This is a follow-up to yesterday’s essay in which I confronted the MacLeod Hierarchy of the organization, which affixes unflattering labels to the three typical tiers (workers, managers, executives) of the corporate pyramid. Subordinate workers, MacLeod names Losers, not as a pejorative, but because life at the bottom is a losing proposition. Lifelong middle managers are the Clueless who lack the insight necessary to advance. Executives are the exploitative Sociopaths who win. I looked at this and discovered that each category possessed two of three corporate traits: strategy, dedication, and subordinacy (which I called “team player” in the original essay). I replaced team player with subordinacy because I realized that “team player” isn’t well-defined. Here, by subordinacy, I mean that a person is willing to accept subordinate roles, without expectation of personal benefit. People who lack it are not constitutionally insubordinate, but view their work as a contract between themselves and manager. They take direction from the manager and show loyalty, so long the manager advances their careers. Since they show no loyalty to a manager or team that doesn’t take an interest in their careers, they get the “not a team player” label.
MacLeod Losers are subordinate and strategic, but not very dedicated. They work efficiently and generally do a good job, but they’re usually out the door at 5:00, and they’re not likely to stand up to improve processes if that will bring social discomfort upon them. Clueless are subordinate and dedicated, but not strategic. They’ll take orders and work hard, but they rarely know what is worth working on and should not advance to upper management. MacLeod Sociopaths are strategic and dedicated, but not subordinate. The next question to ask is, “Is insubordinacy necessary psychopathy?”, and I would say no. Hence, my decision to split the Sociopath tier between the “good Sociopaths” (Technocrats) and the bad ones, the true Psychopaths.
People who have one or zero of the three traits (subordinacy, dedication, strategy) are too maladaptive to fit into the corporate matrix at all and become Lumpenlosers. People with all three do not exist. A person who is strategic is not going to dedicate herself to subordination. She might subordinate, in the context of a mutually beneficial mentor/protege role, but general subordination is out of the question. Strategic people either decide to minimize discomfort, which means being well-liked team players in the middle of the performance curve– not dedicated over-performers– or to maximize yield, which makes subordinacy unattractive.
What I realized is that, from these three traits, one can understand three common workplace cultures.
Rank Culture
The most common one is rank culture, which values subordinacy. Even mild insubordination can lead to termination, and for a worker to be described as “out for herself” is the kiss of death. Rank cultures make a home for the MacLeod Losers and Clueless, but MacLeod Sociopaths don’t fare well. They have to keep moving, preferably upward.
While the MacLeod Clueless lack the strategic vision to decide what to work on, their high degree of dedication and subordinacy makes them a major tactical asset for the Sociopath. The Clueless middle manager becomes a role model for the Losers. He played by the rules and worked hard, and moved into a position of (slightly) higher pay and respect.
Rank cultures have, within them, a thermocline. From worker to middle manager, jobs get harder and require more effort to maintain and achieve. Below the thermocline, one really does have to exceed expectations to qualify for the next level up. Above the thermocline, in Sociopath territory, the power associated to rank starts paying dividends and jobs get easier as one ascends, rising into executive ranks where one controls the performance assessment and can either work only on “the fun stuff”, or choose not to work at all. Rank cultures require this thermocline, an opaque veil, to keep the workers motivated and invested in their belief that work will make them free. That is why, in such cultures, the strategically inept Clueless are so damn important.
Tough Culture
Rank culture’s downfall is that, over time, it reduces the quality of employees. The best struggle to rise in an unfair, politicized environment where subordination to local gatekeepers (managers) is more important than merit, and eventually quit or get themselves fired. The worst find a home in the bottom of the Loser tier, the Lumpenlosers. At some point, companies decide that the most important thing to do is clear out the underperformers. Thus is born tough culture. Rank culture values subordinacy above all else; tough culture demands dedication. Sixty hours per week becomes the new 40. Performance reviews now come with “teeth”.
Enron’s executives were proud of their “tough” culture, with high-stakes performance reviews and about 5% of employees fired for performance each year. The firm was berated for its “mean-spirited” and politicized review system that, in reality, is no different from what exists now in many technology companies. This is the “up-or-out” model where if you don’t appear to be “hungry”, you’ll be gone in a year or two. Those who appear to be coasting have targets on their heads.
Over time, tough culture begets a new rank culture, because the effort it demands becomes unsustainable, and because those who control the new and more serious performance review system begin using it to run extortions based on loyalty and tribute rather than objective effort. They become the new rank-holders.
Market Culture
Rank culture demands subordinacy, and tough culture demands dedication. Market culture is one that demands strategy, even of entry-level employees. You don’t have to work 60-hour weeks, nor do you have to be a well-liked, smiling order-follower. You have to work on things that matter.
Rank and tough cultures focus on “performance”, which is an assessment of how well one does as an individual. If you work hard to serve a bad boss, or on an ill-conceived project, you made no mistake. You were following orders. You had no impact, but it wasn’t your fault, and you “performed” well. Market cultures ignore the “performance” moralism and go straight to impact. What did you do, and how did it serve the organization? Low-impact doesn’t mean you’ll be fired, but you are expected to understand why it happened and to take responsibility for moving to higher impact pursuits.
People who serially have low impact, if the company can’t mentor them until they are self-executive, will need to be fired because, if they’re not, they’ll become the next generation’s subordinates and generate a rank culture. Firing them is the hard part, because most of the people who conceive market cultures are well-intended Technocrats (or, in the MacLeod triarchy, “good Sociopaths”) who want to liberate peoples’ creative energies. They don’t like giving up on people. But any market culture is going to have to deal with people who are not self-executive enough to thrive, and if it doesn’t have the runway to mentor them, it has to let them go.
A true market culture is “bossless”. You don’t work for a manager, but for the company. You might find mentors who will guide you toward more important, high-impact pursuits, but that’s your job. In technology, this is the open allocation methodology.
Why Market Culture is best
Market culture seems, of the three, the most explicitly Sociopathic (in the MacLeod sense). Rank cultures are about who you are, and how well you play the role that befits your rank. Tough cultures are about how much you sacrifice, and democratic in that sense. Market cultures are about what you do. Your rank and social status and “personality” don’t matter. Is that dehumanizing? In my opinion, no. It might look that way, but I see it from a different angle. In a rank culture, you’re expected to submit (or subordinate) yourself. In a tough culture, your contribution is sacrifice. In a market culture, you submit work. Of these three, I prefer the last. I would rather submit work to an “impersonal” market than a rank-seeking extortionist trying to rise in a dysfunctional rank culture.
What I haven’t yet addressed is the cleavage I’ve drawn within the MacLeod Sociopath category between Technocrats and Psychopaths. The most important thing for an organization is the differential fitness of these two categories. Technocrat executives are, on average, beneficial. Psychopaths are unethical and usually undesirable.
Pure rank cultures do not seem to confer an advantage to either category. Tough cultures, on the other hand, benefit Psychopaths who find an outlet for their socially competitive energies. Ultimately, as the tough culture devolves into an emergent rank culture, Psychopaths thrive amid the ambiguity and political turmoil. Tough cultures unintentionally attract Psychopaths.
What about market cultures? I think that Psychopaths actually have a short term advantage in them, and that might seem damning of the market culture. This is probably why rank cultures are superficially more attractive to the Clueless middle-managers, with their dislike of “job hopping” and overt ambition. On the other hand, and much more importantly, market cultures confer the long-term advantage on Technocrats. They’re “eventually consistent”. To thrive in one for the long game, one must develop a skill base and deliver real value. That’s a Technocrat’s game.
