Functional Stupidity and How to Avoid it
How People are Successfully Unsuccessful
Welcome to Polymathic Being, a place to explore counterintuitive insights across multiple domains. These essays take common topics and investigate them from different perspectives and disciplines to come up with unique insights and solutions.
Today's topic straightforwardly addresses a lot of the underlying issues we’ve covered in essays thus far, specifically underlying the concept of the Successfully Unsuccessful. This essay looks to pull back the curtain of what allows the status quo to not only survive but thrive in most modern businesses. It actually has a pretty blunt name to describe the concept of this apathy? malaise? at a minimum, just a mediocre standard. It’s called Functional Stupidity and it has nothing to do with individual intelligence. Today we’ll explore what it is and how we can intentionally avoid it.
Introduction
I was recently listening to a podcast called “The Intelligent Workplace” on the somewhat ironic topic of “The Unintelligent Organization.” To be fair, it does help to contrast your goal (intelligence) against reality, and this episode is fantastic especially when the guest, Matt Moore of the University of Technology Sydney, introduces the concept of Functional Stupidity.
As Matt put it on the podcast:
…functional stupidity goes on where it is normal for people to be excessively narrow and focused in their thinking. And when that leads to largely positive outcomes…
But this isn’t Matt’s idea as he’s building off of the 2017 book by Mats Alvesson and André Spicer titled “The Stupidity Paradox: The Power and Pitfalls of Functional Stupidity at Work.” The interesting aspect of the entire topic is just how widespread this paradigm is among organizations everywhere!
Functional Stupidity:
I think this concept is, if not the foundation, at least the cornerstone of what we explored earlier in The Successfully Unsuccessful:
It’s the behaviors, over and over, that everyone says they don’t want, but keep doing, and keep getting rewarded for, while so many, who try to break the cycle, are penalized.
And I’d group these behaviors under the definition of Functional Stupidity where it is normal for people to be excessively narrow and focused in their thinking. And when that leads to largely positive outcomes.
But what positive outcomes are we talking about? Revenue? Profit? Cost reduction? Affordability? Innovation? Market share? Employee Engagement? Retention? Actually, none of these even seem to matter! They are merely what we say we want as any good business leader quickly learns to get ahead. But what they also learn is that there is a lot of forgiveness for missing these targets, especially if you don’t challenge the status quo.
The positive outcomes that are being referred to aren’t for the organization, but for individual members. Do they still get promoted? Do they get acceptable performance reviews? Are they acceptably paid? Is there any real pressure or penalty for missing business goals? Are they well-regarded by peers and leadership? These are the positive outcomes that allow it to be normal for people to be excessively narrow and focused in their thinking.
What’s missing here is legion. Are they well-regarded by their teams? Do they actually support change management? Are they really open to new ideas? Do they empower employees? Do they actually make the system better than when they started?
The answer, more often than not, is a resounding No and I’ll provide two anecdotal stories from my own experience:
The first was a factory manager who was always well-regarded by leadership, was well-connected, and had been around for a long time. Yet when you actually looked at his performance, there wasn’t a person actually working in their factories who had much good to say. The problems with his leadership became even more evident when I was investigating a very serious compliance escape that threatened to shut down billions in product shipments due to poor process control driven by poor culture. And yes, our investigation confirmed that this culture stemmed directly from this leader. When we dug into the root cause analysis, we found that this was not the first time, nor the second, but that this was the third time this manager had been in charge of this level of mistake. Our root cause investigation documented undeniable evidence of poor leadership culture…
Fast forward three years. This leader is now in charge of a different factory and just deconstructed the entire industry-best-practice layered tier meeting structure and, instead, piled one hundred people into a conference room where no one knew what was going on with anything. Factory performance immediately began slipping and years of continuous improvement were wiped out in weeks as we watched the factories devolve just like we documented earlier.
Why was he even there? Well, he actually got rewarded for each of the times he oversaw those major compliance issues. Somehow, leadership ignored that he caused the problem, and instead rewarded him for the recovery.
