I'm With Stupid

Yes, the "with" is superfluous

Both Michael Woudenberg and Yaniv Bernstein are keen on a 2x2 matrix proposed by General Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord, Commander-in-Chief of the Reichswehr, and very much not an admirer of Hitler.

“He attempted repeatedly to lure Hitler into visiting a fortified base under his command along the Siegfried Line. He confided to Colonel-General Ludwig Beck, a retired army chief of staff and leading conspirator, that "a fatal accident will occur" when the Führer visited his base.”

I’ve never had a team member actively plot my death (although I strong suspect a few might have fantasized about it at moments). Therefore I am going to go out on a limb and say that I am a better leader than Adolf Hitler in some respects.

So apart from that what else do we like Kurt-by-name, curt-by-nature for?

“I divide my officers into four groups. There are clever, [industrious]¹, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually two characteristics are combined. Some are clever and [industrious] — their place is the General Staff. The next lot are stupid and lazy — they”…”are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qualified for the highest leadership duties, because he possesses the intellectual clarity and the composure necessary for difficult decisions. One must beware of anyone who is stupid and [industrious] — he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always cause only mischief.”

I’m not sure why this 2x2 is not as famous as the Boston Consulting Group Growth Share Matrix. It’s certainly more useful.

The issue is that most organizations select for industriousness rather than cleverness. Lots and lots of activity is seen as good - esp. given that we are rarely able to link inputs to outputs. We just assume that if there are lots of inputs then that must mean we get awesome outputs.

Kurt sees through this. He knows that the most damaging thing to an organization are people enthusiastically doing lots of stupid stuff.

But why would anyone who is stupid get hired?

So I want introduce two more sets of ideas about stupidity here.

The first is Carlo Cipolla’s 5 laws of stupidity. Cipolla defines the stupid as those who hurt both themselves and others.

He then goes on to list his 5 laws:

1. Always and inevitably, everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.

2. The probability that a certain person (will) be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.

3. A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.

4. Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular, non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places, and under any circumstances, to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.

5. A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.

Cipolla agrees with Hammerstein-Equord that stupidity is particularly dangerous, even compared to malice. He also states that it is very common.

Finally, Mats Alvesson and Andre Spicer talk about The Stupidity Paradox. The paradox is simple: Why do smart people do stupid things at work?

The answer is they come up with is “functional stupidity”. Organizational structures (especially incentives) encourage people to do things that seem clever in the short term but turn out to be stupid in the long term. Many of the bankers responsible for melting down the global economy in 2008 had fancy PhDs.

Alvesson and Spicer are in some senses bleaker than Cipolla and Hammerstein-Equord. At least the latter two believe that “stupid people” can be identified and in some way cordoned off from the everyone else. Functional stupidity shows that this is not possible because we create environments that encourage and reward stupidity. Institutions that make us stupid.

The call is coming from inside the house.

We must all recognize our inner (or not so inner) idiot. Do not embrace that idiot. They’ll just use it as an excuse to tweak your nipples and run away laughing and saying that you smell of wee.

Instead we must recognize that stupidity is everywhere and that we need shape our environments to make us less stupid. This often means listening to the advice of disinterested third parties who are not high on our BS and being very careful with our reward structures.

And if our organizations are stupid beyond repair then we must have the courage to leave them lest they drag us down with them.

Absolutely me in a T-shirt, yesterday