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Moral Mazes: The World of Corporate Managers
Robert Jackall's Moral Mazes offers an eye-opening account of how corporate managers think the world works, and how big organizations shape moral consciousness.
Based on extensive interviews with managers at every level of two industrial firms and of a large public relations agency, Moral Mazes takes the reader inside the intricate world of the corporation. Jackall reveals a world where hard work does not necessarily lead to success, but where sharp
talk, self-promotion, powerful patrons, and sheer luck might. Cheerfully-bland public faces mask intense competition in this world where people hide their intentions, and accountability often depends on the ability to outrun mistakes.
In this topsy-turvy world, managers must bring often unforgiving technology and always difficult people together to make money, an uncompromising task demanding continual compromises with conventional truths. Moral questions become merely practical concerns and issues of public relations.
Sooner or later, managers find themselves wondering how to act in such a world and still maintain a sense of personal integrity.
This brilliant, sometimes disturbing, often wildly funny study of corporate thinking, decision-making, and morality presents compelling real life stories of the men and women charged with running the businesses of America. It will interest anyone concerned with how big organizations actually
function, or with the current moral malaise in our public life.
Based on extensive interviews with managers at every level of two industrial firms and of a large public relations agency, Moral Mazes takes the reader inside the intricate world of the corporation. Jackall reveals a world where hard work does not necessarily lead to success, but where sharp
talk, self-promotion, powerful patrons, and sheer luck might. Cheerfully-bland public faces mask intense competition in this world where people hide their intentions, and accountability often depends on the ability to outrun mistakes.
In this topsy-turvy world, managers must bring often unforgiving technology and always difficult people together to make money, an uncompromising task demanding continual compromises with conventional truths. Moral questions become merely practical concerns and issues of public relations.
Sooner or later, managers find themselves wondering how to act in such a world and still maintain a sense of personal integrity.
This brilliant, sometimes disturbing, often wildly funny study of corporate thinking, decision-making, and morality presents compelling real life stories of the men and women charged with running the businesses of America. It will interest anyone concerned with how big organizations actually
function, or with the current moral malaise in our public life.
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
About the author
Robert Jackall
11 books8 followersRobert Jackall has done several years of fieldwork with New York City police detectives and prosecutors, among whom he is known as “The Professor.” He is Class of 1956 Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Williams College.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 69 reviews
Shelved as 'might-read'
February 8, 2013One of Aaron Swartz's favourite books apparently.
July 5, 2009
Written with a decent-sized vocabulary but not venturing too far into academic-ese, this book should be required reading for MBAs. Familiarity with European social structures in the Middle Ages (kings, barons, etc.) and Calvinism is helpful since he uses these as reference points.
I have worked in a large company in an oligopolistic industry for several years and have been puzzled by how fast what is important to the organization shifts, leaving a proliferation of priorities that fade but ostensibly do not disappear. I imagine that a more rapidly changing industry would see more of the shifting sands of organizational power relationships and priorities that the author found in his qualitative fieldwork but I'll bet that even governments and perhaps small businesses have the same kinds of dynamics going on.
His findings:
1. Success and perhaps even survival in large bureaucracies requires hard work and "self-objectification"--standing back and critically evaluating one's professional and interpersonal skills--but this book crystallized for me that Kremlinology skills, good networking, and personal public relations are probably equally important (and areas I can work on).
2. Bureaucracies use the language and morality of organizational priorities. People with strong professional standards or moral convictions will be at a disadvantage if they press for organizational change based on "what's right" because it is almost certain to reorganize existing power relationships (i.e. someone's influence on the organization do things a certain way) if successful. Those who are willing to go along when strategically necessary are more likely to rise to a position where they will be able to influence how things are done.
I have worked in a large company in an oligopolistic industry for several years and have been puzzled by how fast what is important to the organization shifts, leaving a proliferation of priorities that fade but ostensibly do not disappear. I imagine that a more rapidly changing industry would see more of the shifting sands of organizational power relationships and priorities that the author found in his qualitative fieldwork but I'll bet that even governments and perhaps small businesses have the same kinds of dynamics going on.
His findings:
1. Success and perhaps even survival in large bureaucracies requires hard work and "self-objectification"--standing back and critically evaluating one's professional and interpersonal skills--but this book crystallized for me that Kremlinology skills, good networking, and personal public relations are probably equally important (and areas I can work on).
2. Bureaucracies use the language and morality of organizational priorities. People with strong professional standards or moral convictions will be at a disadvantage if they press for organizational change based on "what's right" because it is almost certain to reorganize existing power relationships (i.e. someone's influence on the organization do things a certain way) if successful. Those who are willing to go along when strategically necessary are more likely to rise to a position where they will be able to influence how things are done.
February 14, 2018
For a sociological study that's 30 years old, Jackall's investigation of middle-management moral framework is still fairly, and demoralizingly, spot on. He begins with Max Weber's concept of the Protestant Ethic and maintains that America's management structure is related, but a different kind of hybrid organization that contains markers of the patrimonial bureaucracy of kings and princes, but that is also overlaid with a "personalism" that demands fealty to the CEO and elected/appointed officials.
In American management, credit gets pushed up and details get pushed down: this is nothing new, and it's probably been nothing new for as long as there have been hierarchies. What Jackall elucidated for me was that the difference among middle managers is not in technical skills (everyone who gets to that level is approximately equally talented), but in the ability to control one's image and to make others comfortable--the attention to image and doublespeak and playing by whatever rules are in force at the time become far more profitable characteristics than actual production of technical ability. In middle management, Jackall maintains, acting ability is perhaps even more critical than the technical ability of whatever industry you find yourself in. So this makes me confront my optimistic naivete once again. You'd think I'd be prepared for this. You'd think I'd read these passages and not feel disappointment or frustration. And yet, Jackall drops a particularly deflating analysis into every chapter or after every vignette. It's a sociological account, and not intended to be a call for reform or a handbook to success, and he makes this point quite clear in the final paragraph of his introducton. It speaks more to my own optimism, I suppose, that he warned me right up front, and yet I can't help but read Jackall's interpretation of managerial life as there being no there there--an eternal struggle of on-the-job survival and hoping to eke out a vacation or two every year and a long weekend every now and again to find some meaning and "truth" in what you do for a living.
Again, this book is 30 years old. We've been through economic meltdowns, burst housing bubbles, scientific disappointments. But I suppose the larger message here is that people are people, and that as long as people, with their jockeying for position if not basic survival, are involved, you can expect the interpersonal and disingenuous politics that are inseparable from business and profit motives and, well, human interaction in whatever sort of exchange economy you pick.
I particularly appreciated Chapter 6, "Dexterity with Symbols," which articulates the growth of management consulting as an appendage to the growing professionalization of the management class. Jackall's takeaway here is the pervasive notion of "doublespeak," which is also wrapped up with who the actual audience for management consultants and (in a later chapter) public relations experts are. Spoiler alert: it's the managers and executives--they're the audience. Management consultants and consulting firms appeal, skillfully, to executive/managerial anxiety. For anyone who has experienced the outcomes of management consulting, Jackall's evaluation rings terribly true. The challenge is often not the putative reason that consultants are called in, but rather when the consultant(s) uncover the "real issue" with which organizations are struggling. In that case, the consultant faces the same challenge as managers in confronting the "truth" of the problem: what does the consultant stand to gain or lose in terms of her own credibility and legitimacy? "[M]anagers need and desire the mask of objectivity to cover the capriciousness and arbitrariness of corporate life; consultants want to maintain their occupational self-image as experts. Each group fills the other's needs and self-images in an occupational drama where the needs of organizations get subordinated to the maintenance of professional identities" (153). More than introducing better efficiency or communication or profit, consultants serve to legitimate unpleasant decisions that have already been made, to throw rival executives off the scent of real strategy, to undercut rival consultants, and to advance the image of the company's or the executive's relevance: don't want to appear stodgy or behind the times among your other executive colleagues at industry conferences? Bring in a consulting firm to throw around trendy management terms, put out a glossy report, and then gradually mothball the resultant plan of action.