The second was a manager who had a nearly comedic response to anything with a broader strategy:
Regarding a chance to establish a holistic data architecture to tie together three separate pipelines into data storage with a common semantic ontology. (common data types into a common organization) he’d ask, “Why don’t you focus that into a proof of concept on a specific area?” Well, because if you narrow the focus down to only one of those pipelines, you lose the very essence of ‘common’ and will never realize a robust dataset for more advanced analytics.
Or regarding the establishment of cyber security controls on a SaaS offering, when the customer had already clearly articulated what they wanted, he asked for the same kind of proof of concept. Again, why not? Because cyber security controls are a gap assessment, not a proof of concept. Fundamentally, the compliance controls for a scaled-down version most often do not work at a larger scale. You have to start with the larger system and put the right security controls in place to enable scale and growth.
In both cases, the proofs of concept could have been completely successful and absolutely missed the actual goals the business hoped for. Confirming this concern was when we analyzed the system architecture of the overall product and found that it was a mess of bubble gum and bailing twine holding together dozens of proofs of concept that no one ever worried about scaling or integrating.
And yet this manager is still there, still promoted, and still pushing the same myopic solutions.
…functional stupidity goes on where it is normal for people to be excessively narrow and focused in their thinking. And when that leads to largely positive outcomes…
Definition of Stupid:
In polite company, we balk at the word ‘stupid’. I do believe it’s a bit reductionist to just claim stupidity as the explanation for all the ills. Yet it bothers me more when I see behaviors that are so clearly detrimental as to be… well… stupid.
Therefore, it is of critical importance to note that Functional Stupidity is not a lack of individual intelligence, rather it is a failure of the system or the way of thinking.
Functional Stupidity is a term that describes a situation where people or organizations are highly skilled in their area of expertise, but lack the ability to think critically, creatively, or strategically. This can lead to problems such as decision-making paralysis, inability to adapt to change, or inability to see the consequences of their actions.
To expand a little further, Functional Stupidity is a phenomenon in which people in an organization or company do exactly what is expected of them without questioning it, even if it may be detrimental to the organization. It can lead to a business collapsing in on itself due to a lack of critical thinking and reflection. It’s where smart people are discouraged from thinking and reflecting at work.
Some common causes of Functional Stupidity are:
Groupthink: A phenomenon where a group of people makes irrational or poor decisions because of their desire to conform to the opinions of the group.
Over-reliance on established procedures: When people become too focused on following established procedures, they may fail to consider new or innovative solutions to problems.
Lack of curiosity: People may become too comfortable with their current knowledge and fail to seek out new information or perspectives.
Lack of creativity: People may become too focused on the way things have always been done, and fail to think outside the box.
It is of critical importance to note that functional stupidity is not a lack of intelligence, rather it is a failure of the system or the way of thinking.
I should note, however, that there are also benefits to Functional Stupidity. For example, people or organizations who are functionally stupid are often very efficient in their areas of expertise. This can lead to increased productivity and efficiency. Additionally, people or organizations who are Functionally Stupid often have a very strong sense of loyalty and commitment to their work. This can lead to increased dedication and motivation. So there is some countervailing interest in maintaining it according to many business metrics.
The Stupidity Paradox:
In the 1976 essay "The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity" Italian economic historian Carlo Cipolla detailed a 2x2 matrix of people that break into four basic categories: the helpless, the intelligent, the bandit, and the stupid.
The Helpless are those who with their actions tend to cause harm to themselves, but also create an advantage for someone else.
The Intelligent tend with their actions to create an advantage for themselves, but also create an advantage for someone else.
The Bandit, of course, creates an advantage for themselves, but at the same time damage someone else.
The Stupid are those who cause harm to another person or group of people without at the same time realizing any advantage for themselves or even suffering a loss.
I’m sure we can quickly bring individual people to mind when it comes to these quadrants, but I think it works better when you use the matrix to place an organization. Not only does it help prevent targeted applications, but it also helps organizations avoid denying reality since you can actually measure outputs based on these quadrants. Bottom-line, a lot of smart people can still be in a stupid organization if groupthink is combined with a lack of creativity and curiosity.
Conversely, you can have a lot of average people, when combined with engaging dialog, challenging assumptions, insatiable curiosity, and the psychological safety to be creative and you’ve got the recipe for a brilliant organization.
