Wise words

Some observant words from a decent book – The Stupidity Paradox: The Power and Pitfalls of Functional Stupidity at Work – that will make you think and (potentially, even hopefully) consider and reflect on your own experiences at your place of work (especially if you’re desk-bound and a knowledge worker) and how you – certainly the curious, questioning and reflective types – can better understand and guide your own, others’ and a collective’s work efforts in and around an organisation’s purpose, values and objectives.

Many a passage can be quoted from the book – just for the record and ease of knowing, all those quoted below are by its authors: Mats Alvesson and André Spicer – but those below may be a helpful driver to adding this book to your own reading list because they engage your curiosity and critical thinking faculties (which hopefully you have) . . . unless of course you have already read it, in which case good on you and great if some of the nine suggestions near its end have been picked up and possibly learned and practiced by you . . .

While functional stupidity is a key resource for an organisation, it can also do conspicuous harm. It can lead to meaningless and non-productive work being undertaken: writing plans, ticking boxes, endless meetings take over. Often there is a stark clash between the official version of events and the lived realities. For individuals, functional stupidity turns from a benefit into a bane when it reduces autonomy, narrows the range of choices or becomes a source of dissatisfaction. It may also throw doubt on the meaning and purposes of the individual’s working life.

Reducing critical reflection may be reasonable sometimes, but at other times, glaring contradictions can be hard to ignore. When this happens, people are forced to face up to the question of whether they are willing to acknowledge these contradictions or whether they just want to continue to turn a blind eye.³⁵ Facing up to these tensions and trying to do something about them might be a sign of bravery, but as with any act of bravery, it comes at a cost. By pointing out blatant contradictions, individuals lay themselves open to penalties. They may be passed over for promotion, get less attractive assignments or find themselves the target of hostile comments. In some cases they may even be fired. This is a lesson many whistleblowers learn the hard way – speaking up about a problem has its risks. Even if they avoid obvious punishments, they are often ostracised.³⁶ People may admire whistleblowers at a distance, but within their own organisation or occupation, they can be seen as difficult, rigid and disloyal.

When functional stupidity takes root, it can create problems for the whole organisation. When thinking is cut short, small mistakes can be overlooked. Questionable ideas, practices and priorities can flourish. When this happens, it can instigate much bigger problems. For instance, one of the most palpable drivers of accidents is an organisational or occupational culture that encourages people to avoid asking difficult questions.³⁷ One of the drivers of the 2008 financial crisis was an unwillingness to raise doubts about risky investment strategies. This led many bankers to ignore increasingly large discrepancies between their models and the reality of the market. The consequence of this generalised stupidity was the collapse of many financial institutions and a broader systemic crisis.

To repeat: functional stupidity is a double-edged sword. For instance, the norm of being positive can lead to functional outcomes such as a good organisational climate. But it can also have negative outcomes such as suppressing the awareness of problems, reproducing received ideas and choking learning. Sometimes the positive aspects are more pronounced in the short run, while the risks are greater in the long term.

[…]

There are times in organisations when the general positive vibe is threatened. This happens when hard-earned certainties are endangered. Naturally this preys on the mind of someone in thrall to functional stupidity. To protect themselves, they gradually learn to avoid thinking about disturbing things. This can be comforting, but it can also reinforce their faith in officially sponsored stories. By retreating into cosy beliefs, organisational members reaffirm the continued smooth functioning of the organisation as well as their own career paths within it. This creates a self-reinforcing loop: more functional stupidity begets more (illusory) certainty which in turn creates more functional stupidity. Intellectual laziness follows.

Functional stupidity isn’t just a vicious circle with no escape. There are some cases when widespread functional stupidity can create dysfunctional outcomes. Often these problems can be overlooked. However, there are times when they are so great that they become impossible to ignore. This prompts reflexivity. People start to ask deeper questions, search for justifications and engage in substantive reasoning. Sometimes this leads to the response: ‘How could I have been so stupid?’ But less drastic experiences are also common. For instance, professionals facing unemployment are often forced to ask difficult questions about their own futures.³⁸

[…]