Chapter 7, "The Magic Lantern," similarly sends up public relations, equating it with the hype men of early circus days. "Creating the impression of truth displaces the search for truth" (184).
Jackall includes a postscript, updated in 2010, to include details from the banking crisis and crash of the housing market. He includes a load of eye-glazing details about which banks went belly up, in debt by how many billions of dollars, with what kind of government maneuvering, with executives who were awarded how many millions of dollars of bonuses even as they knew their financial legerdemain was producing paper-only profits. The postscript left me a little cold, until I compared it to the other companies he was using: one of his companies is a textile company, in which environmental and health concerns ran rampant. Much work was done in the industry by PR folks to diminish or dismiss byssinosis ("brown lung," a respiratory disease connected to breathing in cotton and other fiber dust, a problem widespread among textile workers and often only fixable with costly renovations of factories and processes), because profits depended on taking raw materials and turning them in to finished product as cheaply as possible. In contrast, the banking industry pushed around numbers and paper and notions of financial instruments that confused even experts in the field. Those profits were based not on making stuff (which is often a messy and dangerous business) but on making "stuff" out of nothing (messy and dangerous in a whole different way), and created mind-boggling debt and impenetrable financial problems.
Jackall ultimately concludes that middle management is not for the faint of heart. That it generates self-doubt and self-deception. That it challenges who you are to your core, because there is no moral compass, but rather an ever-shifting framework based on cognitive maps (who is aligned with whom, who stands to benefit, whom can I trust), an adroit understanding and employment of rules-in-use (read: whatever is in favor at the time), and an arbitrariness to expediency (what gets me out of trouble or makes me look good or moves me up the ladder as fast as possible, with an exclusive focus on the short term).
My takeaway? Things haven't changed much, whether it's a 30-year-old sociological study of chemical companies and textile plant management, or an 8-year-old summary of the how the crap hit the fan in the banking industry, or whatever field you find yourself working in in 2018. According to Jackall, "In a world of cheerfully bland public faces, where words are always provisional, intentions always cloaked, and frankness simply one of many guises, wily discernment, being able, as managers say 'to separate the honey from the horseshit,' becomes an indispensible skill" (172). Perhaps the ability to publicly react to horseshit as though it were honey is just as indispensible, and just as timeless, a managerial skill.
In American management, credit gets pushed up and details get pushed down: this is nothing new, and it's probably been nothing new for as long as there have been hierarchies. What Jackall elucidated for me was that the difference among middle managers is not in technical skills (everyone who gets to that level is approximately equally talented), but in the ability to control one's image and to make others comfortable--the attention to image and doublespeak and playing by whatever rules are in force at the time become far more profitable characteristics than actual production of technical ability. In middle management, Jackall maintains, acting ability is perhaps even more critical than the technical ability of whatever industry you find yourself in. So this makes me confront my optimistic naivete once again. You'd think I'd be prepared for this. You'd think I'd read these passages and not feel disappointment or frustration. And yet, Jackall drops a particularly deflating analysis into every chapter or after every vignette. It's a sociological account, and not intended to be a call for reform or a handbook to success, and he makes this point quite clear in the final paragraph of his introducton. It speaks more to my own optimism, I suppose, that he warned me right up front, and yet I can't help but read Jackall's interpretation of managerial life as there being no there there--an eternal struggle of on-the-job survival and hoping to eke out a vacation or two every year and a long weekend every now and again to find some meaning and "truth" in what you do for a living.
Again, this book is 30 years old. We've been through economic meltdowns, burst housing bubbles, scientific disappointments. But I suppose the larger message here is that people are people, and that as long as people, with their jockeying for position if not basic survival, are involved, you can expect the interpersonal and disingenuous politics that are inseparable from business and profit motives and, well, human interaction in whatever sort of exchange economy you pick.
I particularly appreciated Chapter 6, "Dexterity with Symbols," which articulates the growth of management consulting as an appendage to the growing professionalization of the management class. Jackall's takeaway here is the pervasive notion of "doublespeak," which is also wrapped up with who the actual audience for management consultants and (in a later chapter) public relations experts are. Spoiler alert: it's the managers and executives--they're the audience. Management consultants and consulting firms appeal, skillfully, to executive/managerial anxiety. For anyone who has experienced the outcomes of management consulting, Jackall's evaluation rings terribly true. The challenge is often not the putative reason that consultants are called in, but rather when the consultant(s) uncover the "real issue" with which organizations are struggling. In that case, the consultant faces the same challenge as managers in confronting the "truth" of the problem: what does the consultant stand to gain or lose in terms of her own credibility and legitimacy? "[M]anagers need and desire the mask of objectivity to cover the capriciousness and arbitrariness of corporate life; consultants want to maintain their occupational self-image as experts. Each group fills the other's needs and self-images in an occupational drama where the needs of organizations get subordinated to the maintenance of professional identities" (153). More than introducing better efficiency or communication or profit, consultants serve to legitimate unpleasant decisions that have already been made, to throw rival executives off the scent of real strategy, to undercut rival consultants, and to advance the image of the company's or the executive's relevance: don't want to appear stodgy or behind the times among your other executive colleagues at industry conferences? Bring in a consulting firm to throw around trendy management terms, put out a glossy report, and then gradually mothball the resultant plan of action.
Chapter 7, "The Magic Lantern," similarly sends up public relations, equating it with the hype men of early circus days. "Creating the impression of truth displaces the search for truth" (184).
Jackall includes a postscript, updated in 2010, to include details from the banking crisis and crash of the housing market. He includes a load of eye-glazing details about which banks went belly up, in debt by how many billions of dollars, with what kind of government maneuvering, with executives who were awarded how many millions of dollars of bonuses even as they knew their financial legerdemain was producing paper-only profits. The postscript left me a little cold, until I compared it to the other companies he was using: one of his companies is a textile company, in which environmental and health concerns ran rampant. Much work was done in the industry by PR folks to diminish or dismiss byssinosis ("brown lung," a respiratory disease connected to breathing in cotton and other fiber dust, a problem widespread among textile workers and often only fixable with costly renovations of factories and processes), because profits depended on taking raw materials and turning them in to finished product as cheaply as possible. In contrast, the banking industry pushed around numbers and paper and notions of financial instruments that confused even experts in the field. Those profits were based not on making stuff (which is often a messy and dangerous business) but on making "stuff" out of nothing (messy and dangerous in a whole different way), and created mind-boggling debt and impenetrable financial problems.
Jackall ultimately concludes that middle management is not for the faint of heart. That it generates self-doubt and self-deception. That it challenges who you are to your core, because there is no moral compass, but rather an ever-shifting framework based on cognitive maps (who is aligned with whom, who stands to benefit, whom can I trust), an adroit understanding and employment of rules-in-use (read: whatever is in favor at the time), and an arbitrariness to expediency (what gets me out of trouble or makes me look good or moves me up the ladder as fast as possible, with an exclusive focus on the short term).
My takeaway? Things haven't changed much, whether it's a 30-year-old sociological study of chemical companies and textile plant management, or an 8-year-old summary of the how the crap hit the fan in the banking industry, or whatever field you find yourself working in in 2018. According to Jackall, "In a world of cheerfully bland public faces, where words are always provisional, intentions always cloaked, and frankness simply one of many guises, wily discernment, being able, as managers say 'to separate the honey from the horseshit,' becomes an indispensible skill" (172). Perhaps the ability to publicly react to horseshit as though it were honey is just as indispensible, and just as timeless, a managerial skill.
