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The Gervais Principle, or the Office According to “The Office” (2009)
- AndhGAS 2y ago[flagged]
- H8crilA 2y agoKeep in mind that in practice this classification is not perfect, as in you cannot just bucketize people into three categories and declare perfect understanding. You should treat the roles described in the article as archetypes of human behavior.
- crngefest 2y agoThis is true for every statement about people.
- H8crilA 2y agoAnd yet it is not obvious to everyone.
- DaiPlusPlus 2y agoI still maintain there are only 10 types of people in the world. Those who know base-2 numerals and those who don't.
- DaiPlusPlus 2y ago> Keep in mind that in practice this classification is not perfect, as in you cannot just bucketize people into Gosh that's such an INFJ thing to say! /s[ubtle]
- nkrisc 2y ago“INFJ”, that’s from that workplace astrology, right?
- _odey 2y agoYou would be surprised, but companies actually pay hard money to consultants to do these astrology readings and present them to shareholders as a "measure of workforce compatibility".
- nkrisc 2y agoI had to do something like that once at work. I picked random answers for all the questions.
- dangsux 2y ago[dead]
- _odey 2y agoThat's the easy part. Did you also have to do a 1 hour interview with the consultant after the questionnaire? EDIT: also an hour long group meeting after the interviews to be presented your collective results?
- osigurdson 2y agoMost people know how to game these now. Want to be a "leader"? Choose extroverted type answers. Get the red patch.
- jhbadger 2y agoI think it was more popular before that book ("The Personality Brokers: The Strange History of Myers-Briggs and the Birth of Personality Testing") came out. Not that I ever believed it before that, but I assumed it was created by actual social scientists rather than two untrained amateurs as is the case.
- aaron695 2y ago[dead]
- anal_reactor 2y agoThis is true for any kind of generalization. Having said that, I can really see this at my company. At the beginning I was a high-perfoming loser. Then I realized how things work, and since then I do bare minimum. I wish I could be a sociopath, but I don't have the brains nor the lack of morals to do so. I passionately hate the clueless ones because they stand against everything I believe in. My dream is to save enough money not to have to take part in this circus anymore.
- rbanffy 2y ago> lack of morals You don’t really need to be a clinical sociopath for that - you need to know enough to employ the characteristics in order to reach your own goal, which might not be a selfish one at all. It’s a fun sport if you think about it that way.
- H8crilA 2y agoHigh performing is the clueless, not the loser. Bare minimum is the loser. Those names are not chosen well, especially the "loser".
- throaway812 2y ago[flagged]
- heresie-dabord 2y agoFrom TFA... "The Gervais Principle is this: Sociopaths, in their own best interests, knowingly promote over-performing losers into middle-management, groom under-performing losers into sociopaths, and leave the average bare-minimum-effort losers to fend for themselves."
- Mistletoe 2y agoThank you, I was wondering what the Gervais principle was exactly.
- 5350-uiop-1130 2y ago"The more you work, the less you earn." You can't really grow in business without exploitation. Whether that's using "contractors" to deliver your packages, using monopoly to slurp people's data, sourcing minerals from african blood mines or using asian sweatshops to build your phones and clothes. To me, corporate life has always been a race to see who gets exploited the most and who the least. Sociopaths don't care about exploiting others. I would say the same for most people. We can usually rationalize the worst kind of things to ourselves when it suits us.
- bboygravity 2y agoThere's quite a difference between deliberately exploiting people you interact with in the real world all day every day for your own benefit and what you're mentioning. Buying an iPhone, not knowing that it was built using Chinese (semi-)slave labour is not quite the same as a manager who promotes easily exploitable (loser) over-achievers and uses "devide and conquer" on the rest of his underlings to make himself feel safe and comfy. All in the same office that everybody goes to every day. For decades.
