Stupidity at Workplaces and Functional Stupidity in The Book "The Stupidity Paradox"

Introduction

The stupidity paradox is written by Mats Alvesson and Andre Spicer. Alvesson is a professor at Lund University, Sweden and is also associated with University of Queensland and Cass Business School. Andre Spicer is professor of organizational behavior at Cass business school, University of London. It was an interesting book to read as it talks about how stupidity impacts the way organizations are run. The authors Mats Alvesson and Andre Spicer have talked about their own experiences to explain how organizations hire smart people and make them do stupid things.

They have an opinion that rather than encouraging talent and rationality, organizations cultivate compliance, obedience and conformism. They have supported their views by illustrating practical examples from real companies to engage reader’s focus. The book talks about how smart organizations encourage stupidity among intelligent workers which could result in long term difficulties. As an example, the authors talked about the financial crisis of 2008. According to the author, the financial crisis was an outcome of ‘smart people doing stupid things at work’ which produces results in the short term but cause disasters in the long term.

The concept, role and consequences of Functional Stupidity

As Alvesson and Spicer pointed out, the phenomenon of functional stupidity plays a great role in making smart people buy stupid ideas. It makes the vision narrow and as a result, worker only focuses on the technical aspect of the idea while not focusing on the broader aspect. This means that the job will be done but the broader purpose of work would be neglected. Functional stupidity makes people do the things that look good. Rather than asking questions and focusing on the outcomes, people look for ways to get the job done and to obey the commands given to them.

Irony lies in the fact that most of the times, these stupid ideas are even encouraged and applauded and that they are done by the most intelligent people who possess high intellectual capabilities and educational skills and they are considered as people who have great leadership skills. Authors emphasize that organizations promote functional stupidity by creating a culture that focus on being action oriented. Employees are encouraged to ignore uncertainties to ensure that the processes are run smoothly and this is how convenience is valued above challenging the problematic aspects of thoughts and ideas. Overlooking different issues in short-term can result in building up problems for organizations in the long run as stakeholders will develop lack of trust on the organization. The financial crisis of 2008 was discussed to explain that minor issues build up to cause serious disasters in the long-term.

The book is divided into three parts. The first part talks about the role of stupidity at workplaces, different intellectual traps in working lives and the consequences of functional stupidity. In the second part, five different kinds of functional stupidity are discussed. Which are broadly categorized as leadership-induced stupidity, structure-induced stupidity, stupidity caused by unrestricted enthusiasm for brands and images, stupidity as a result of imitating other organizations and lastly, stupidity caused by the corporate culture. The third part of this book talks about different ways through which stupidity can be managed in organizations.

The book sheds light on the assumptions about how smart workers are expected to be. To keep the readers involved, authors have explained it by using the idea introduced by a management thinker, Peter Drucker. It talks about a type of employee called the ‘knowledge worker’. The job of knowledge workers is to apply their abstract knowledge to practical situations and to look for the solutions to those practical problems. He is expected to see a change in society where the real authority lies in controlling the information rather than controlling the factors of production. Post industrialization society was considered to be an information society where knowledge workers would use abstract models and principles. Knowledge was expected to become the key resource. Innovation, improvements in education system and information technology was needed. But in reality, this didn’t happen and workers expected to get good grades for minimum level of hard work and efforts. Similarly, number of researchers increased but the key insights from research papers decreased.

In addition to this, the role of technology has also been discussed. Internet can make a country knowledge intensive but at the same time it has misguided people and has given them opportunities to engage in mindless activities which result in wastage of time. As a result, we are experiencing decline in innovation. To explain how education system contributes to the stupidity, authors have quoted a US study in which 2300 undergraduate students from 29 different colleges were tested when they started their programs and then after two and four years. After 2 years of education 45% students showed no improvements in cognitive abilities After 4 years of education36% students showed little or no improvements in analytical skills.

Authors have explained the concept of being a ‘knowledge intensive’ firm. They have discussed that it is more about creating the sense of community among employees and attracting clients. But knowledge workers are mostly uncertain about the issues firms are facing and the relevant information to address those issues. For instance, IBM employees are focused on meeting their performance targets rather than thinking about the real innovative challenges. This means that rather than focusing on being knowledgeable, the focus of workers is on showing that they know and as a result, they miss opportunities to learn.

Based on what’s explained in the book, mentioned were the few ways in which workers try to act smart but it only results in stupidities. Another stupid practice authors talked about is turning blind eye to things that don’t bring positive results. Rather than looking for reasons why things didn’t work and how the condition could be improved, workers choose to make their lives easy by ignoring the situation. These workers are carefully selected based on their IQ but practical intelligence is often ignored. Authors talked about rational and analytical thinking capabilities of workers by mentioning the study of the two psychologists, Daniel and Amos. Their work proved that the initial information we are provided with, shapes our perception of the other information which is defined as anchoring.

Stupidity Paradox and the idea of Decision-making, Leadership and Culture of Organizations

Alvesson and Spicer have analyzed the decision making style at these organizations. There are jobs where workers are given the authority to make decisions about the way they want to work to encourage them, yet they choose not to put their minds to work. This happens because people focus on getting satisfactory outcomes rather than optimal ones. It was surprising to read that stupidity can be a normal part of a person’s work life.