December 5, 2021
There's roomfuls of management books, TED talks and CEO quotes about businesses as a force of good, how companies putting employees first, and other feel-good spiel; then standing alone in the corner but most congruent with reality is this book.
One might hear about large companies as rational systems run by OKRs, MBO, and other smart on paper things. Jackall lays those illusions to rest. Based on interactions with middle-managers at two large firms, he paints the picture of large corporate bureaucracies as a mysterious political labyrinth where fealty, servitude to your local don and outcomes of political skirmishes determine your fate and survival. This is certainly a grim picture and I do not believe it's that bad all the time everywhere. But I can certainly imagine this is what organisations devolve into when they don't have the blessings of growth/funding/consumer love or other things make people less zero-sum in their thinking.
Another characterisation that I whole-heartedly agree with; is that of moral-neutrality of people inside companies. As we've seen time and again, people who wouldn't hurt a fly in their personal life preside over the darndest acts when operating under the aegis of a organisation. An organisational setup is thus perfectly setup to exploit Asch conformity and Milgram obedience all at once!
And, of course, you can't understate the power of direct monetary incentives.
Remarkable how much this book holds despite being nearly 4 decades old. Docked a star because of dry academic language that served a sedative so many times as I read this book.
One might hear about large companies as rational systems run by OKRs, MBO, and other smart on paper things. Jackall lays those illusions to rest. Based on interactions with middle-managers at two large firms, he paints the picture of large corporate bureaucracies as a mysterious political labyrinth where fealty, servitude to your local don and outcomes of political skirmishes determine your fate and survival. This is certainly a grim picture and I do not believe it's that bad all the time everywhere. But I can certainly imagine this is what organisations devolve into when they don't have the blessings of growth/funding/consumer love or other things make people less zero-sum in their thinking.
Another characterisation that I whole-heartedly agree with; is that of moral-neutrality of people inside companies. As we've seen time and again, people who wouldn't hurt a fly in their personal life preside over the darndest acts when operating under the aegis of a organisation. An organisational setup is thus perfectly setup to exploit Asch conformity and Milgram obedience all at once!
And, of course, you can't understate the power of direct monetary incentives.
Remarkable how much this book holds despite being nearly 4 decades old. Docked a star because of dry academic language that served a sedative so many times as I read this book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 19, 2011
We didn't choose to be bureaucrats
No, that's what Almighty Jah made us
We'd treat people like swine and make them stand in line
Even if nobody paid us
They say the world looks down on the bureaucrats
They say we're anal, compulsive and weird
But when push comes to shove you gotta do what you love
Even if it's not a good idea
No, that's what Almighty Jah made us
We'd treat people like swine and make them stand in line
Even if nobody paid us
They say the world looks down on the bureaucrats
They say we're anal, compulsive and weird
But when push comes to shove you gotta do what you love
Even if it's not a good idea
February 20, 2013
I can't decide if this is 4 stars or 5, actually. This book is pretty amazing, and gets at a lot of the social psychological aspects of corporate decision-making that I have been trying to figure out but just haven't been able to get a handle on. This sort of thing is awesome because it addresses the everyday world of corporate management. There is this weird sort of way that capitalism eats away at itself that O'Connor's second contradiction just does not fully explain, and it's something that I have been bugged by for a long time. I think with this book, I can start to piece together how REAL PEOPLE are involved in terrible decisions that fuck up the conditions of production. As a side note, I started reading this and thought the writing was just miserable and hard to get through, and then I sort of fell in love with it. Anyway, this is an important book. Whatever, moral mazes.
October 2, 2016
Fairly depressing (and presumably accurate) view of corporate management world. I think it's aged fairly well: Corporations are organized around internal networks of patronage that determine decision-making and ascent of individuals' careers; managerial communication is coded for ideological palatability and dynamism in the face of changing circumstances rather than straightforward communication.
One substantial difference between Jackal's era and the present day is tenure at companies: Managers in Jackall's world are presumed to seek a job for life as they climb the corporate ladder within a particular firm. In Silicon Valley, where I work, it is rare for someone to work at the same firm for decades on end, and the freedom to change jobs at will at small cost to their careers changes the dynamic to a considerable degree.
One substantial difference between Jackal's era and the present day is tenure at companies: Managers in Jackall's world are presumed to seek a job for life as they climb the corporate ladder within a particular firm. In Silicon Valley, where I work, it is rare for someone to work at the same firm for decades on end, and the freedom to change jobs at will at small cost to their careers changes the dynamic to a considerable degree.
November 25, 2023
gave me some new perspectives on the corporate world but a dry read and some sentences were way too long and the typography sucked and bothered me on a deep level
December 21, 2020
I really liked this book, even if I don't agree with it completely. It was written more than 30 years ago, but in my opinion it aged quite well (or maybe corporations in Poland today are actually close to 1980 US mindset in some aspects). It's a study of corporate managers and their moral values, written by an anthropologist.
The outcome of the study is pretty bleak - managers function in structures where moral rules are set by their superiors, truth is established by PR specialists and self-gain is an end in itself. I'm not convinced that corporate life is that grim and immoral, but the author is certainly onto something.
Even if the book uses non-business terms (e.g. fealty) and shows only one particular and pessimistic viewpoint, it certainly explains some processes occurring within management circles. At least a couple of times I had an a-ha moment regarding my own experience in corporate world - assigning blame, managers who lost their patrons, promoting own clique etc.
The outcome of the study is pretty bleak - managers function in structures where moral rules are set by their superiors, truth is established by PR specialists and self-gain is an end in itself. I'm not convinced that corporate life is that grim and immoral, but the author is certainly onto something.
Even if the book uses non-business terms (e.g. fealty) and shows only one particular and pessimistic viewpoint, it certainly explains some processes occurring within management circles. At least a couple of times I had an a-ha moment regarding my own experience in corporate world - assigning blame, managers who lost their patrons, promoting own clique etc.
December 9, 2014
A little less scientific than I was led to believe, but a good source for understanding upper echelon power structures. In the book the author shows how the conflict between performing well at your job can sometimes conflict with being a moral person. Corporations place success in business along with the morality of that person. It is the old belief that successful people are usually upstanding citizens. He portrays the conflict of social roles as people attempt to perform in a business environment, but not sellout and hurt others.
September 21, 2023
Parfit pointed out that there can be cases where collectives do harm, but no individual is causally responsible for it. His example was a firing squad: if everyone fires at once, no member of the firing squad made a difference to whether the condemned person was killed.
For Jackall, corporate bureaucracies are like firing squads: vast systems of "organised irresponsibility".
For Jackall, corporate bureaucracies are like firing squads: vast systems of "organised irresponsibility".
March 11, 2020
I lost some faith in humanity over the course of this book. An interesting foray into world of middle management in larger organisations. The politics and crazy incentive structures produce some fascinating, and at times cringeworthy outcomes. Recommended for anyone who interacts with larger organisations, or works in a management role.
November 17, 2021
Extremely depressing sociological look at life inside a corporation, and the behaviors/incentives of people that work in corporate management. This treats the corporate world like the subject of an anthropological study - it digs into the social dynamics and hierarchies of corporations with case studies and draws generalizations.
The book was written in the early 80’s - there are some grains of truth that feel applicable today (the depressing part), but a large chunk of this feels very antiquated. Putting aside the blatant sexism in a few sections, the book is a good reminder that the corporate world was far more shitty a few decades ago.
To me, the advent of email, computers, data analytics, and fairer hiring/promotion practices make the modern workplace far better than the workplace from this book. I’m sure companies today have their problems, but sounds like things back then were far more subjective, biased towards existing social connections, and focused on market perception vs. fundamental performance.
Not sure if I would recommend this, but it was an interesting skim.
