Petrified Institutions
Einar N. Strømmen & Tor G. Syvertsen, Professors Emeriti of Structural Engineering, NTNU, Norway
Edge recently asked “what scientific term or concept ought to be more widely known?”. The American psychologist Steven Pinker answered “The Second Law of Thermodynamics”.
Generally spoken, the second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy can never diminish within a closed system, which implies that the system will inevitably become less structured, less organised, and less able to yield useful results, until it slides into a state of grey monotony.
In social terms a closed system is one that does not take in any response from its surroundings.
After several years of experience in private and public workplaces we will propose the second law of organisational dynamics:
“Any institution will degenerate until it becomes its own purpose”.
This is in line with Nobel Laureate Ilya Prigogine’s statement: “The main character of any living system is openness.”
Organisations and institutions were originally created for a certain aim or purpose beyond the organisation itself; hospitals were intended to take care of people and heal the sick, universities were there to educate students and promote scientific work, old people’s homes should provide care for elderly people who cannot take care of themselves, and so on. However, it is a sad fact that with the introduction of modern management we more often see that these institutions become introvert, narcissistic, and fail their original purpose.
Until recently, a nurse was expected to take care of the patient’s physical, mental, social, and spiritual needs. Now, the patient shall have no more than he/she is entitled to according to management regulations, a strictly normalised period of a few minutes attention per week is what is left after management has siphoned off their share. In Norway, recently voted the happiest country in the world, we observe health centres and nursing homes where patients are maltreated and even starved to death. Similar events are observed elsewhere.
The universities are no better off. They used to be institutions of learning and science. In our days they are ridden with an expanding bureaucratic management that demands production of graduates and publications at an ever increasing speed. The dogfight is all about government funding, which in its omnipotent wisdom has decided that money is the reward for standardised production of student credits and publications. It goes without saying; in the end it is the management itself that runs away with the money, granting themselves ever higher salaries and benefits. Some universities pay salaries to their Vice Chancellors fit for bribery-ridden totalitarian regimes; drawing ridiculous amounts of money out of fees from the students they are meant to teach good manners and responsible public attitude.
At NTNU, the strategy for the promotion of good teaching is to employ more management, a management which without hesitation obstructs eager students who wish to learn more than what is prescribed in their curriculum; it could slow them down and hamper credit production. Politicians and bureaucrats have achieved what they have long wanted: servile university serfs who bow and obey their master ministers like sycophants.
Many other ideal organisations are also hit hard. United Nations and The Red Cross are in desperate need of money to support their administration. Charity organisations who bloat their public image with celebrities drawing annual wages beyond any reason are not sustainable, they will inevitably degenerate into a comedy of themselves.
Palpable greed is no longer shameful in public office.
One of the few organisations that seems to have kept its original spirit is the Salvation Army; all honour to them, perhaps they have a purpose worth fighting for.
An early symptom of petrification is panic stricken strategy planning with a confused mix of visions, missions, targets, aims, slogans, logos and similar futilities. Obfuscating activities are often accompanied by frequent reorganisations, or mergers followed by inexplicable fragmentation, concealing that the sole purpose of the organisation is to procure money for its own management.
Public health services, the police force, local council administrations, public education, universities; for all of them, the standard solution to all possible problems seems to have been some sort of reorganisation accompanied by demand for more recording of progress or lack of progress, leading to nothing but frustrating complexity and work statistics to an ever increasing bureaucracy.
The phenomenon is not new. Gaius Petronius pointed out 2000 years ago: “We trained hard … but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization.”
Enough is enough, we want something that counteracts bureaucratic formalities and legal subtleties!
Our simple suggestion is widespread and continuous participation, what we used to call democracy, and constant innovation (also called change). However, as W. Edward Demings noted: “It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.”
This will require thorough and profound thinking to find consensual answers to the following three simple questions :
- WHY do we do this; is it really necessary?
- WHY can’t someone else do it?
- WHY do we do this in this way; WHY isn’t there a better way?
The abandonment of the following five barriers will promote active life:
- Budgets; which only makes the next period a copy of the present.
- Regulations/Instructions; they only prohibit the search of better ways.
- Timesheets; which only serve to eradicate initiative and creativity.
- Meetings; which are only a substitute for chronic lack of meaningfulness.
- Printers; which will also remove paper archives, desk popes and paper cuddlers.
Harvard Business School explained Why Budgeting Kills Your Company, and Harvard Business Review raised the question Who Needs Budgets?
With regard to the obsessive need for work instructions (actually obstructions), the US retail company NORDSTROM may serve as an inspiration. Its policy manual has just one rule: “Use good judgement in all situations. There will be no additional rules”. Moreover: “Feel free to ask your department manager, store manager, or division general manager any question at any time”.
Julie Hanna argues that “Great companies aren’t great because they make lots of money. They make lots of money precisely because they’re great”. Money can be a consequence of achievement, but rarely the opposite.
It is time to figure out what is the purpose and meaning of what we do.
Frederic Laloux has pointed out in his book “Reinventing Organizations”: “We have reached a stage where we often pursue growth for growth’s sake, a condition that in medical terminology would simply be called cancer.”
Eric Hoffer noted a general tendency: Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.
Should we encourage ourselves to ask the simple, but most important question:WHY?