The case of Ford Pinto was discussed as an example to support the point that workers often adapt to norms and they avoid asking questions to ignore potential issues and this is a usual practice in organizations. This was further elaborated and its reasons were discussed. A major reason was that asking questions will cause problems and relationships with other workers or management can be affected. Authors further explained three main aspects of stupidity defined as reflexivity, justification and substantive reasoning. Absence of reflexivity results in accepting what is commonly thought and not questioning the assumptions.

Justification talks about following norms without asking reasons as to why something should be done. Lack of substantive reasoning results in ignoring the major consequences of actions and decisions. Functional stupidity comes when people stop challenging the work models and when people are not curious and not open to learning new things. Lack of emotional reasoning also causes stupidity as people resist thinking or listening about possible flaws of their work. Another form of functional stupidity arise when thinking pattern of employee is restricted by moral beliefs of the company.

My favorite quote from the book is:“By mindlessly buying into ideas of leadership, organizations can become overcommitted to practices that don’t work”It was a thought-provoking line as according to this quote, organizations encourage stupidity because they have a misplaced obsession with leadership. Following formal rules and routine procedures encourage stupidity if following structures and rules is considered as guarantee for productivity and efficiency. This restricts the horizon and people end up doing specialized work and they avoid looking at outcomes. For short term, it is a good practice as it helps smooth running of operations but in the long term, it creates problems.

The book talks about how culture has an impact on the way people behave and how it creates stupidity. Culture shapes the behaviors of employees and management as a whole. It helps people connect by offering them sense of purpose and a common identity. When the organizational culture is strong, people often think in similar ways, without thinking out of the box, without challenging the norms and without questioning the set patterns of behavior. This means that there are no disputes and employees feel comfortable and secure. As an example, culture of mobile manufacturing firm Nokia is discussed. The culture was dominated by preference for optimism. People preferred talking about good things while ignoring the negative aspects. But in the long run, it created serious issues for Nokia and it was eventually taken over by Microsoft. Another aspect of culture that promotes stupidity is management’s focus on present and near future while completely ignoring the past as well as distant future.

In the third and last part of the book, authors discuss ways to manage and counter stupidity. It summarizes that culture, branding initiatives, organizational structures, leadership and culture plays an important role in boosting stupidity at workplaces. Challenging the norms, industry practices, ideas, strategies, structures and procedures would lead to disagreements and conflicts between employees and management. It will cause confusion and as a result, the decision making process will be impacted.

How to manage stupidity

The different techniques through which management promotes functional stupidity include authority, seduction, neutralization and opportunism. Authority is misused when a manager uses his or her position to offer punishments and rewards. For example, in military. Seduction happens when managers persuade employees by showing attractive ideas or PowerPoint presentations. Naturalism means that managers make the employees feel that there are no other options or alternatives to do a specific job. Opportunism happens when people avoid asking questions because they are being talked about their own interests.

Stupidity management creates a dilemma because following the norms and not challenging the structures will facilitate decision making and offer a sense of direction to employees while free thinking will lead to disagreements. Clearing organizations from functional stupidity comes with a huge cost. This would encourage the behavior of questioning which could result in creation of uncertainty and conflict. One way to destupidify firms is to drop the myth of positivity because looking at the bright side only will mean that real problems faced by the organizations will be overlooked.

To address this, the concept of ‘negative capability’ is described by a poet John Keats. It means that people should have the ability to be in doubts and uncertainties without irritable reaching after fact and reason. This would give the employees ability to think critically and ask questions, prepare justifications and consider broader consequences of decisions. Another solution that the authors focused on includes observing like a critical thinker, interpreting the issues and asking questions about different perspectives. Careful analysis of the situation is required which involves openness to information. Interpretation involves gathering other’s views and considering different perspectives in a certain situation. Questioning can be disturbing but it will help in addressing the real issues faced by the organization.

Conclusion

This book will help the reader find ways to improve critical thinking. Nine processes have been mentioned which will help readers engage in thinking and reflection. Reflective routines will encourage making a schedule for asking critical and analytical questions like why and how. Appointing critics will also help in raising important arguments. The job of this person referred as a devil’s advocate will be to challenge decisions which will address the issue of blind optimism. In order to avoid making the same mistakes again and again, we should learn from failures instead of hiding them.

Another way to escape from functional stupidity is by allowing fresh perspective to enter organization in the form of newcomers. They come with a new set of expertise and ideas which is fresh and up to date. Outsiders should be invited to organizations to know how an outsider thinks about the organizational practices. Focusing on the feedback given by critics can also be used as a way to deal with stupidity at organizations as critics can be a source of key insights and engaging them can result in advantages for the firm. It can be concluded that functional stupidity may engineer a sense of harmony but in order to run the organizations efficiently, to run the processes smoothly, to avoid long term issues and to manage functional stupidity, a balance should be maintained between active cultivation, acceptance, mild questioning and challenging industry practices.

Observing, asking questions from trustworthy sources and making observations is necessary to avoid stupidity. The book encourages readers to use their intellect for their own contentment, organizational success and success of society. If the reader works in an organization then reading this book will result in him looking at the organizational norms with a fresh perspective and it will help the reader understand why organizations encourage stupid practices at workplaces and ways to manage functional stupidity.