- xyzzy4747 2y agoIt’s not exploiting if they voluntarily do it. The default state of humanity for thousands of years has been a lot of people living in mud houses and working all day to do subsistence farming and tending to livestock. Doesn’t sound like a great life, but they aren’t being “exploited” there either. It’s just people versus Mother Nature. However, many would gladly take 9-5 jobs in an air conditioned building instead, and live in nicer homes with utilities. It’s voluntary labor.
- Cockbrand 2y agoPreviously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=881296 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=881296 (63 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33298158 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33298158 (149 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25486869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25486869 (90 comments) And a lot more which were less popular: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=gervais%20principle%20the%20office%20ribbonfarm&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=gervais%20principle%20the%20of...
- h0l0cube 2y agoI read this long ago, and it poses itself as dark knowledge. The triage of 'sociopath', 'clueless', and 'losers', even if it bears out this neatly in reality – it doesn't – isn't very actionable. I did come away with one useful part of it, and that's 'The Curse of Development'. Which basically states, that if you go out of your comfort zone to try something new, you'll look foolish to outsiders. And it's useful to know this, and then correct for it when receiving judgement from people who haven't walked that path. https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/04/14/the-gervais-principle-iii-the-curse-of-development/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/04/14/the-gervais-principle-...
- mikhael28 2y agoI’ve read this before, and while an entertaining thought experiment, I’m not sure there is anything really actionable here. Maybe just be mindful that people are trying to exploit you.
- t43562 2y agoAs you say, it's worth knowing what shit can happen but that doesn't mean everyone in leadership is a sociopath or that it's unwise or losing to accept a paycheck. It can be unwise to start a business and lose all your money which does happen to people.
- rbanffy 2y agoThe terminology on the three groups is used very loosely. The “psychopaths” put their own interests on top, the “clueless” put the company on top and the “losers” are the ones who opt for a low-risk, low-reward strategy. Risk goes up as you move up on the pyramid as well, but lots of current C-levels use the company to buffer the downsides while keeping the upsides for themselves. It’s a bit sociopathic, but there are endless layers of self-delusion happening on all levels. This is also an “average” company set in a specific culture. Outliers exist and different cultures will also reflect in the power dynamics.
- dangsux 2y ago[dead]
- velcrovan 2y agoI would say the same of Rene Girard’s writing. It’s a lens to try to make sense of the world, not a method.
- alecco 2y agoNot all companies are like this. Some small companies have good leaders. Cherish them if you find one.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- trojanalert 2y agoTo be read in conjunction with the Babbler hypothesis - The amount of time some people spend talking gets them into leadership positions. It doesn't matter what they say, just how much they rant on. I read that, and realised how insanely true it is
- cen4 2y agoWell these observations have nothing with to do with the main conundrum - How do you keep a group of chimps who all have different interests, personalities, needs, beliefs, values, upbringings, culture, religion, language, history etc etc in sync? And these days groups grow quite large quite fast. Historically, if you take rewards, bribery, force, domination and manipulation out of the story, the babblers/non threatening people can bridge differences as groups grow larger and larger in size. No solution is perfect, cause its quite an unnatural thing for groups to form around anything. Given all the differences. Just try to work with your entire extended family on a project, and watch what kind of strange rituals, stories and behaviors keep the group from breaking apart.
- WJW 2y agoI think you missed the point of the GP: Venkatesh Rao has written so much posts around this idea that he's now positioned himself as an authority on the topic of workplace power dynamics, regardless of if what he wrote is actually accurate or not. He is also quite fond of using poorly defined (in this context) words like "dialectical" and "illegibility" that makes the reader doubt whether he's actually full of shit or that he is actually so brilliant that the reader simply doesn't comprehend him.
- mgblogg 2y agoI think the main point of his principle is roughly correct. Classic companies are started by sociopaths and an initial amount of losers. Then the clueless come in the middle of the pyramid. The clueless section expands as the company grows until the company implodes. I do not agree with his idea of promotion of overachievers into middle management and many other things. Some of his points are self-contradictory. There are many variations on the main principle like Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy: https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html (None of this applies applies to startups that are founded by actual programmers.)