The book was written in the early 80’s - there are some grains of truth that feel applicable today (the depressing part), but a large chunk of this feels very antiquated. Putting aside the blatant sexism in a few sections, the book is a good reminder that the corporate world was far more shitty a few decades ago.
To me, the advent of email, computers, data analytics, and fairer hiring/promotion practices make the modern workplace far better than the workplace from this book. I’m sure companies today have their problems, but sounds like things back then were far more subjective, biased towards existing social connections, and focused on market perception vs. fundamental performance.
Not sure if I would recommend this, but it was an interesting skim.
November 30, 2022
A frightening look at the amoral abasement of corporate managers to the bottom line and their own pockets, to the detriment of their employees, their communities, and the environment. In short, the ugliness of capitalism exposed, where exactly the wrong people are paid way too much to do way too little, way too poorly. The author frustratingly provides no solutions, likely because the only solution, the dismantling of capitalism, would be unpalatable, given the author’s obliquely mentioned preferences for the American way. So we, the reader, are left in an enraging pool of cynicism, but one that I am energized to move beyond and continue to fight for better.
April 16, 2022
Almost all management books are prescriptive: they’re self-help books for managers. Moral Mazes is a very different kind of management book. Where most management books are written by management gurus, this one is written by a sociologist. This book is the result of a sociological study that the author conducted at three U.S. companies in the 1980s: a large textile firm, a chemical company, and a large public relations agency. He was interested in understanding the ethical decision-making process of American managers. And the picture he paints is a bleak one.
American corporations are organized into what Jackall calls patrimonial bureaucracies. Like the Prussian state, a U.S. company is organized as a hierarchy, with a set of bureaucratic rules that binds all of the employees. However, like a monarchy, people are loyal to individuals rather than offices. Effectively, it is a system of patronage, where leadership doles out privileges. Like in the court of King Louis XIV, factions within the organization jockey to gain favor.
With the exception of the CEO, all of the managers are involved in both establishing the rules of the game, and are bound by the rules. But, because the personalities of leadership play a strong role, and because leadership often changes over time, the norms are always contingent. When the winds change, the standards of behavior can change as well.
Managers are also in a tough spot because they largely don’t have control over the outcomes on which they are supposed to be judged. They are typically held responsible for hitting their numbers, but luck and timing play an enormous role over whether they are able to actually meet their objectives. As a result, managers are in a constant state of anxiety, since they are forever subject to the whims of fate. Failure here is socially defined, and the worst outcome is to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and to have your boss say “you failed”.
Managers therefore focus on what they can control, which is the image they project. They put in a lot of hours, so they appear to be working hard. They strive to be seen as someone who is a team player, who behaves predictably and makes other managers feel comfortable. To stand out from their peers, they have to the right style: the ability to relate to other people, to sell ideas, appear in command. To succeed in this environment, a manager needs social capital as well as the ability to adapt quickly as the environment changes.
Managers commonly struggle with decision making. Because the norms of behavior are socially defined, and because these norms change over time, they are forever looking to their peers to identify what the current norms are. Compounding the problem is the tempo of management work: because a manager’s daily schedule is typically filled with meetings and interrupts, with only fragmented views of problems being presented, there is little opportunity to gain a full view of problems and reflect deeply on them.
Making decisions is dangerous, and managers will avoid it when possible, even if this costs the organization in the long run. Jackall tells an anecdote about a large, old battery at a plant. The managers did not want to be on the hook for the decision to replace it, and so problems with it were patched up. Eventually, it failed completely, and the resulting cost to replace it and to deal with costs related to EPA violations and lawsuits was over $100M in 1979 dollars. And yet, this was still rational decision-making on behalf of the managers, because it was a risk for them in the short-term to make the decision to replace the battery.
Ethical decision making is particularly fraught here. Leadership wants success without wanting to be bothered with the messy details of how that success is achieved: a successful middle manager shields leadership from the details. Managers don’t have a professional ethic in the way that, say, doctors or lawyers do. Ethical guidelines are situational, they vary based on changing relationships. Expediency is a virtue, and a good manager is one who is pragmatic about decision making.
All moral issues are transmuted into practical concerns. Arguing based on morality rather than pragmatism is frowned upon, because moral arguments compel managers to act, and they need to be able to stack of the social environment in order to judge whether a decision would be appropriate. Effective managers use social cues to help make decisions. They conform to what Jackall calls institutional logic: the ever-changing set of rules and incentives that the culture creates and re-creates to keep people’s perspectives and behaviors consistent and predictable.
There comes a time in every engineer’s career when you ask yourself, “do I want to go into management?” I’ve flirted with the idea in the past, but ultimately came down on the “no” side. After reading Moral Mazes, I’m more confident than ever that I made the right decision.
American corporations are organized into what Jackall calls patrimonial bureaucracies. Like the Prussian state, a U.S. company is organized as a hierarchy, with a set of bureaucratic rules that binds all of the employees. However, like a monarchy, people are loyal to individuals rather than offices. Effectively, it is a system of patronage, where leadership doles out privileges. Like in the court of King Louis XIV, factions within the organization jockey to gain favor.
With the exception of the CEO, all of the managers are involved in both establishing the rules of the game, and are bound by the rules. But, because the personalities of leadership play a strong role, and because leadership often changes over time, the norms are always contingent. When the winds change, the standards of behavior can change as well.
Managers are also in a tough spot because they largely don’t have control over the outcomes on which they are supposed to be judged. They are typically held responsible for hitting their numbers, but luck and timing play an enormous role over whether they are able to actually meet their objectives. As a result, managers are in a constant state of anxiety, since they are forever subject to the whims of fate. Failure here is socially defined, and the worst outcome is to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and to have your boss say “you failed”.
Managers therefore focus on what they can control, which is the image they project. They put in a lot of hours, so they appear to be working hard. They strive to be seen as someone who is a team player, who behaves predictably and makes other managers feel comfortable. To stand out from their peers, they have to the right style: the ability to relate to other people, to sell ideas, appear in command. To succeed in this environment, a manager needs social capital as well as the ability to adapt quickly as the environment changes.
Managers commonly struggle with decision making. Because the norms of behavior are socially defined, and because these norms change over time, they are forever looking to their peers to identify what the current norms are. Compounding the problem is the tempo of management work: because a manager’s daily schedule is typically filled with meetings and interrupts, with only fragmented views of problems being presented, there is little opportunity to gain a full view of problems and reflect deeply on them.
Making decisions is dangerous, and managers will avoid it when possible, even if this costs the organization in the long run. Jackall tells an anecdote about a large, old battery at a plant. The managers did not want to be on the hook for the decision to replace it, and so problems with it were patched up. Eventually, it failed completely, and the resulting cost to replace it and to deal with costs related to EPA violations and lawsuits was over $100M in 1979 dollars. And yet, this was still rational decision-making on behalf of the managers, because it was a risk for them in the short-term to make the decision to replace the battery.
Ethical decision making is particularly fraught here. Leadership wants success without wanting to be bothered with the messy details of how that success is achieved: a successful middle manager shields leadership from the details. Managers don’t have a professional ethic in the way that, say, doctors or lawyers do. Ethical guidelines are situational, they vary based on changing relationships. Expediency is a virtue, and a good manager is one who is pragmatic about decision making.
All moral issues are transmuted into practical concerns. Arguing based on morality rather than pragmatism is frowned upon, because moral arguments compel managers to act, and they need to be able to stack of the social environment in order to judge whether a decision would be appropriate. Effective managers use social cues to help make decisions. They conform to what Jackall calls institutional logic: the ever-changing set of rules and incentives that the culture creates and re-creates to keep people’s perspectives and behaviors consistent and predictable.
There comes a time in every engineer’s career when you ask yourself, “do I want to go into management?” I’ve flirted with the idea in the past, but ultimately came down on the “no” side. After reading Moral Mazes, I’m more confident than ever that I made the right decision.
