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The 'broken windows' theory

Our HBO professor introduced an interesting theory in class called the ‘broken windows’ theory. He gave the example of an experiment that was conducted in a relatively poor district of New York, where a brand new BMW car was left abandoned on the street. The experiment involved recording the reactions of various people passing by this swanky car, which was conspicuously placed within this poor neighbourhood. It was observed that most passerbies didn’t even notice that the car was there, and none of them tried to vandalise or steal anything from the car. In the next stage of the experiment, one window of the BMW car was broken, and again the reactions of passerby’s were recorded. It was observed that this time around most of the people passing by actually stopped to look at the car, and some even tried to vandalise the car. Thus, this particular example helps to explain why people are tempted to vandalize, commit a crime or generally do something wrong, when they think that it is ok for them to do so.

I thought that the ‘broken windows’ theory also helps to explain the increasingly uncontrollable problem of piracy in today’s digital world. One of the reasons why piracy is spreading like wildfire is because ordinary people think that it is ok to indulge in it. To give my own example, I really don’t feel that guilty when I am illegally downloading movies / music online; just because I know that most of my other friends and scores of other people are also doing it. I have noticed that the movie/music industry has already started bringing out various advertisements on piracy, whose main objective I think is to make you feel guilty of indulging in piracy. However, I think that the effectiveness of these advertisements is not enough to make people change their behaviour anytime soon.

Thus, more than the attitude of people, it is the environment that instigates them to do something wrong. 

“It’s time for that team building activity.”

It was the first day of our HBO class and we were discussing ‘what makes a best employer’. Among the various points brought up, one of the points that a student attributed to his company being a best or at least good employer, was the team building activities undertaken by that particular company.

This got me thinking, whether team building activities within a company genuinely helped in developing team strength or if it is indeed something that is cleverly designed (or should I say disguised) to achieve something else ultimately. I know that I am being a bit too cynical here, but somehow the idea of going out for that ‘team building lunch’, always made me feel a bit uncomfortable. Now don’t get me wrong; I am actually quite a friendly person (or at least consider myself to be) and in my short career of four years, I have usually been rated fairly well as a team player. However, I somehow felt that an artificial atmosphere usually existed during these labelled team building activities, which was not the case when we casually went out for lunch or some other gathering with the same people.

Moreover, I started getting the feeling that there actually may be an alternative motive behind the team building activity, particularly when it is called by the supervising team manager. I had a circle of friends within the banking space in India, who were involved in sales and marketing of various financial products. These guys used to mention to me that the number of team building activities (mainly lunches) within their banks, usually used to dramatically increase during the close of the fiscal year, when targets were being chased by them and their team managers. The same was also being repeated when some major project was being undertaken.

I am not saying that team building activities are generally bad. However, how do we know that they are meant to be genuine and not for some alternative motive. Anyway, I have been known to be horribly wrong in interpreting these things sometimes, so I need your help on this too. I request you to participate in a short poll given on the sidebar of this blog, to help me in collating thoughts of others on this particular topic. Please take out a few seconds – Your opinion counts here!

Hello World!

Yes, this is my first ever blog post. And yes, I am yet another newbie blogger (we are multiplying in quantum these days). First let me start by trying to explain why I named this blog “Office Space”, after one of my favourite movies (do watch, if you haven’t seen it as yet). As mentioned in my blog description, this blog was initiated as a class project to allow me to reflect on my core learning in the HBO class. Since, I may have got you in the movie frame of mind, I would just like to clarify first that I am not referring to the popular movie channel here, but rather to the Human Behaviour in Organizations class, which I am taking as part of my MBA program at the Asian Institute of Management in Manila.

Coming back to the movie; it revolves around the life of a group of IT professionals in America who are basically bored of their mundane job and finally try to hatch an elaborate conspiracy to get even with their company, when they learn that it is planning to lay some of them off. One of the hilarious instances in the movie, is when the main character narrates the dilemma he faces, as a result of reporting to six managers. He sulks that because of this, when he makes a mistake, he has six people pointing out his mistake. To top it off, the company also has a perfect example of an air-headed boss, with a ‘MYPRSCHE’ car plate, signature coffee mug and the ‘oh-so’ irritating habit of coming to your desk on a Friday evening (when you are just about to leave) and asking you to come into work on Saturday.

Don’t worry; I won’t give away too much more of the movie. I just wanted to highlight a few points to give you a classic example of what a company should not do. Moreover it was the air-headed boss who was especially making the work place so mundane and uncomfortable for the employees. The ‘human-connect’ element seemed to be totally missing here. The employees of the organization spent most of their time trying to devise innovative ways to avoid this boss character, and not cross paths with him.

I think many of us will be able to relate to this in some facet of our work life; although on a much smaller scale (and not at the dramatised scale of Hollywood). This just signifies, how important human behaviour can be, from a company’s perspective.

“Let’s just leave it at that, and pick up from it further in our next class”.