- tankenmate 2y ago"Traded freedom for a paycheck in short." or to quote Pink Floyd, "Did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?" -- Wish You Were Here.
- fch42 2y agoA lot of these "organisational models" treat organisational behaviour as a kind of game; you can get ahead by exploiting game masters' mistakes, by cheating, or possibly by knowing and playing the rules really well. And just like poker, there's always a supply of those who believe in luck and just go all-in with no plan. While I get that "as such", and therefore can follow a classification sociopath/clueless/loser, what is always missing in such models are the people who don't care to play. Those who go to the casino for free food and drinks in order to watch the show, but not to take a stake of their own. Are they "losers" because if you don't bet you can't win ? All of those who play, though, actually want these spectators - after all, winning if there's noone looking, is that a win? Personally, I think you have this "fourth column" in all organisations. They take their paycheck and deliver something of what's asked for, but else don't care; what they see as "success" is not related to organisational structure or behaviour at all. With all the focus on "success" and "promotion" (or, opposite, "losers"), I wonder how much the theorists are missing. The non-voters can be the majority, you know ...
- the_gipsy 2y agoThat's the "losers", they are precisely described.
- nkrisc 2y ago> The Losers like to feel good about their lives. They are the happiness seekers, rather than will-to-power players, and enter and exit reactively, in response to the meta-Darwinian trends in the economy. But they have no more loyalty to the firm than the Sociopaths. They do have a loyalty to individual people, and a commitment to finding fulfillment through work when they can, and coasting when they cannot.
- lupire 2y agoThis is the main annoyance I had that turned me off this theory. Not playing a game may be technically "losing" the game, but empathizing that part gives the game undue importance in the big picture, instead of looking for what actually is important.
- sage76 2y agoThis writing explained nearly everything I saw in the corporate world. One thing I do disagree with is the promotion of enlightened underperformers. Those guys seemed to always end up leaving and starting their own companies.
- sulandor 2y agonot necessarily a bad thing, since a well-connected and specialized startup may bring a lot more value to the company and the economy in gerneral
- rbanffy 2y ago> Those guys seemed to always end up leaving and starting their own companies The “enlightened underperformer” path is high-risk/high-reward. Only a minority will be promoted up, and most will end up either doing a lateral move to another company or being promoted out.
- mksreddy 2y ago“Sometimes I’ll start a sentence, and I don’t even know where it’s going. I just hope I find it along the way.” — Michael Scott, the first LLM.
- vasco 2y agoMost of my good thinking is done like this. Walking around the house talking out loud to myself about a topic without knowing where it's going. Over the years I've trained myself to try and speak more and more in this mode and I find it has good outcomes. It's not how it works but to myself I call it "putting my brain in analog mode". I also try to write like this for all my first passes. I also found it works for drawing, I will start drawing a random line and see where the hand takes me. I believe there's a term for art done in this way but I can't recall it now. I think Michael Scott was on to something.
- szundi 2y agoStephen King does this with whole trilogies haha
- rbanffy 2y agoThis is actually a very practical way of creating stories - set up the stage and see what the characters go about doing. The writer needs to be aware of the larger stage in order to keep the reader interested in understanding what’s actually going on and why.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Lyngbakr 2y agoI remember Stephen King writing in his book On Writing that he once deviated from this approach (Maximum Overdrive, perhaps?) and it really didn't go well. At the time, I thought creating characters, a scenario, and setting and then seeing what happened was nuts, but it's essentially how D&D works (albeit in a group setting) and that's always fun.