July 8, 2024
One of those books that came at the right time in life. Speaks unspoken rules, albeit in an almost indecipherable writing style
May 3, 2020
Pretty boring. I would recommend reading the Ribbonfarm essays on The Office instead. It may be worth re-reading the first 5% and the last 10% because these went into the history of work ethics, PR and finance, and I don't think I absorbed all the information.
Notes:
- A bit of advice which could be useful: if your company is doing a bad thing and you want to nudge it in the right direction, then try to do so using the language of rational utility. Don't say "it will harm people" but "it will harm public image".
- "Proper management of one's external appearances simply signals to one's peers and one's superiors that one is prepared to undertake other kinds of self adaptation."
- "The basic principles of decision making in [...] any organization are: (1) avoid making any decision if at all possible; (2) if a decision has to be made, involve as many people as you can so that, if things go south, you’re able to point in as many directions as possible."
- "One can discern some basic rules that seem to undergird most of the genre of business consultant writing and program presentation. [...] The rules seem ot be: (1) suppress all irony, ambiguity, and complexity and assert only the most obvious and literal meanings of any phenomenon; (2) ignore all hteoretical issues unless they can be encapsulated into a neat schematic form easily remembered, "operationalized," and preferably diagrammed; (3) always stress the bright side of things, inflating, say, all efforts for change, whether major or minor, into "revolutionary" action; downplay the gloomy, troublesome, crass, or seamy aspects of big organizational life or, better, show managers how to exploit them to their own advantage; (4) provide a step-by-step program tied, of course, to one's own path-breaking research, that promises to unlock the secrets of organizations; and (5) end with a vision of the future that makes one's book, program, or consulting services indispensable."
- Cotton mill workers are stereotyped as being "lint heads". LOL.
- "You know, PR is dealing with all the things we deal with every day in our private lives, but on a much larger level. [...] We get drunk and we act badly; we have a fight and we use abusive language. Well, [Company X] got drunk, drunk with money and power, and abused its employees and then covered it up. [...] I think that's what people don't like about PR [...] They see all the duplicity and all the storytelling of their own lives writ large." (quoting an executive)
- 'Is real social responsibility the willingness to get one’s hands dirty, to make whatever compromises have to be made to produce a product with some utility, to achieve therefore some social good, even though one knows that one’s accomplishments and motives will inevitably be misinterpreted by others for their own ends, usually by those with the least reason to complain? [...] Is not the proper role of business “to give the public what it wants,” adopting the market as its polar star, as the only reliable guide in a pluralistic society to “the greatest good for the greatest number,” as the final arbiter not of values, which are always arguable, but, more importantly, of tastes, about which there can be no reasonable dispute?"' (paraphrasing some managers)
- Harry Reichenbach was an interesting character. In the early 20th Century he would organise exciting PR stunts for movies, such as faking the kidnappings of famous actresses.
Notes:
- A bit of advice which could be useful: if your company is doing a bad thing and you want to nudge it in the right direction, then try to do so using the language of rational utility. Don't say "it will harm people" but "it will harm public image".
- "Proper management of one's external appearances simply signals to one's peers and one's superiors that one is prepared to undertake other kinds of self adaptation."
- "The basic principles of decision making in [...] any organization are: (1) avoid making any decision if at all possible; (2) if a decision has to be made, involve as many people as you can so that, if things go south, you’re able to point in as many directions as possible."
- "One can discern some basic rules that seem to undergird most of the genre of business consultant writing and program presentation. [...] The rules seem ot be: (1) suppress all irony, ambiguity, and complexity and assert only the most obvious and literal meanings of any phenomenon; (2) ignore all hteoretical issues unless they can be encapsulated into a neat schematic form easily remembered, "operationalized," and preferably diagrammed; (3) always stress the bright side of things, inflating, say, all efforts for change, whether major or minor, into "revolutionary" action; downplay the gloomy, troublesome, crass, or seamy aspects of big organizational life or, better, show managers how to exploit them to their own advantage; (4) provide a step-by-step program tied, of course, to one's own path-breaking research, that promises to unlock the secrets of organizations; and (5) end with a vision of the future that makes one's book, program, or consulting services indispensable."
- Cotton mill workers are stereotyped as being "lint heads". LOL.
- "You know, PR is dealing with all the things we deal with every day in our private lives, but on a much larger level. [...] We get drunk and we act badly; we have a fight and we use abusive language. Well, [Company X] got drunk, drunk with money and power, and abused its employees and then covered it up. [...] I think that's what people don't like about PR [...] They see all the duplicity and all the storytelling of their own lives writ large." (quoting an executive)
- 'Is real social responsibility the willingness to get one’s hands dirty, to make whatever compromises have to be made to produce a product with some utility, to achieve therefore some social good, even though one knows that one’s accomplishments and motives will inevitably be misinterpreted by others for their own ends, usually by those with the least reason to complain? [...] Is not the proper role of business “to give the public what it wants,” adopting the market as its polar star, as the only reliable guide in a pluralistic society to “the greatest good for the greatest number,” as the final arbiter not of values, which are always arguable, but, more importantly, of tastes, about which there can be no reasonable dispute?"' (paraphrasing some managers)
- Harry Reichenbach was an interesting character. In the early 20th Century he would organise exciting PR stunts for movies, such as faking the kidnappings of famous actresses.
September 9, 2013
Wow - what a book!
Jackall is a sociologist who spends two years interviewing managers at two very large manufacturing companies to discuss corporate culture, career advancement, morals, and a whole host of other subjects.
I would have considered myself to be pretty well informed on the subject of corporate irresponsibility, but reading excerpts from some of Jackall's interviews was still quite eye-opening. Jackall delves deep into the corporate cultures of short-term thinking, blurred lines of responsibility for failures, and reckless disregard by management for anyone other than oneself - including a reckless disregard for the future of the company.
One example that truly astounding me were the managerial discussions of "milking" a plant - scrimping on expenses, maintenance, cap ex., etc. with the objective of posting great profit numbers and being quickly promoted to the next level of management. The essential part of this process was the quick promotion as "milking" a plant for a few years leaves the plant so run down as to often be nearly ruined. One of the managers discussed a brand new plant that was "milked" by its manager for four years and left in such poor condition that the entire plant was essentially worthless.
This book is a five star read when Jackall lets the managers he interviewed do most of the talking (which is about 80% of the book). When Jackall starts going off into an academic discussions (for example on the history of P.R. firms, why managers feel the public is against them, etc.) the book can quickly become pretty boring. But this is only about 20% of the book and to be honest I just skimmed most of these sections.
The original interviews were conducted 25 years ago and I would love to think that things have changed since then but just watch the documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room or read anything about the financial collapse of 2008 and it's pretty apparent that if anything things have only gotten worse since this book was written.
This should be a must-read for anyone studying business or thinking of working for a large corporation. And it may cause you to think twice before doing either.
Jackall is a sociologist who spends two years interviewing managers at two very large manufacturing companies to discuss corporate culture, career advancement, morals, and a whole host of other subjects.
I would have considered myself to be pretty well informed on the subject of corporate irresponsibility, but reading excerpts from some of Jackall's interviews was still quite eye-opening. Jackall delves deep into the corporate cultures of short-term thinking, blurred lines of responsibility for failures, and reckless disregard by management for anyone other than oneself - including a reckless disregard for the future of the company.
One example that truly astounding me were the managerial discussions of "milking" a plant - scrimping on expenses, maintenance, cap ex., etc. with the objective of posting great profit numbers and being quickly promoted to the next level of management. The essential part of this process was the quick promotion as "milking" a plant for a few years leaves the plant so run down as to often be nearly ruined. One of the managers discussed a brand new plant that was "milked" by its manager for four years and left in such poor condition that the entire plant was essentially worthless.
