I’m Not Crazy, But If I Were, I Know Who’s To Blame

 

Writing in Psychology Today, Elliot D. Cohen, Ph.D., began a piece entitled How Contradiction Can Generate Mental Disorder, with this paragraph:

The human brain is hardwired to seek consistency; when persistent, unresolved internal contradictions arise between people's everyday decisional premises, it can generate mental stress that manifests in mental dysfunction.[i]

GTIM Nation knows of my respect for Thomas Kuhn, particularly in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (University of Chicago Press, 1962), in which he describes a recognizable pattern that manifests when a new scientific theory is introduced, and ends up displacing a commonly-held one. Kuhn asserts five phases, where a new “paradigm” (yes, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was the book that introduced this term) either leads to a commonly-held structure where there was none before, or else replaces an existing paradigm.

Okay, so, stand by everybody – I’m about to combine the content of the previous two paragraphs into a potentially explosive management science assertion. It might look, well, crazy.

I believe that Project Management, as a distinct course of intellectual study, represented and currently represents a paradigm shift in the way business models are constructed. This is due to the fact that PM’s emphasis on techniques and Management Information Systems (MISs) that are dedicated towards delivering a specific customer-directed scope, within customer-directed cost and schedule parameters, is decidedly different from the more commonly-held theory that the purpose of all management is to “maximize shareholder wealth.” PM has different goals, techniques, methods, approaches, and supporting MISs from the other types of management, specifically Asset and Strategic management. To engage in a bit of hyperbole, the Asset Managers don’t concern themselves with how happy the customers are. They’ve been taught to maximize shareholder wealth and, to the extent that they have been educated to take customer satisfaction into account at all, it’s virtually always within the context of determining a Return on Investment (ROI) which, of course, gets back to maximizing shareholder wealth. Strategic Managers are focused on increasing market share. If they become convinced that spending money on an advertising campaign would yield greater increases in market share than the same amount invested in improving project performance, they will, in all probability, opt for the former.

This environment of competing visions for what constitutes a valid basis for constructing and maintaining a specific business model will quite often lead to “persistent, unresolved internal contradictions,” which, in turn, can and will “generate mental stress that manifests in mental dysfunction.”[ii] I’ll take Dr. Cohen’s assertion further, and argue that the same effect applies to the macro-organization. The organization that is pursuing a strategy that contains inherent contradictions is going to experience some level of dysfunction sooner or later, leaving itself vulnerable to its more dysfunction-free competitors.

A simple example of this can be based off of the axiom Quality, Affordability, Availability: pick any two. The executive who doesn’t understand her organization’s place in the particular market where they do business with respect to this axiom is unlikely to make decisions that maintain a high level of internal consistency, which is going to make the Team members crazy extremely frustrated. The manager who believes that his Burger King® restaurant (availability, affordability) will take away market share from a Ruth’s Chris® steakhouse (availability, quality) in the high-end restaurant market is delusional. Making the attempt would be ipso facto evidence of a business strategy rife with internal contradictions, meaning that the organization pursuing it will likely become dysfunctional. Note that I am not saying that Burger King® restaurants do not serve quality food, nor am I saying that Ruth’s Chris® steakhouses are not affordable. But I do not believe that the former can prepare a steak the way the latter does (even if it was on the menu), nor do I expect their menu prices to be even remotely similar.

Eateries make for clear examples, but the same effect is everywhere business is conducted. Without a clear understanding of the organization’s place within a given market, self-contradicting guidance in business model construction is virtually automatic. Which brings us back to our friends, the accountants. Because their point of view is the most common predicate for building these business models, and their approach is distinctly different from PM’s, the talent that makes up the Project Management Office is highly likely to have to perform their advances in a sea of internal contradictions in the overarching business strategy most of the macro-organizations have adopted. In other words, I believe that yes, we PM-types are being driven crazy frustrated by our organizations, and it’s largely the Asset Managers’ business/worldview at fault.

Next, I’ll begin experiments to ascertain if aluminum foil hats thwart the Asset Managers’ intrusive brainwaves. I’ll keep GTIM Nation posted.

[i] Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/what-would-aristotle-do/202105/how-contradiction-can-generate-mental-disorder on October 14, 2023, 20:55 MDT.

[ii] Ibid.