The problem with Institutionalization

The problem with "institutionalizing" something is that it marks the first step on a road to deviation.

Institutionalizing is where you abstract roles from people in order to make something reproducible. So you go from having a person who does something (guna and karma in Sanskrit - a person with specific qualities and activities that lead to their having a certain role in society) to having a position (varna, or "color", in Sanskrit).

So you go from having a charismatic leader (from Greek charisma meaning "gifted") to having a leadership position.

The problem is that now that there is a position that is separate from the person, the person who inhabits the position may not have the necessary qualifications to do so.

There is a good example in the first episode of the WWII miniseries Band of Brothers [wikipedia plot summary]. The company Captain, Cpt. Herbert Sobel, is inept as a combat officer, and yet due to his rank and position the soldiers in his unit are expected to follow him into battle.

It's a classic case of a mismatch between the person and the role - something which only becomes possible when roles have been abstracted from persons and an organizational structure created to encapsulate and instantiate those roles.

This leads to the perennial necessity of reform. It is human nature to create a form - an organization apart from the persons, with roles such as Captain, Manager, Guru, or President.

After time there is drift between role and person. It may happen over generations of participants, or immediately. From the moment of creation of roles corruption begins, because the abstract ideal of the organization and its actual composition no longer match 100%.

Any organization with abstracted roles must actively deal with corruption, for corruption is an unavoidable side effect of institutionalization.

After dealing with humans for some time, I find that most people do not have the mental power to analyze or assess things over and over again. They require mental shorthand that enables them to deal with a situation quickly and easily, with a minimum amount of mental effort.

Questions such as "who is in charge?" need to be answered in a succinct and easy fashion in order for organized effort to go on in a big way. By adopting the exo-skeleton of institutionalized roles organizations are able to begin to scale their activity massively.

At the same time they must do the work to ensure that role and person remain tightly coupled. This is meta-work. It is not the actual mission of the organization, but without doing this meta-work on the structure that is used to facilitate the actual activity of the organization over time the organization will become corrupt and unable to fulfill its original mission.

One of the symptoms of this malaise in a pathological state is where the energy of the persons involved in the organization is more directed to achieving and holding positions within the organization than to fulfilling the actual mission objectives of the organization. In this case the structure has become a hindrance to furthering the mission, rather than a facilitation.

This is simply human nature, and it is universal.

Addendum: institutionalizing opposition to corruption in an organization suffers from exactly the same problem. Every incumbent corrupt organization started out as a revolution against another incumbent corrupt organization before it...

If you really want to make a difference, don't join a team that defines itself as "the guys who are against these other guys..." Define a positive agenda, and pursue that mission in cooperation with others.