This book is a five star read when Jackall lets the managers he interviewed do most of the talking (which is about 80% of the book). When Jackall starts going off into an academic discussions (for example on the history of P.R. firms, why managers feel the public is against them, etc.) the book can quickly become pretty boring. But this is only about 20% of the book and to be honest I just skimmed most of these sections.
The original interviews were conducted 25 years ago and I would love to think that things have changed since then but just watch the documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room or read anything about the financial collapse of 2008 and it's pretty apparent that if anything things have only gotten worse since this book was written.
This should be a must-read for anyone studying business or thinking of working for a large corporation. And it may cause you to think twice before doing either.
March 14, 2017
A fascinating-and disturbing-look into the workings of managerial life. Aaron Swartz had noted this as an influential book, so I was curious to explore what he found compelling about it. Overall, Moral Mazes is at once shocking but unsurprising. The detailed descriptions of the lengths managers will go to further their own careers and seeing the ways in which corporations make denying and rationalizing (indeed, ultimately accepting and defending) morally questionable behavior possible were the aspects of the book I found most interesting (and disquieting). Notably, the book discusses the corporate ability (and need, really) to turn reality into an abstract, self-serving concept that twists and bends to one's own desires. In an increasingly individualist and postmodern-leaning society, such obscuring of reality is familiar to our everyday life. Yet, learning about how it is constructed and what aims it readily accomplishes, I am even more worried about this endorsement of subjective reality than I was before. The managers in Moral Mazes were completely okay with chronically contradicting themselves, saying whatever is socially desirable in a given moment, and existing as a morphing mold that fits whatever furthered their career. Incredibly, at no point is there a manager who is taking a step back and asking, "What is the point of all this? Why is success valued as it is, and why am I willing to do anything to get it?" I think most amazingly, I had thought that corporate managers just don't care about the lies they tell the public, but Moral
Mazes shows that many managers actually come to believe the lies they tell. They twist reality to the point where they genuinely believe, "what do we really know?" despite glaring evidence to the contrary. The mental acrobatics are truly incredible. A great read, especially for sociology/business majors and anyone who wants to learn about Max Weber. This book helped to solidify his concepts in a way I finally really understood.
Mazes shows that many managers actually come to believe the lies they tell. They twist reality to the point where they genuinely believe, "what do we really know?" despite glaring evidence to the contrary. The mental acrobatics are truly incredible. A great read, especially for sociology/business majors and anyone who wants to learn about Max Weber. This book helped to solidify his concepts in a way I finally really understood.
July 14, 2022
Yikes, what a book!
I got into this book because - for some reason - it's really big in the rationality community. I think I know why - and we'll get to this.
In short, it's an ethnography of middle managers and corporate bureaucracies. What basically comes through is that, to make it at all in a corporate bureaucracy, you need to leave your sense of decency at the door. The entire system is incentivises short-term selfish thinking. People ruthlessly betray and manipulate each other, taking a certain solace in the fact that it's just the way things are done around here - it's what you got to do to survive. The author manages to catalogue this without being too judgmental of it but I think it's pretty clear that any sane person would think: holy shit this is a disaster.
I think it is interesting for the rationality types because of thinking about incentives. Particularly Goodhart's law style situations in which someone can specify measurement criteria but they can *really* struggle to specify measurement criteria that measure the thing they actually care about. For example, if your measurement criteria is annual profit then the managers will find a way to achieve good annual profit but probably at the expense of something else, quite possibly something else more important. This is an important idea if you are thinking about - how do we create a good cooperative society? But also if you are interested in existential risk around AI and how to create the right incentive structures for such systems.
I got into this book because - for some reason - it's really big in the rationality community. I think I know why - and we'll get to this.
In short, it's an ethnography of middle managers and corporate bureaucracies. What basically comes through is that, to make it at all in a corporate bureaucracy, you need to leave your sense of decency at the door. The entire system is incentivises short-term selfish thinking. People ruthlessly betray and manipulate each other, taking a certain solace in the fact that it's just the way things are done around here - it's what you got to do to survive. The author manages to catalogue this without being too judgmental of it but I think it's pretty clear that any sane person would think: holy shit this is a disaster.
I think it is interesting for the rationality types because of thinking about incentives. Particularly Goodhart's law style situations in which someone can specify measurement criteria but they can *really* struggle to specify measurement criteria that measure the thing they actually care about. For example, if your measurement criteria is annual profit then the managers will find a way to achieve good annual profit but probably at the expense of something else, quite possibly something else more important. This is an important idea if you are thinking about - how do we create a good cooperative society? But also if you are interested in existential risk around AI and how to create the right incentive structures for such systems.
February 6, 2017
I have read a lot of business/management books for both pleasure (trying to stay current with the latest hot reads in the street) and work (reading the entire book whenever cited on a course syllabus or as recommended background reading).
And this book is the best one so far.
It came to me on the syllabus for a course I am a teaching assistant for this Spring: "Being Effective: Power and Influence" a very popular MBA elective at MIT Sloan. I listened to the audiobook that includes a post-Great Recession update.
Even though the book is pretty old as far as "current" business books go (1988), I still think Jackall nails it when it comes to how organizations really operate given they are populated with human animals. His insights have also been resonating with the observations I've been making at my own field research site - a large multinational company.
I stand by this recommendation for anyone looking to get inside the head of an organization, something that shouldn't be all that surprising given that Jackall is a moral philosopher by training. But that beginning takes him through economic sociology and lands at organizational psychology, compromising no expertise or validity along the way.
And this book is the best one so far.
It came to me on the syllabus for a course I am a teaching assistant for this Spring: "Being Effective: Power and Influence" a very popular MBA elective at MIT Sloan. I listened to the audiobook that includes a post-Great Recession update.
Even though the book is pretty old as far as "current" business books go (1988), I still think Jackall nails it when it comes to how organizations really operate given they are populated with human animals. His insights have also been resonating with the observations I've been making at my own field research site - a large multinational company.
I stand by this recommendation for anyone looking to get inside the head of an organization, something that shouldn't be all that surprising given that Jackall is a moral philosopher by training. But that beginning takes him through economic sociology and lands at organizational psychology, compromising no expertise or validity along the way.
November 25, 2013
this man was before his time. the introduction alone is worth the kindle price. everyone knows that bureaucracy creates its own rules, but rarely are they parsed and analyzed by an external party. if you've ever wanted an academic and surprisingly dry analysis of the behaviors that manifest themselves in corporate america than you would be hard pressed to find a better read than this book. if you're of the ignorance is bliss school of thought, pass on this. otherwise, for something that was written in in the 80s you'll be more than a little amazed at how relevant this is.
while not every corporation is as bad as the 3 companies profiled in this book, do remember that these are the corporations that allowed him to do the research. (the process of how he was able to engage these organizations is interesting all on its own.) you'll walk away from more of those inscrutable meetings at least attempting to parse out the fealty behaviors/arrangements you've just observed; enabling you to plan accordingly.
while not every corporation is as bad as the 3 companies profiled in this book, do remember that these are the corporations that allowed him to do the research. (the process of how he was able to engage these organizations is interesting all on its own.) you'll walk away from more of those inscrutable meetings at least attempting to parse out the fealty behaviors/arrangements you've just observed; enabling you to plan accordingly.
May 7, 2017
If you don't like management books, read this one!
A sociologist is doing research in the community of managers like he would describe an indigenous tribe in Papua-Neuguinea. The research was done in the 80s, but it feels like it was written yesterday.
Every current criticism of the management caste is here examined, explained and put into context. If you ever wondered where the lack of moral values, the short-sightedness of decision-making, the intransparent criteria for being promoted and the artificial management speak is coming from, read this book.
