Floating in Saltwater
In 1996, Alan Sokal wrote a paper obscurely titled “Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity", and submitted it to Social Text, an academic journal of cultural studies published by Duke University Press. The paper would eventually get accepted for publication, and Sokal’s life would never be the same.
A few weeks later after publication, Sokal revealed in another magazine—Lingua Franca—that the paper was a hoax. Utter rubbish. But a carefully-crafted, intentional rubbish. Why? Sokal wanted to prove that postmodern philosophy was basically full of shit and rife with a pompous and inaccurate use of mathematics and physics—precisely what his paper was full of. And, boy, he succeeded in proving it.
The hoax caused controversy about the scholarly merit of commentary on the physical sciences by those in the humanities and the influence of postmodern philosophy on social disciplines in general. Sokal would then go and publish two derivative books: the absolutely great Fashionable Nonsense1, where he and his co-author Jean Bricmont analyze in depth texts from Lacan, Julia Kristeva and other encumbered intellectuals and show in detail how full of crap they were, and Beyond the Hoax2, a detailed recollection of how the hoax was conceived and executed.
Ultimately, the Sokal hoax revealed, in a tragicomic way, how the good-old “envy of physics” has been wreaking havoc for centuries, permeating humanities and social sciences across the board.
So, with Alan Sokal’s work vigilantly checking on me, I will try to navigate an analogy which has a connection with physics. In my defense, not because of physics envy in particular—probably that’s also what Lacan said—but because it can serve as a visual representation of something not physics related.
One of the big mysteries in life, almost like life itself, is why organizations succeed. There is no deterministic “law” which can predict how or why one organization thrives whereas another one falls engulfed in the abyss of eternal disgrace. There is no way of mapping size, type of business, or management style directly to success. Or to failure, for that matter. But one thing is certain: they are not random, in the sense that they produce goods and services which are the result of a coordinated effort, and that a finite set of relevant factors for their success or demise can be identified.
The analogy to discuss here today is about two opposing forces (organizational forces, or factors, to be more Sokal-compliant) figuratively pushing an organization “up” or “down”, just like buoyancy. Here, going “upward” means succeeding—staying afloat—whereas going “downwards” means sinking; i.e.; drowning, perishing. You will say: are you really coming up with a floating/sinking analogy like it’s been done a million times before? Yes, but my humble take today is to identify the forces that make organizations move up and down in a continuum between success and failure.
A perfect balance between these two forces would imply a stationary organization which is not succeeding but also not failing; in short, floating in mediocrity. It is the imbalance of these two factors that indicates success or failure, and such imbalance represents a more interesting case to think about.
But what is the mysterious “downwards” force in this case? Mats Alvesson and André Spicer call this factor, more or less, organizational stupidity3. It means the proliferation of practices and behaviors that add no value but, au contraire, consume energy and effort from many. Fads, bureaucracy, a cult of leadership gurus, vapid methodologies and an unnerving urge to maintain the status quo by many. They elaborate:
“[Stupidity] can become self-reinforcing. This happens when employees stop asking searching questions and are rewarded with a sense of (false) certainty. It happens when they are good team players, reliable followers and well adapted organizational members who do not threaten their managers or colleagues. It can create an optimistic narrative. People tell good-news stories. Sometimes there are rewards such as promotions, pay rises and pats on the back from people who matter. All this is taken as evidence that things are going well, and you should continue to follow the same course.”
Organizational stupidity increases with headcount and it is, in a way, an inevitable result of growth itself. With more people, more bullshit positions, more managers equipped with a rich variety of insecurities, the organization eventually turns to itself and not only stops doing meaningful work, but engages in damaging practices.
Now, in the opposite direction, the buoyant force is simply having a great product. A solid product. Found either by luck, serendipity, vision, whatever; it can pull upwards in such a way that it shall counteract almost any sinking force.
See companies like Coca Cola, which has roughly 80,000 employees worldwide (without counting the bottling partners which tend to be external). It is hard to believe Coca Cola, as a corporation, is not rife with drama, politics, egos, and a variety of thoughtless practices across the board. Feels almost natural that a several tens of thousands of people organization would grow such a scene. But it’s Coca Cola at the end of the day, they can afford to do practically whatever they want because people will keep on drinking that magical beverage, with the exception perhaps of Cristiano Ronaldo.
The downwards force (Dr. Sokal, please continue noticing the italics) grows with growth, no pun intended. Why on earth would anyone grow too big before having a good product? That sounds like basically loading bags of bricks on the boat and go for a sail. If you do not have a good product, the last thing you want to do is to on-board a massive slab only to sink like a stone in a pond. And yet, many do. Why? Well, investors’ capital tends to mask the need for buoyancy. By accessing easy money, the hiring spree kicks in—and usually targets irrelevant, non-product-related positions—and when the resulting sinking force out of all that growth is already too strong, it is already late to think about coming up with counterforce, that is, focus on having a product. By then, there are so many souls on board that any discussion on that matter will simply diverge.
But wait, we have seen big organizations with no product, haven’t we? How do they survive? Simple: they craft a lineline that keeps them artificially alive. It can be juicy subsidies, or by creatively milking governmental and institutional money. I bet you have examples at hand. I do.
Proper product-thinking can be done with surprisingly small resources, and perhaps it must be done in small, tight-knit circles. Apple came up with the Apple I (which would set the stage for the successor Apple II and the company meteoric rise to an IPO in 1980) with just a very few souls: Woz and Jobs4. I am aware who I am talking about, but the mistake would actually be to think of Mr. Wozniak and Mr. Jobs as the powerful people they would become back when they started. In the very early days, they were not powerful, they saw the edge and they went for it. First the product, then the rest. Today, Apple can surely afford considerable amounts of internal nonsense—which I bet they have—because their buoyancy force is undeniably strong, they’re floating on saltwater.
Companies do not succeed because they get rid of stupid practices. They cannot do that, and will never be able to do that as long as they continue employing human beings. The reason why they succeed is that they use the relevant gray matter at the right time to figure out what the goddamn product is5 and they just float up.
Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science · Alan Sokal & Jean Bricmont. Picador (1998) (which has hilarious paragraphs, for example see Lacan’s use of imaginary numbers)
Sokal, Alan (2008). Beyond the Hoax: Science, Philosophy and Culture. Oxford University Press.
Alvesson, M., & Spicer, A. (2016). The Stupidity Paradox: The Power and Pitfalls of Functional Stupidity at Work. Profile Books Ltd.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_I#History
Competitors may be analogous to ‘disturbance forces’ or drag acting against buoyancy