I understand that power-seekers can beat out people earnestly trying to do their jobs. In terms of the Gervais Principle, the sociopaths beat out the clueless.
What I don’t understand is how the culture comes to reward corrupt and power-seeking behavior.
One reason someone said to me is that it’s in the power-seekers interest to reward other power-seekers.
Is that true?
I think it’s easier for them to beat out the earnest and gullible clueless people.
However, there’s probably lots of ways that their sociopathic underlings can help them give a falsely good impression to their boss.
So perhaps it is the case that on-net they reward the other sociopaths, and build coalitions.
Then I can perhaps see it growing, in their interactions with other departments.
I’d still have hope that the upper management could punish bad cultural practices.
But by default they will have more important things on their plate than fighting for the culture. (Or, they think they do.)
One question is how the coalitions of sociopaths survive.
Wouldn’t they turn on each other out as soon as it’s politically convenient?
I don’t actually know how often it is politically convenient.
And I guess that, as long as they’re being paid and promoted, there is enough plenty and increasing wealth that they can afford to work together.
This throws into relief the extent to which they are selfish people, not evil. Selfish people can work together just fine. The point is that those who are in it for themselves in a company, can work together to rise its ranks and warp the culture (and functionality) of the company along the way.
Then, when a new smart and earnest person joins, they are confused to find that they are being rewarded for selling-themselves, for covering up mistakes, for looking good in meetings, and so forth.
And the people at the top feel unable to fix it, it’s already gone too far.
There’s free energy to be eaten by the self-interested, and unless you make it more costly to eat it than not (e.g. by firing them), they will do so.
People who are self-interested get selected up the hierarchy
People who are willing to utilize short-termist ways of looking good get selected up the hierarchy
People who are good at playing internal politics get selected up the hierarchy
So if I imagine a cluster of self-interested, short-term thinking internal-politics-players… yes, I do imagine the culture grows based off of their values rather than those of the company. Good point.
I guess the culture is a function of the sorts of people there, rather than something that’s explicit set from the top-down. I think that was my mistake.
I am still confused about moral mazes.
I understand that power-seekers can beat out people earnestly trying to do their jobs. In terms of the Gervais Principle, the sociopaths beat out the clueless.
What I don’t understand is how the culture comes to reward corrupt and power-seeking behavior.
One reason someone said to me is that it’s in the power-seekers interest to reward other power-seekers.
Is that true?
I think it’s easier for them to beat out the earnest and gullible clueless people.
However, there’s probably lots of ways that their sociopathic underlings can help them give a falsely good impression to their boss.
So perhaps it is the case that on-net they reward the other sociopaths, and build coalitions.
Then I can perhaps see it growing, in their interactions with other departments.
I’d still have hope that the upper management could punish bad cultural practices.
But by default they will have more important things on their plate than fighting for the culture. (Or, they think they do.)
One question is how the coalitions of sociopaths survive.
Wouldn’t they turn on each other out as soon as it’s politically convenient?
I don’t actually know how often it is politically convenient.
And I guess that, as long as they’re being paid and promoted, there is enough plenty and increasing wealth that they can afford to work together.
This throws into relief the extent to which they are selfish people, not evil. Selfish people can work together just fine. The point is that those who are in it for themselves in a company, can work together to rise its ranks and warp the culture (and functionality) of the company along the way.
Then, when a new smart and earnest person joins, they are confused to find that they are being rewarded for selling-themselves, for covering up mistakes, for looking good in meetings, and so forth.
And the people at the top feel unable to fix it, it’s already gone too far.
There’s free energy to be eaten by the self-interested, and unless you make it more costly to eat it than not (e.g. by firing them), they will do so.
Well, it’s usually an emergent feature of poorly designed incentive systems rather than a deliberate design goal from the top.
The default situation we’re dealing with is:
People who are self-interested get selected up the hierarchy
People who are willing to utilize short-termist ways of looking good get selected up the hierarchy
People who are good at playing internal politics get selected up the hierarchy
So if I imagine a cluster of self-interested, short-term thinking internal-politics-players… yes, I do imagine the culture grows based off of their values rather than those of the company. Good point.
I guess the culture is a function of the sorts of people there, rather than something that’s explicit set from the top-down. I think that was my mistake.