The title is a bit misleading as it makes you think that this book is only about moral decisions. Instead it is a complete description of how managers think, decide, rationalise, communicate and fight for power. And it is a jungle out there.
A sociologist is doing research in the community of managers like he would describe an indigenous tribe in Papua-Neuguinea. The research was done in the 80s, but it feels like it was written yesterday.
Every current criticism of the management caste is here examined, explained and put into context. If you ever wondered where the lack of moral values, the short-sightedness of decision-making, the intransparent criteria for being promoted and the artificial management speak is coming from, read this book.
The title is a bit misleading as it makes you think that this book is only about moral decisions. Instead it is a complete description of how managers think, decide, rationalise, communicate and fight for power. And it is a jungle out there.
December 16, 2022
A vindication of ethnography. You can't get this kind of information any other way. The corporation (it varies surprisingly little across countries and industries, these days) has its own class system, moral system, taboos, verbal and nonverbal language, and weird system of distinction. It's from 1988 but most of it applies fine to my 2018 stint, apart from there being women around now.
Something I rarely see political brains notice is: corporate life is extremely inefficient and intuitive. It privileges hierarchy and political stability over truth and effect while pretending to be ultra-rational. Reading this book would have made me substantially less miserable in my corporate job, because I just didn't understand why so much effort was wasted and so many decisions made against the evidence.
...and yet they move. Large firms have a 100% - 600% edge over SMEs. Small businesses suffer some mazes, not least the need to please one tyrant, but the information flows should be much healthier. Division of labour and economies of scale are so powerful that even floridly corrupt institutions can thrive. Or - worse - something about this gross primate stuff is actually productive...
He probably pushes too hard on the "luck and cronyism" theory of success for this to be a blanket recommendation for all young graduates though. Too likely to discourage real work, or to inspire early defection in the crony game.
Something I rarely see political brains notice is: corporate life is extremely inefficient and intuitive. It privileges hierarchy and political stability over truth and effect while pretending to be ultra-rational. Reading this book would have made me substantially less miserable in my corporate job, because I just didn't understand why so much effort was wasted and so many decisions made against the evidence.
"What is right in the corporation is not what is right in a man’s home or in his church. What is right in the corporation is what the guy above you wants from you. That’s what morality is in the corporation..."
A subordinate must also not circumvent his boss nor ever give the appearance of doing so. He must never contradict his boss’s judgment in public.
Mastering the subtle but necessary arts of deference without seeming to be deferential, of “brown nosing” without fawning, of simultaneous self-promotion and self-effacement, and occasionally of the outright self-abasement that such relationships require is a taxing endeavor that demands continual compromises with conventional and popular notions of integrity.
“the essence of managerial work is cronyism, covering your ass, [and] pyramiding to protect your buddies.”
...and yet they move. Large firms have a 100% - 600% edge over SMEs. Small businesses suffer some mazes, not least the need to please one tyrant, but the information flows should be much healthier. Division of labour and economies of scale are so powerful that even floridly corrupt institutions can thrive. Or - worse - something about this gross primate stuff is actually productive...
He probably pushes too hard on the "luck and cronyism" theory of success for this to be a blanket recommendation for all young graduates though. Too likely to discourage real work, or to inspire early defection in the crony game.
March 16, 2014
In the late 1980's, Jackall (an anthropology/sociology professor) interviewed several managers at three large companies: a chemical manufacturer, a textile company, and a PR firm. This book describes the conclusions about corporate life that he drew from those interviews.
Jackall considers large companies to be systems of "organized irresponsibility." In bureaucracies, allocations of success and blame become largely arbitrary. Middle managers who rotate through positions for a couple of years adopt short-term thinking and have an incentive to leave problems for their successors who will be stuck with any fallout due to the lack of long-term accountability. Success depends upon being fortunate enough to outrun one's mistakes: being promoted fast enough so that blame for your errors falls on someone else.
For Jackall, bureaucracy breaks the link between action and responsibility, eroding the connection between morality and work. In the labyrinth of the corporate world, what is important is not what one stands for, but whom one stands with. Ethical concerns boil down to: "what would the person above me think?" Talk about "team play" is used to quash dissent. "Fealty is the mortar of the corporate hierarchy."
Jackall argues that the essence of managerial work is cronyism--a compulsive sociability--which gains importance as one moves up the corporate ladder. This is because work becomes more abstract and less about the day-to-day reality of what the company makes or does for its clients. It's also because, after a certain level of seniority, skill is taken for granted and promotion depends on one's "style," which in turn requires a subtle art of self promotion.
One of the valuable lessons in this book is that bureaucracy is bureaucracy. We often hear criticism that the private sector can handle affairs more skillfully than bumbling, government bureaucrats, but this comment completely ignores that bureaucracy (and its problems) permeate the private sector. Jackall makes clear that he is no more fond of governmental bureaucracy than he is of private-sector bureaucracy (whose explosion he traces to the growth of mass manufacturing and distribution in the 19th century). Despite his lack of fondness for government bureaucracy, Jackall acknowledges that governmental agencies like OSHA and the federal regulation of financial instruments are necessary palliatives to the take-the-money-and-run ethos in the private sector.
Some of the downsides to this book:
--The book was written in the late 1980's, and I couldn't help but wonder how managerial life has changed, particularly after the dot-com boom.
--This book is a hodge podge. Jackall updates the book at the end with a section on the sub-prime mortgage crisis that seems tenuously connected to the rest of the book. And because one of Jackall's research subjects was a PR firm, Jackall devotes part of the book to tracing the history of public relations back to circus barkers and placing its explosion to the aftermath of WWII when propaganda honed during the war is turned loose upon the private sector. These sections didn't bother me because I thought that Jackall's thoughts were interesting, but it made the book appear rambling.
--Jackall has a small sample size of three companies, which raised doubts about the accuracy of his generalizations. Jackall explains that he tried to get a larger sample size, but that companies were understandably wary about inviting an academic researching corporate morality into their midst.
--Jackall can go off on pedantic tangents, such as when he discusses the "sacralization" of the physical body among America's middle class or when he wonders whether "circle" or "gang" is a better descriptor of the social group around managers. Also, Jackall's comparison of PR executives to modern-day, secular priests who provide corporations with the vocabulary to confess their sins struck me as odd (though imaginative).
--Certain aspects of Jackall's analysis didn't seem completely thought through. For example, Jackall argues that corporate choices become divorced from morality because managers are concerned only with public perceptions. In Jackall's opinion, ethical questions become public relations issues. But Jackall fails to take into account that the public's perceptions, themselves, incorporate moral judgments. But perhaps Jackall's response is that the public's perception of a company's actions are hopelessly confused by corporate spin, which attempts to make corporate expediency seem like altruism.
Despite what some may think, this book is not a knee-jerk, left-wing, anti-corporate diatribe. For example, Jackall criticizes consumers for being obsessed with the extreme purity of their environment and over-reacting to pollutants. And Jackall criticizes the massive governmental intrusion into the free market during the federal bailout. Furthermore, Jackall partially blames the sub-prime mortgage crisis on Clinton's and Bush's relaxation of mortgage requirements in order to push the Community Reinvestment Act (to encourage home ownership in minority neighborhoods). Although appealing to some anti-regulation conservatives, Jackall's attempt to blame the subprime crisis on governmental efforts to help minority neighborhoods ignores that most of the toxic subprime lenders weren't even subject to the Community Reinvestment Act. And I'm not sure whether Jackall's criticism of (in his opinion) too-lax immigration laws that he claims allow too many poor, unskilled workers into a post-industrial economy comes from a politics of the far left or the solid right. Regardless, it didn't belong in the book.
Overall, this is a thought-provoking book that has stood the test of time.