- The_Colonel 2y agoThis just reeks of bitterness. Sounds like someone trying to get to the top, failed somewhere along the way and constructed this model to funnel frustration and sorta explain away their failure. The judgment permeates the model, apparently the only desirable position js at the top (but then you're a sociopath), second best is a checked-out loser. To me, being a "clueless" or "over-performing loser" is preferable to a "checked-out loser" (I've been all of those at times), at minimum because the former like their job. Micheal, Andy and Dwight enjoy their job and even find some fulfillment there. Meanwhile for e. g. Stanley the work seems to be only necessary suffering. I'd rather make my work enjoyable than having to suffer 8 hours a day.
- rkachowski 2y agowe must imagine Sisyphus happy
- usrnm 2y ago> I'd rather make my work enjoyable than having to suffer 8 hours a day. And you're making an irrational decision because it makes you feel better. Nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't really contradict the essence of the article. If you look at work from the economic point of view, it's just an economic transaction, we are selling our time for money. Selling more of my time for more money or selling less of it for the same money are both rational things to do, selling more time and effort for the same money is not very rational.
- zahllos 2y agoI agree with the parent poster, the author sounds very bitter. Might not be true, they might be trying at humour and I haven't got it. But I think doing the minimum you can get away with is playing with fire. Your colleagues will resent you. You're also sending a signal to everyone that will be remembered. Maybe a colleague will start a business or move to another place one day. Are they going to employ the minimum effort person they used to work with? No.
- wnolens 2y ago
- fancyfredbot 2y agoThe key ingredients of successful memetic corporate organizational theory are cynicism, detachment and disparagement. By describing executives as sociopaths and the middle management as losers this article allows the reader to feel superior to those alongside, above, and below them in the org chart, while the generally cynical tone allows the reader to feel aloof and acts to enhance the already established sense of superiority. Finally the article is written from the point of view of an external observer allowing the reader to imagine themselves as separate and somehow external to the organisation rather than a part of it. This explains why people love to post it to hacker news.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 2y agoTo an extent, sure, there is definitely an element of that. It certainly is interesting that it ends up on HN as often as it does though tbh until now I assumed it had more to do with the theory of office that managed to capture a plausible explanation why "The Office" felt as close to the real thing than most of us felt comfortable with. edit: Just the explanation of 'stakes' made me realize that ribbonfarm was onto something there.
- rbanffy 2y agoThe Office is triggering to me. Not as much the UK version, but the American one (a lot of Brazilian companies cargo-cult American ones) rings too many bells. Also, Silicon Valley has triggering moments.
- dlkf 2y agoThe article is rife with references to a mediocre tv show, but it doesn’t contain a single example of the principle as applied to a firm. The author is an expert in something, but it isn’t business.
- stavros 2y agoIf the Office is a mediocre comedy TV show, what's a great comedy TV show?
- Apocryphon 2y agoShouldn’t you of all people know? Maybe ask Nick if Adam’s been giving bad recommendations.
- stavros 2y agoWho are Nick and Adam?
- HenryBemis 2y agoDilbert! (I know that Scott Adams got chastised for some views/tweets/whatever and I don't care) Now, to the cartoons. I was introduced to them back in 2000 or 2001 by a colleague. We both loved the Monty Pythons, so we had that in common to begin with. Once I read the first few strips, I got hooked. I starting 'seeing' these chars to my colleagues (and to myself). Dilbert has taught me A LOT about psychology and operating in large corporations. My all-time favorite cartoon is (and will most likely forever be): https://dilbert-viewer.herokuapp.com/1998-04-10 https://dilbert-viewer.herokuapp.com/1998-04-10
- cushychicken 2y agoLate stage Scott Adams has some pretty icky views, but that doesn’t change the fact that he had some spot on insights about modern office culture. “Spot on” may not be a strong enough term - “timeless” may be a more appropriate one.
- rbanffy 2y agoMy wife, a trained clinical psychologist, rebooted her career into corporate consulting. After her first assignment, she came back and all she had to say was “I didn’t know. I thought it was a joke. It’s all true. Dilbert is true”.
