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This is a problem that pervades all forms of organisational stewardship. It's true for ICANN, it's true for all forms of national government, it's even true for

This is a problem that pervades all forms of organisational stewardship. It's true for ICANN, it's true for all forms of national government, it's even true for ivy league universities. Eventually they all end up being run in the interests of the currently elected administration rather than the principles and long-term interests of the organisation. It's impossible to completely fix, but there are a few ways to slow down the rot, for example: 1. Require extreme transparency (where possible) 2. Make decision-making difficult enough that everyone complains about how slow and indecisive the body is 3. Structure the administrators' roles and remuneration so that they have long term rather than short term financial incentives. 4. Don't offer large salaries to anyone. The role shouldn't attract people who care about salaries, even if it means you don't attract the "best talent". That "best talent" was probably going to wreck the organisation anyway.

wjnc 6y ago
A few suggestions: - Define the long-term goals of an organisation explicitly. - Interpret these narrowly. - Give stakeholders a vote, both in the election of officials and on certain topics. I would argue that there exist (hundreds of) thousands of usually small, non-profit organisations that are run pretty efficiently. I think of pretty much all of the social and sport clubs for adults and kids I know of. A lot of interpersonal drama, but also countless of volunteers and people just working for their local community organised by their hobbies. So there's something about scale and dissociation with the original goals going on.
- sjwright 6y ago
  I would have thought all of those points would apply to ICANN. The issue isn't having clearly defined goals, the issue is that for some value of N, the Nth administration of an organisation eventually behave like exploiters rather than stewards. They don't care about your silly words.
  - wjnc 6y ago
    So what factors influence N? Because I point out (perhaps trivial, but a lot of our social life is organised that way) organisations where N-->Inf.
  - state_less 6y ago
    I’m curious if a law as code approach code help? Define bylaws publicly with a good specification. Decisions could be validated against the specifications. The checker’s consequences could be setup to be immediate and binding as the system matures.
champagneben 6y ago
>4. Don't offer large salaries to anyone. The role shouldn't attract people who care about salaries, even if it means you don't attract the "best talent". That "best talent" was probably going to wreck the organisation anyway. Is this necessarily the right move? I have a vague recollection of reading about Singapore and their approach to attaining top talent to the public sector with high wages. I could be totally wrong!
- wastedhours 6y ago
  Yeah, I'd argue for the opposite (and often do, in relation to increasing politician's pay). You want people who don't need to play the game and buddy up to people if they want to improve their lot. You don't want people who see the role as a stepping stone to "better things".
  - clarkevans 6y ago
    Indeed, entering into a political space is a very expensive gamble and requires significant investment before one could obtain a return that is commensurate. If politicians do not have a way to obtain a return for their risk that puts them in the public's trust, then the profession will be filled with those who take the risk because they seek private reward.
    - sjwright 6y ago
      Politicians are easy—reward them with a generous pension rather than a generous salary. Bonus points if part of that pension can be inversely tied to future private income.
- Ensorceled 6y ago
  There needs to be a difference between the stewardship roles and the doer/self-interests roles. You can pay the doer, but the stewards are ideally volunteers who care about the mission. That this decision was made in the first place, and that ICANN took so long to withhold consent, shows that there are not enough stewards in either organization.
bald 6y ago
it is the classical principal-agent dilemma that we face in society since the point in time we started delegating individual tasks to individuals, for any individual will carry the seeds of greed and egoism in it in varying degrees. thus there will always be a conflict of interest for evolutionary reasons. over the millenia we've developed mechanisms like the division of power (checks & balances) for governments and the board system for corporations. what I want to say with this is that if organizational stewardship is not working, it's most likely a flaw in the structure of the system (and/or the processes), and my instinct would tell me to investigate if the right amount & scrutiny in terms of checks & balances is in place.
- lowdose 6y ago
  I think your reversing causality here, expecting that check and balances will provide the guidance for people not to behave selfish. People will always find a way to rig the system in their favor and more or other rules in the division of power is going to result eventually in the same outcome. I think we should investigate the scope of power instead of your proposed scale of power.
CSMastermind 6y ago
> 4. Don't offer large salaries to anyone. The role shouldn't attract people who care about salaries, even if it means you don't attract the "best talent". That "best talent" was probably going to wreck the organisation anyway. This seems counterproductive to me. If you don't pay people enough that they're worried about losing the position then they're incentivized to try and monetize whatever power they have, leading to corruption.
- NateEag 6y ago
  And if you offer too much, people are incentivized to get the job for money, rather than because they want to do good. Aligning incentives with goals is wise, but it's hard to do perfectly. Humans are still human.
  - cookiecaper 6y ago
    There are a lot of jobs with high salaries out there, and most jobs have sufficient barrier to entry that you have to come to the table with something beyond "I'd like some money please". I don't know, it just doesn't feel like there's a ton of risk of "non-profit board member" becoming the next gold-rush degree track.
- ardy42 6y ago
  >> 4. Don't offer large salaries to anyone. The role shouldn't attract people who care about salaries, even if it means you don't attract the "best talent". That "best talent" was probably going to wreck the organisation anyway. > This seems counterproductive to me. If you don't pay people enough that they're worried about losing the position then they're incentivized to try and monetize whatever power they have, leading to corruption. No, I think the idea is to offer something comfortable but not so large salary would attract people by itslef. You want to discourage the people who "try and monetize whatever power they have" from joining, and reduce the barriers to joining for people who aren't driven by greed.
teddyh 6y ago
That’s “Pournelle's iron law of bureaucracy”: “In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control and those dedicated to the goals the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely.”

