters in The Office do -- as I recall Angela is referred
| to as both a Sociopath and a Loser in different chapters of
| the essay.)
| pmoriarty wrote:
| Whenever I've heard an executive talk at an organization big
| enough to have its own HR department, when I've read their
| press releases, HR documents and policies, or attended their
| all-hands meetings, they've all sounded like they're talking
| directly to the Clueless.
| kache_ wrote:
| There are some tip top engineering directors in my company
| that are just regular honest engineers. What's really wild is
| how my brain just automatically tunes in when they start
| speaking, and then tunes out again when it's back to corpo
| speak.
| stu_ wrote:
| This is an old but good read!
|
| My take since then after numerous debates - there is merit hence
| the massive success of the Office series.
|
| But in general it is a 'glass half empty' perspective. CEOs are
| often gifted, hard working, but also a bit lucky at times to be
| born into fortunate situations. Middle managers, are typically
| leadership-qualified but simply don't want to devote enough time
| for a CEO or startup founder role. And the rest- who generally do
| the 'real' work - are often there due to enjoying the work
| itself, and have even less interest than middle managers to
| devote time to climbing a ladder. (All of which are respectable
| positions)
|
| The labels used in GP tend to give a bit more humor, and also
| attribute upward growth to negative qualities- so haters feel
| better about having to deal with folks who dont think like them -
| so it simultaneously appeals to each group!
|
| Of course the more positive perspective is just as valid.
| blaser-waffle wrote:
| Haven't seen this posted for almost 6 months. Yall are getting
| slow.
|
| Great read, but also fails the sniff test the harder you think
| about it.
| Gunax wrote:
| It's very funny. I don't think it's true. Just a bit too cynical.
| Good people really do get promoted.
| kache_ wrote:
| oh god please don't leak this out this was my secret insight
| noooo stop leaking the alpha
| agumonkey wrote:
| I honestly never managed to extract any sense of any notion this
| article put forward.
| TheRealDunkirk wrote:
| We have a wonderful spot for you in lower management!
| agumonkey wrote:
| heh, brilliant
|
| i can't wait to climb the ladder and step over all of y..
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