- wizzwizz4 2y agoAs much as I love Dilbert, I'd have preferred if it had ended around 2016-ish. The later Dilberts may have been "timeless" (in the sense that the belief system where minorities are out to get you and kindness is a sin is over a hundred years old), but they certainly weren't "spot on". Some of them had valid points about how corporate "inclusivity" is often nothing of the sort – a trend dating back to the US civil rights era (see: Letter from Birmingham Jail), which I expect to continue for a hundred years yet – but surrounded by panels and panels of the characters smirking at each other about woke liberal madness as fantastical caricatures play out in front of them, that insight was… somewhat obscured. Earlier Dilbert, though? Many of the stories were sent in by readers and fans, but wow did Scott Adams adapt them well to the comic medium. It's a real shame how he ended up, and I hope he gets better soon.
- pelagicAustral 2y agoI love The Office (UK version). It is one of my all time favorites, and crudely enough, after so many years of being a fan, I got a taste of what having David Brent as a boss is like... My Boss is so much like Gervais' character, that it is almost like God is taking a piss on me. I absolutely hate my current work environment, and it is all fueled by the archetype of boss caricatured in The Office. It is real, then again, where else would they find so much comedy gold? it had to come from real life...
- throwaway7ahgb 2y agoWhy haven't you been able to get an offer somewhere else?
- Arisaka1 2y agoNot the person you asked but I can give you my reasons: 1. Job market being overly picky makes it hard to jump ship, especially if you're early-mid level 2. There's a general notion that "everywhere's the same deal" so people just learn to cope with it 3. "Golden handcuffs" - compensation so good you're willing to tolerate the downsides.
- stavros 2y agoFor not reading the sibling's response, you really nailed the reasons.
- pelagicAustral 2y agomy mother always said i need to learn to just shut up
- pelagicAustral 2y agoMarket is WILD! I had a super good interview just 2 days ago, just to get a "sorry, maybe we'll call you later". I guess my stack is too crap. No one seems to, really, be hiring. ---- edit Also, I am making good money, and I can do my job with my hands tied behind my back...
- adhambadr 2y agothis was an insanely entertaining and informative read that gave me (a corporate outsider) a massive learning on the psychology of these orgs. It felt like I m reading a very informative management book but using pop culture analogies I can follow, thank you so much for the time to put it and looking forward to pt2 about Jim. Also on another note, are startup founders then in that realm sociopaths or the clueless (with the vcs then being the sopciopaths, employees the ls etc.)? asking for a friend.
- FrustratedMonky 2y agoI read this a decade ago, and really didn't want to believe it. Surely this is just a joke, riffing on the office. But no, a lot of CEO's are psychopaths, and this has held up with test of time.
- d_burfoot 2y ago> Today, any time an organization grows too brittle, bureaucratic and disconnected from reality, it is simply killed, torn apart and cannibalized, rather than reformed. I actually think the overall argument of the essay makes more sense when you realize the above comment actually isn't true for the large majority of organizations. Universities, government agencies, big tech monopolies, public sector unions, complacent companies in industries that haven't changed in 50 years, etc. Most sectors of the economy just don't experience that much competitive pressure, and that's why there are so many zombie institutions, whose activities resemble a kind of mindless shambling rather than any kind of rational constructive motion.
- sangnoir 2y agoCan you give examples of zombie institutions?
- Mathnerd314 2y agoHe did: > Universities, government agencies, big tech monopolies, public sector unions, complacent companies in industries that haven't changed in 50 years so: Harvard, FDA, Google, American Postal Workers Union, State Farm. Also banks, I would say.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> Also banks, I would say Banks get “torn apart and cannibalized” more frequently than industrials.
- InsideOutSanta 2y agoThat often doesn't seem to be a result of competitive pressure, but of hubris. I think in many of those cases, in the framework set out by the article, the sociopaths would still be in charge of the company.
