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Related to the concept of efficiency / slack is the concept of a Moral Maze (from Robert Jackall) [1] or Immoral Maze (the same thing but renamed for clarity) [

Related to the concept of efficiency / slack is the concept of a Moral Maze (from Robert Jackall) [1] or Immoral Maze (the same thing but renamed for clarity) [2]. [1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/0199729883 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0199729883 [2] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/zpA2Tnp2k38qSmr8J/how-to-identify-an-immoral-maze https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/zpA2Tnp2k38qSmr8J/how-to-ide...

disgruntledphd2 4y ago
I'm not sure how Moral Mazes relates to this topic, can you explain the links to me a little bit more?
- andrewla 4y ago
  One aspect of a Moral Maze is that it systematically removes slack: > A world without slack is not a place one wants to be. Mazes systematically erase all slack. Slack is evidence of not being fully committed, and given that everyone’s skills are equal and competition is perfect, holding anything back means losing even if undetected. [1] And an article by Zvi on the specific concept [2]. My take, and my experience, says that a lot of what makes a moral maze is an organization where professional managers engage in a large-scale effort to ensure that blame or negative consequences flow past them. So you advance by building a maze around yourself so that negative results miss you and you grab credit for positive results that have to flow through you. When people "on the line" do good work, you can leech off of that. And as long as your organization does good work you can do fine. But if your organization becomes marginal or if you're trying to outcompete other middle managers, you have to find a way to pass that downstream. As a generic "manager" you can't add value on the line, but it's very easy to blame lack of results on lack of efficiency (too much slack) so that's what gets sacrificed. [1] https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2020/01/12/how-to-identify-an-immoral-maze/ https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2020/01/12/how-to-identify-an-i... [2] https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2017/09/30/slack/ https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2017/09/30/slack/

disgruntledphd2 4y ago

I'm not sure how Moral Mazes relates to this topic, can you explain the links to me a little bit more?

andrewla 4y ago
One aspect of a Moral Maze is that it systematically removes slack: > A world without slack is not a place one wants to be. Mazes systematically erase all slack. Slack is evidence of not being fully committed, and given that everyone’s skills are equal and competition is perfect, holding anything back means losing even if undetected. [1] And an article by Zvi on the specific concept [2]. My take, and my experience, says that a lot of what makes a moral maze is an organization where professional managers engage in a large-scale effort to ensure that blame or negative consequences flow past them. So you advance by building a maze around yourself so that negative results miss you and you grab credit for positive results that have to flow through you. When people "on the line" do good work, you can leech off of that. And as long as your organization does good work you can do fine. But if your organization becomes marginal or if you're trying to outcompete other middle managers, you have to find a way to pass that downstream. As a generic "manager" you can't add value on the line, but it's very easy to blame lack of results on lack of efficiency (too much slack) so that's what gets sacrificed. [1] https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2020/01/12/how-to-identify-an-immoral-maze/ https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2020/01/12/how-to-identify-an-i... [2] https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2017/09/30/slack/ https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2017/09/30/slack/