wjnc 6y ago

A few suggestions: - Define the long-term goals of an organisation explicitly. - Interpret these narrowly. - Give stakeholders a vote, both in the election of officials and on certain topics. I would argue that there exist (hundreds of) thousands of usually small, non-profit organisations that are run pretty efficiently. I think of pretty much all of the social and sport clubs for adults and kids I know of. A lot of interpersonal drama, but also countless of volunteers and people just working for their local community organised by their hobbies. So there's something about scale and dissociation with the original goals going on.

sjwright 6y ago
I would have thought all of those points would apply to ICANN. The issue isn't having clearly defined goals, the issue is that for some value of N, the Nth administration of an organisation eventually behave like exploiters rather than stewards. They don't care about your silly words.
- wjnc 6y ago
  So what factors influence N? Because I point out (perhaps trivial, but a lot of our social life is organised that way) organisations where N-->Inf.
- state_less 6y ago
  I’m curious if a law as code approach code help? Define bylaws publicly with a good specification. Decisions could be validated against the specifications. The checker’s consequences could be setup to be immediate and binding as the system matures.

champagneben 6y ago

>4. Don't offer large salaries to anyone. The role shouldn't attract people who care about salaries, even if it means you don't attract the "best talent". That "best talent" was probably going to wreck the organisation anyway. Is this necessarily the right move? I have a vague recollection of reading about Singapore and their approach to attaining top talent to the public sector with high wages. I could be totally wrong!

wastedhours 6y ago
Yeah, I'd argue for the opposite (and often do, in relation to increasing politician's pay). You want people who don't need to play the game and buddy up to people if they want to improve their lot. You don't want people who see the role as a stepping stone to "better things".
- clarkevans 6y ago
  Indeed, entering into a political space is a very expensive gamble and requires significant investment before one could obtain a return that is commensurate. If politicians do not have a way to obtain a return for their risk that puts them in the public's trust, then the profession will be filled with those who take the risk because they seek private reward.
  - sjwright 6y ago
    Politicians are easy—reward them with a generous pension rather than a generous salary. Bonus points if part of that pension can be inversely tied to future private income.
Ensorceled 6y ago
There needs to be a difference between the stewardship roles and the doer/self-interests roles. You can pay the doer, but the stewards are ideally volunteers who care about the mission. That this decision was made in the first place, and that ICANN took so long to withhold consent, shows that there are not enough stewards in either organization.

bald 6y ago

it is the classical principal-agent dilemma that we face in society since the point in time we started delegating individual tasks to individuals, for any individual will carry the seeds of greed and egoism in it in varying degrees. thus there will always be a conflict of interest for evolutionary reasons. over the millenia we've developed mechanisms like the division of power (checks & balances) for governments and the board system for corporations. what I want to say with this is that if organizational stewardship is not working, it's most likely a flaw in the structure of the system (and/or the processes), and my instinct would tell me to investigate if the right amount & scrutiny in terms of checks & balances is in place.

lowdose 6y ago
I think your reversing causality here, expecting that check and balances will provide the guidance for people not to behave selfish. People will always find a way to rig the system in their favor and more or other rules in the division of power is going to result eventually in the same outcome. I think we should investigate the scope of power instead of your proposed scale of power.

CSMastermind 6y ago

> 4. Don't offer large salaries to anyone. The role shouldn't attract people who care about salaries, even if it means you don't attract the "best talent". That "best talent" was probably going to wreck the organisation anyway. This seems counterproductive to me. If you don't pay people enough that they're worried about losing the position then they're incentivized to try and monetize whatever power they have, leading to corruption.

NateEag 6y ago
And if you offer too much, people are incentivized to get the job for money, rather than because they want to do good. Aligning incentives with goals is wise, but it's hard to do perfectly. Humans are still human.
- cookiecaper 6y ago
  There are a lot of jobs with high salaries out there, and most jobs have sufficient barrier to entry that you have to come to the table with something beyond "I'd like some money please". I don't know, it just doesn't feel like there's a ton of risk of "non-profit board member" becoming the next gold-rush degree track.
ardy42 6y ago
>> 4. Don't offer large salaries to anyone. The role shouldn't attract people who care about salaries, even if it means you don't attract the "best talent". That "best talent" was probably going to wreck the organisation anyway. > This seems counterproductive to me. If you don't pay people enough that they're worried about losing the position then they're incentivized to try and monetize whatever power they have, leading to corruption. No, I think the idea is to offer something comfortable but not so large salary would attract people by itslef. You want to discourage the people who "try and monetize whatever power they have" from joining, and reduce the barriers to joining for people who aren't driven by greed.

teddyh 6y ago

That’s “Pournelle's iron law of bureaucracy”: “In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control and those dedicated to the goals the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely.”