- 2y ago
- motohagiography 2y agoare you a sociopath because the inner struggles of your food delivery guy don't register to you, or have you just instrumentalized someone to achieve an end and you just relate with a transactional distance? no matter what you think you do, to someone you work for, you are the food delivery guy represented by a little dot whose progress to your destination someone is watching on their screen. maybe they're even racing you against another one, but it doesn't matter. I don' think the gervais principle enlightens anymore. I remember thinking it was amazing to see my suspicions laid out like this, but with some time and distance I don't know that I would share it with someone now. why demoralize them. I can see how it's demeaning and feels like punishment to take orders or show deference to someone who lacks heroic qualities, and really we should make a better class of managers, but it is the duty of all prisoners to escape, and they probably won't miss you anyway. there's an aspect of humility that comes from simple competence where all work is "we make a thing here so our families can eat," and if you're on an existential quest for belonging, you're probably not going to provide the value to others that yields the rewards of the business. Sure, money and power flows to some of the least interesting people doing the dullest things, but the dinner party they're boring at isn't the reconciliation or taking account of their course through life either. they do the thing and then eat at drive thrus and watch some tv. meaning for them comes from somewhere else. articles raging against them are dumb and misleading. trying to grind out meaning from every experience is exhausting and ephemeral because meaning is beautiful, but it's rarely shared and doesn't persist. this life is only what we actually do, so do something different.
- djhope99 2y agoI think sales and consulting can be a bit of a cheat code here. You spend most of your time with customers and so you just kind of navigate their politics without actually involving yourself. The money can be better so it’s a better deal and you’re mostly shut out from the politics of the organisation you work for anyway.
- bhasi 2y agoThis is incredibly insightful - I've never analyzed people in organizations in this way, except "people who can do the work" and "others who ride on their coattails".
- renewiltord 2y agoThis blog has been in continuous existence for almost two decades. That’s pretty impressive!
- rich_sasha 2y agoI think there are some insightful gems in there, but it doesn't add up to a grand unified theory of management. One company I worked at was ran by a narcissist, who promoted anyone who sucked up to him - the harder the suck, the higher the office. Not because they were underachieving losers or whatnot. And as a result most people he promoted were the Clueless, who genuinely sucked up the nonsense he spewed. The company was, somehow, very successful. Anther company was all sociopath going at 100 mph flat out, hoping to make enough dosh before it all explodes. No losers or clueless on board beyond probation. Another had a great guy at the top, who was seriously nice, competent at the subject matter, and fair and concerned with the well-being of his people, we're all in this together etc. If anything, he was the Clueless. His lieutenants in turn were incompetent sociopaths, busy with keeping him happy while flailing their arms to appear like they are trying to control the chaos, all the time sucking at the teat of the Really Nice CEO. He didn't promote them because they were sociopath, but he promoted them for some reason and didn't have the heart to fire them. As much as I love the cynicism, I think reality is more complicated. But for sure, being a psycho and not actually caring about the work or people is a great boost to a successful career. "The Office" analogies are a bit convoluted to me as well. Jim's climbing the greasy pole of company management isn't, to me, embracing Sociopathy, but if anything, trying to make his Loser life more comfortable. Swallow a few stupid company slogans, toe a line, and in return have less work and more money. Not really his opening up to screwing other people or relentlessly jumping ship to a higher position with the competitors.
- thayne 2y agoI think this is at best incomplete. For example, there are people who work as value producers who overperform not because they are "clueless" -- they are well aware that the company is not loyal to them, and they got a "bad deal" -- but because they enjoy the work they do, or they have an internal drive to do a good job at whatever they do, or they believe doing a good job makes a difference in the world, etc. And at least some of such people are unlikely to accept a "promotion" to a managerial position.
- j_crick 2y agoThat they know they got a bad deal and they keep going along with its badness, and/or do it to look morally good to themselves, or something like that, is exactly what buckets them as clueless.
- throaway812 2y ago[flagged]