Lest we take the opportunity to suggest that the problem actually resides with the bandits; first, they are a small group, and second, apply Hanlon’s Razor: never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. And since there’s enough of that going around, we should eliminate that option first.
Solving Functional Stupidity
While this essay may feel kind of bleak, I think it’s important to forthrightly face the reality of what many of our organizations deal with day after day and to name what allows the Successfully Unsuccessful. And this thing is the Functional Stupidity of myopic thinking, rote execution, and accountability mechanisms that allow a failure of the system or the way of thinking. Yes, it exists even with brilliant experts, dutiful engineers, talented leaders, and well-intended organizations. We have to accept that the Harvard Business Review and the McKinsey Company make tens of millions of dollars a year studying, writing, and addressing the problem.
But there is a light in this bleakness and that is once we name and accept what we are dealing with, there is a lot that we can do ourselves to resolve it. We are capable of fostering change when we accept the problem and so are better able to contextualize the solutions.
To take the first steps toward a more intelligent organization, here are several ways to eliminate Functional Stupidity and promote more effective decision-making and problem-solving within an organization or group:
Encourage critical thinking: Encourage people to question assumptions and challenge the status quo. Encourage the use of different perspectives and reasoning to make decisions.
Promote diversity: A diverse group of people with different perspectives and experiences is more likely to identify and solve problems than a homogenous group. This is diversity of opinion and should lead to positive conflict.
Encourage open communication: Encourage people to speak up and share their ideas, concerns, and constructive, even painful feedback.
Foster an environment of continuous learning: Encourage people to continuously learn and update their knowledge and skills. Here I recommend the mantra from Alvin Toffler of continuously learn, unlearn, and relearn.
Encourage experimentation and innovation: Encourage experimentation and the testing of new ideas, even if they fail because, as George Bernard Shaw once said: “Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time.”
Encourage reflective practice: Encourage people to reflect on their actions and decisions, and learn from their mistakes.
Break down silos: Encourage collaboration across different departments and teams as well as with external organizations, such as suppliers, customers, and other stakeholders. This can help bring new perspectives and ideas to the organization.
Create a culture of accountability: Hold people accountable for their actions and decisions. This will help to ensure that individuals and teams take responsibility for their performance and take steps to improve it. As Roy T. Bennett once wrote: “Every choice comes with a consequence. Once you make a choice, you must accept responsibility. You cannot escape the consequences of your choices, whether you like them or not.”
Implementing these strategies can help an organization become more adaptive, innovative, and effective in problem-solving, decision-making, and achieving its goals.
Now you might say, this sounds like it’s straight out of an MBA textbook! And you are right. The issue is that unless you address the Functional Stupidity that you are actually trying to fix, they just become platitudes. Without addressing the foundation of the problem these recommendations will work as well as your notoriously failure-prone digital transformations, innovation drives, profitability initiatives, or whichever manner of organizational change you have attempted.
Something else you probably recognized by now is that these eight recommendations fit the definition of the Polymathic Mindset very well. In fact, they are fundamentally the core of Polymathic Disciplines, and as such the type of people who actually apply these concepts are also likely the Rebels, Pirates, and Divergents in the workforce.
Conclusion
It’s hard to admit we work in, and often contribute to, a Functionally Stupid organization. Yet it doesn’t take much time to look around and see evidence everywhere. It’s what 90% of conversations with co-workers over drinks revolve around. It’s why we see the Successfully Unsuccessful throughout our leadership ranks. It’s how terms of middle management such as “the middle malaise” or “the frozen middle” become apt descriptors. We see the disconnect between the words of the CEO regarding innovation and yet face the bureaucracy and risk avoidance of getting funding for even the simplest ideas. It’s time we named the problem in a way we can no longer ignore it. It is Functional Stupidity, and it happens because we allow it.
Yet there are ways to address it. They aren’t easy ways, they aren’t ways that naturally occur, and they certainly aren’t ways devoid of risk. But like the second law of thermodynamics states, the only way to reverse entropy is to add intelligence and positive energy back into the system to raise the equilibrium and bring our organizations to new levels of output.
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Great post Michael. Rampant in our corporate culture.
Can you explain what you mean by " it happens because we allow it" or point me to a post that discusses that?