Introduction

I was reading The Gulag Archipelago by Solzhenitsyn and encountered this phrase where he is describing the social hierarchy of guards in the Gulag as: “The inverse ratio between social position and humaneness”. The context is that according to Solzhenitsyn there is a negative selection process that occurs in the training, education and most obviously in the work of the guards. This selection process causes a situation where almost invariably the higher up the ladder a guard ends up, the less humane this guard would have to be. In other words, to be a succesful guard, you must be inhumane.

Now I’d like to be specific here, because I am not trying to suggest that working in a company is anything like being in a Gulag. I would just like to examine the following idea: If there is a selection process present in the training, education and work inside a company that encourages negative traits, then those that end up having a higher social status, exhibit these negative traits the strongest.

Quantitative abstractions as the root of evil

Large companies face a problem of abstraction in their reward structures. It is very hard to reason about all the individual contributions to a large collaborative effort. Common abstractions such as profit, revenue and growth offer an easy way out. They are easily measured, understood and communicated. However, considering just these quantitative abstractions has obvious downsides when judging the health of a company or in deciding how to reward a colleague for their work. Especially when one adds a time constraint or contrasts and compares.

Consider for instance a yearly evaluation or quarterly reports. These can give rise to all sorts of unwanted behaviour that pads the numbers. Short-sightedness, inhumanity, sabotage of co-workers etc. They can also foster competition between internal departments over who gets to register the revenue. I’ve worked in companies where internal departments will bill each other for services provided, because otherwise their relative performance will be influenced!

In working for large companies I almost invariably find myself asking: “How could anyone possibly have thought this was a good idea!?”. But in hindsight, seeing the way we drill students to set “SMART” goals, force colleagues to write easily digestible “Personal improvement plans” and measure progress by these abstractions that have a large gaps with our actual real world goals. How could they not!? We selected for short-sighted, result oriented and inhumane. It is only logical that we receive it in our leadership.

What do we change?

I don’t believe we should necessarily ban all things we can measure, but we need to start including more intangibles. Perhaps a form of servant leadership could help. Being present and engaged in your teams’ daily work automatically includes in your judgement many intangibles that you would have missed staring at the results. Sit with the team! Furthermore, tools like peer reviews, interviews and testimonials can help to include a more qualitative viewpoint.

Interestingly the company I currently work for includes a “fun” category in my yearly evaluation. In other words, they judge me based on whether I am having fun or not! Now I understand that for some people this may seem like a nightmare, and I am not claiming that it is perfect, but I am happy it at least attempts to add an opening for intangibility. I’d like to hear what you think! Let me know if you recognize anything in your own situations or if you disagree!