To answer your first question: I’m not sure. First, I’m not sure goals are necessarily the focal point, although losing sights of the real goals is certainly a potent symptom of Ra.
I haven’t thought much about how these beliefs arise, but I haven’t felt very compelled to seek for a complicated explanation besides the usual biases. Saying we’re the best will usually be met with approval. And the more “reasonable doubt” that this might not be the case, the more it becomes necessary to affirm this truth not to break the narrative.
You seem to imagine pure founders and then a degradation of values, but very often the founders are not immune to this problem, or are in fact its very cause. Even when the goals are pretty clear—such as in a startup, where it could be to break even at first—people adopt false tribal beliefs. The bullshit can manifest itself in many places: what they say of their company culture, hiring practices, etc.
That being said, I’m not sure my own understanding of the matter matches that of the original author. But it certainly immediately pattern-matched to something I found to be a very salient characteristic of many organizations.
To answer your first question: I’m not sure. First, I’m not sure goals are necessarily the focal point, although losing sights of the real goals is certainly a potent symptom of Ra.
I haven’t thought much about how these beliefs arise, but I haven’t felt very compelled to seek for a complicated explanation besides the usual biases. Saying we’re the best will usually be met with approval. And the more “reasonable doubt” that this might not be the case, the more it becomes necessary to affirm this truth not to break the narrative.
You seem to imagine pure founders and then a degradation of values, but very often the founders are not immune to this problem, or are in fact its very cause. Even when the goals are pretty clear—such as in a startup, where it could be to break even at first—people adopt false tribal beliefs. The bullshit can manifest itself in many places: what they say of their company culture, hiring practices, etc.
That being said, I’m not sure my own understanding of the matter matches that of the original author. But it certainly immediately pattern-matched to something I found to be a very salient characteristic of many organizations.