Given the prevalence of functional stupidity, it is vital to understand how it works. We have argued that it is common in contexts where image trumps substance. In a small factory or on a farm, there is clear feedback about what works and what does not. An ad agency, a support department in a corporation or a government agency is likely to lack such direct feedback mechanisms. This is also the case in most work in large companies that are rife with complexities. Large parts of contemporary economies are short on clear links between work and ‘substantive’ outcomes. In these kinds of settings, people focus their energies on trying to make things look good rather than actually working on core tasks. Often this can open a huge gap between the rhetoric and the reality. The message might be great, but what actually happens underneath it all can be much less appealing. To convince people, managers spend valuable time and energy on stupidity management. They persuade otherwise intelligent people not to use their cognitive capacities outside prescribed frameworks. They refrain from taking moral responsibility to think through issues. To begin with this is a challenge, but fairly soon smart people start to self-stupidify. They stop asking the difficult questions and avoid deeper thinking. They realise that reflection is career-limiting and can lead to sleepless nights. The initial results can be positive: people avoid conflict and are able to get on with the job. But in the longer term, it can create the conditions for much more disturbing problems, and even disasters.

But hey, don’t stop there! Here’s another passage that is still relevant and timely, despite the book’s publication of 2016 . . .

A leader does not need to be completely superior, but on the whole we expect leaders to be ‘better’ than the people they lead. After all, why follow someone with lower intelligence, self-confidence, knowledge and creativity than you? When the person who is supposed to lead is much more experienced, better-educated and has a better overview of the task, then their leadership might make sense, but when you study leadership over a long time at close range, it is often not so clear that leaders are much better than their followers. Often people are promoted to managerial positions because of career interests, good contacts, political manoeuvring and seniority. Not because they have great potential as a leader. And even if the best are promoted, they may have been only marginally better than people around them.

To make managers with boring and stressful administrative jobs feel better about themselves, organisations go out of their way to accentuate hierarchy and status and boost their identity. This is what fancy titles, large office spaces, executive dress codes, formal meetings and special privileges are for. Managers are sent to expensive leadership-development programmes where facilitators do their best to help them feel like ‘real leaders’. These little tricks help to create an impression that managers are superior and should be treated as leaders. But impressions can deceive.

A problem for leadership in practice is that people in subordinate positions often don’t see themselves as followers. Often, inexperienced and weak people are happy to follow. In very stressful situations, being a follower may also be convenient for experienced people. And most people feel the need for a certain degree of order, including well functioning administration and division of labour. But it’s rare to find reasonably experienced people who really want to cultivate their followership. People prefer to see themselves as engineers, car mechanics, chefs, physicians and tax inspectors rather than followers. For instance, one junior manager told us about his unwillingness to be ‘motivated’ by would-be leaders. ‘The managers I struggle with most are the “motivating” types,’ he said. These were people ‘who try to create energy and momentum, but only move back and forth without keeping a clear direction’. Another person we spoke with told us that ‘my work has seldom received much leadership. Something which I appreciate! I have had pretty much carte blanche from the beginning. Sometimes this can be tricky, but mostly I find it stimulating. I am directed by goals and dislike being told what to do. So who or what should I say is leading me?’¹⁵

Managers trying to lead need followers, but much of the time their supposed followers don’t feel that they need leadership. Managers are just as happy to view themselves as leaders as most other employees are unhappy to see themselves as followers. Non-managers like to have autonomy and work with people as peers. Often they are sceptical about high-profile leadership efforts. This often means there are leaders fired up by mythologies of leadership who anxiously roam the hallways of organisations, looking for followers.

. . . and one more . . .

To confidently say ‘I am a leader, not a manager’ is not just good for self-esteem, it is great for impression management. It makes it easier to be perceived as a person on the way up. To appear – in talk, dress and manner – as a leader, without any signs of doubt, hesitation or self-irony, can create success. To show ambivalence and doubt can be a career-stopper. Reflection often messes things up for people.

Promotion calls for ‘leadership skills’. A person eager to progress in their career is wise to be enthusiastic about leadership. In many cases, this can be pure pretence, but that doesn’t matter too much. Doubt about leadership is a source of uncertainty and distraction. It can lower self-confidence and diminish a person’s commitment to work. Being able to bypass doubt in favour of a strong commitment can help individuals make their way through the organisation.

Buying into notions of leadership can also help the organisation as a whole. Individuals are encouraged to put aside disruptive and difficult criticism of individual leaders or ideas about leadership more generally. This can help to get people enthusiastic about the visions of a leader. By doing this, they can build commitment to a course of action. Although the premises of action may be suspect, the very idea of leadership can help to make things happen.