Jackall considers large companies to be systems of "organized irresponsibility." In bureaucracies, allocations of success and blame become largely arbitrary. Middle managers who rotate through positions for a couple of years adopt short-term thinking and have an incentive to leave problems for their successors who will be stuck with any fallout due to the lack of long-term accountability. Success depends upon being fortunate enough to outrun one's mistakes: being promoted fast enough so that blame for your errors falls on someone else.
For Jackall, bureaucracy breaks the link between action and responsibility, eroding the connection between morality and work. In the labyrinth of the corporate world, what is important is not what one stands for, but whom one stands with. Ethical concerns boil down to: "what would the person above me think?" Talk about "team play" is used to quash dissent. "Fealty is the mortar of the corporate hierarchy."
Jackall argues that the essence of managerial work is cronyism--a compulsive sociability--which gains importance as one moves up the corporate ladder. This is because work becomes more abstract and less about the day-to-day reality of what the company makes or does for its clients. It's also because, after a certain level of seniority, skill is taken for granted and promotion depends on one's "style," which in turn requires a subtle art of self promotion.
One of the valuable lessons in this book is that bureaucracy is bureaucracy. We often hear criticism that the private sector can handle affairs more skillfully than bumbling, government bureaucrats, but this comment completely ignores that bureaucracy (and its problems) permeate the private sector. Jackall makes clear that he is no more fond of governmental bureaucracy than he is of private-sector bureaucracy (whose explosion he traces to the growth of mass manufacturing and distribution in the 19th century). Despite his lack of fondness for government bureaucracy, Jackall acknowledges that governmental agencies like OSHA and the federal regulation of financial instruments are necessary palliatives to the take-the-money-and-run ethos in the private sector.
Some of the downsides to this book:
--The book was written in the late 1980's, and I couldn't help but wonder how managerial life has changed, particularly after the dot-com boom.
--This book is a hodge podge. Jackall updates the book at the end with a section on the sub-prime mortgage crisis that seems tenuously connected to the rest of the book. And because one of Jackall's research subjects was a PR firm, Jackall devotes part of the book to tracing the history of public relations back to circus barkers and placing its explosion to the aftermath of WWII when propaganda honed during the war is turned loose upon the private sector. These sections didn't bother me because I thought that Jackall's thoughts were interesting, but it made the book appear rambling.
--Jackall has a small sample size of three companies, which raised doubts about the accuracy of his generalizations. Jackall explains that he tried to get a larger sample size, but that companies were understandably wary about inviting an academic researching corporate morality into their midst.
--Jackall can go off on pedantic tangents, such as when he discusses the "sacralization" of the physical body among America's middle class or when he wonders whether "circle" or "gang" is a better descriptor of the social group around managers. Also, Jackall's comparison of PR executives to modern-day, secular priests who provide corporations with the vocabulary to confess their sins struck me as odd (though imaginative).
--Certain aspects of Jackall's analysis didn't seem completely thought through. For example, Jackall argues that corporate choices become divorced from morality because managers are concerned only with public perceptions. In Jackall's opinion, ethical questions become public relations issues. But Jackall fails to take into account that the public's perceptions, themselves, incorporate moral judgments. But perhaps Jackall's response is that the public's perception of a company's actions are hopelessly confused by corporate spin, which attempts to make corporate expediency seem like altruism.
Despite what some may think, this book is not a knee-jerk, left-wing, anti-corporate diatribe. For example, Jackall criticizes consumers for being obsessed with the extreme purity of their environment and over-reacting to pollutants. And Jackall criticizes the massive governmental intrusion into the free market during the federal bailout. Furthermore, Jackall partially blames the sub-prime mortgage crisis on Clinton's and Bush's relaxation of mortgage requirements in order to push the Community Reinvestment Act (to encourage home ownership in minority neighborhoods). Although appealing to some anti-regulation conservatives, Jackall's attempt to blame the subprime crisis on governmental efforts to help minority neighborhoods ignores that most of the toxic subprime lenders weren't even subject to the Community Reinvestment Act. And I'm not sure whether Jackall's criticism of (in his opinion) too-lax immigration laws that he claims allow too many poor, unskilled workers into a post-industrial economy comes from a politics of the far left or the solid right. Regardless, it didn't belong in the book.
Overall, this is a thought-provoking book that has stood the test of time.
November 8, 2020
Could be subtitled: "What Becomes Of The Protestant Work Ethic When Religion Is Replaced With Bureaucracy."
Written by a sociologist who did fieldwork within some (anonymized) U.S. corporate enterprises in the 1980s, the book is marked by a) some things that have been satirized into hiding in the intervening decades, like a practiced indifference to the natural environment, and b) the author's propensity to write 600 word paragraphs. So, some discussion feels outdated, and the writing is dense. But it's clear and well structured.
I would have been well served to read this before I entered a large corporation; I picked up a lot of what is discussed 'in the breach.' Not knowing of the book then, I'm happy to have it at hand now, and to be able to recommend it to others as a training manual/warning.
Written by a sociologist who did fieldwork within some (anonymized) U.S. corporate enterprises in the 1980s, the book is marked by a) some things that have been satirized into hiding in the intervening decades, like a practiced indifference to the natural environment, and b) the author's propensity to write 600 word paragraphs. So, some discussion feels outdated, and the writing is dense. But it's clear and well structured.
I would have been well served to read this before I entered a large corporation; I picked up a lot of what is discussed 'in the breach.' Not knowing of the book then, I'm happy to have it at hand now, and to be able to recommend it to others as a training manual/warning.
May 15, 2018
I found some great insight that paralleled my experience in the corporate world. The writing was unclear; the author spuriously used big words, and sentence construction was a mess. Also, the author was forming conclusions from a small collection of companies. Some of them rang true to me, and others seemed specific to those companies, and not mine. Lastly, the author's bias against corporations is thinly disguised. He often uses negative words to describe them, and focuses on negative events and characters.
July 14, 2021
Un libro bastante sui-generis que habla sobre la moralidad que los gerentes corporativos tienen que adoptar como resultado de la estructura burocrática en la que viven. Muchas decisiones de negocio que parecen no tener sentido se vuelven bastante claras miradas bajo la lupa de la "Moral burocratica".
Me hubiera gustado darle más estrellas al libro por que la verdad es algo único, pero los últimos 3 capítulos son el autor deambulando en ideas filosoficas sobre tecnología y relaciones públicas. Se hubiera atenido a su investigación de campo sobre moralidad gerencial y sería un éxito.
Me hubiera gustado darle más estrellas al libro por que la verdad es algo único, pero los últimos 3 capítulos son el autor deambulando en ideas filosoficas sobre tecnología y relaciones públicas. Se hubiera atenido a su investigación de campo sobre moralidad gerencial y sería un éxito.
March 17, 2022
Having studied Business Administration and Management Accounting at university for over 5 years, I really wished some of the professors there had the guts to introduce us, the students, to this book.
After many years of professional experience, I doubt that very many people can disagree with the core assertions of this book.
I really cannot recommend it enough to people who study business at college/university level or about to enter the work force. The book is unapologetically focused on all the aspects of management that are expediently left out in formal education.
After many years of professional experience, I doubt that very many people can disagree with the core assertions of this book.
I really cannot recommend it enough to people who study business at college/university level or about to enter the work force. The book is unapologetically focused on all the aspects of management that are expediently left out in formal education.
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February 19, 2023 A compilation of case studies detailing how the ethos of bureaucracy operates. Highlighting the legitimacy of power in the hands of the Savior Faire (sorry for saying that but French people are cool) that goes to show an everlasting struggle in an outsource of morality (rip god fr).
Case studies are a tough read. I hoped for more analysis but there isnt an absence is telling you how to feel.
Case studies are a tough read. I hoped for more analysis but there isnt an absence is telling you how to feel.
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