Brings out the Evil in all of Us

What do the holocaust, racism, sexism, and nationalism have to do with sporting events and who we have lunch with?  What brings out the worst evil in all of us while making us feel like we’re doing good?  It’s a perfectly natural thing that we all must actively fight against.

“Us” vs. “Them”

In the Robbers Cave Study a bunch of boys at a summer camp were broken into two groups.  The boys in the two groups hadn’t met before and the two groups didn’t have anything obvious to differentiate them.  Then the groups were put into competition with each other.  Soon the two groups began to squabble and fight.  Each group considered the other group to be an enemy.

It wasn’t just because these were stupid kids.  This is an innate part of human behavior.  We are always looking to favor and take pride in “us” and feel contempt for “them.”  Once this kind of bias gets a foot hold, it can dig self-reinforcing tendrils in our minds.  The “them” group becomes less human to us.  They are no longer worthy of empathy.

Who really is “Us”?

An Indian woman moved to the United States when she was a little girl.  She grew up in a large city filled with lots of different cultures.  When she got older, she felt like she didn’t belong anywhere.  She didn’t feel like she was really an Indian because she didn’t speak the language anymore and the culture wasn’t really hers.  She didn’t feel like an American because she didn’t have light skin like someone from Europe.

Another little girl also moved to the same large city from Iran.  When she grew up, she began exploring her “roots” and taking on aspects of Iranian culture in her life.

An African American woman in the same city named her daughter Laquisha instead of Abigail.

Could it be that in the case of the Indian woman, she didn’t feel American because she was treated differently?  Could she have been treated like a “them” by the light skinned people she lived around?  Why wasn’t it good enough for her to be herself?

Could it be that the woman with Iranian parents was treated as a “them” and saw a need to take on cultural affectations she hadn’t before so that she could have a feeling of belonging that she would never get from American natives? Was her true identity, her true culture, Iranian, American, or was it a mixture of good aspects of both?

Could it be that the African American woman hadn’t been treated like “us” and needed to make sure that her daughter got treated like “us” by someone?

Conclusion

If we choose to hang out with people of our own background, we are reinforcing “us” and “them.”  If we only eat lunch at work with the people in our own organizational unit, we are reinforcing who is “us” and who is “them” and we can’t expect good results.

We should always be vigilant to avoid this kind of behavior by being inclusive in everything we do.  Treat everyone as “us.”  There is no “them.”

In a Corporate Environment, Should We Minimize Hard-Costs, Soft-Costs, or something else?

Informal Definitions (for the purpose of this article):

• Soft-Costs = Internal labor
• Hard-Costs = Contracts, supplies, SaaS, and other purchased materials

Recently, I was trying to implement a software solution and had two choices.  The end users would not care much which choice I made, and the budget was large enough to handle either option.  As you might guess, I want to be a good fiduciary.

1. Spend $100,000 per year of hard-costs with virtually no soft-costs
2. Spend $8,000 per year of hard-costs plus $3,000 per year of soft-costs

On the surface, it seems like choosing Option #2 is a no-brainer.  On paper, the organization spends far less this way.

I, however, don’t view hard-costs and soft-costs as equals.  I would far prefer hard-costs over soft costs (assuming no difference in outcome quality).  Why?  Internal labor is highly inelastic.  It is very, very expensive to recruit and train personnel even if their average hourly wage is quite reasonable.

The problem here is that the pure hard-costs option would be nearly 10 times greater than the mixed option.  Previously, I thought the fulcrum of decision making would be between 2 and 5 times.  If the soft-costs were less than double the hard-costs, I would clearly choose hard-costs.  If the soft-costs were more than 5 times the hard-costs, I would clearly choose the soft-costs.

A new thought was brought to my attention that shifts my balance of thinking.  What about considering the need to minimize of institutional knowledge?  Institutional knowledge is a huge obstacle to organizational flexibility.  If people lack institutional knowledge, they run into invisible barriers and lose productivity.   When new people come on board, they not only need to have general technical knowledge of the field, they need to gain knowledge of the quirks of the institution and how things are set up.  If the organization changes, that knowledge of the quirks that was gained at such a high price, immediately becomes worthless.

Thus, I have changed my opinion.  On-going soft-costs almost always result in significant increases in the amount of institutional knowledge required.  My gut feeling tells that the correct factor is closer to 20 times.  And as such Option #1 is the actual no-brainer.