Tantrums as Status Symbols (2005)
marginalrevolution.com
marginalrevolution.com
Even something like having an entrepreneur stand and present in front of a group of seated money men. They sit in judgement of him, they are comfy and he stands, they relax and he works and struggles to please them.
Or, when bosses make weird symbolic work demands that don't actually make sense. Sometimes there's the idea that they're just looking out for the product and are wrong about something, but there's also often an element of 'I sense some disturbance in the status hierarchy so I'm going to make you do this task we both know is useless just because I say so to remind you that I can'.
Or 'I'm going to be unreasonable to demonstrate that I can'.
Or 'I'm not going to give this question the think-time it really needs; to demonstrate my superior value I'll save myself five minutes while costing you two days to remind everyone that I'm above you'.
A lot of this is subconscious. The people with the power don't always do it intentionally, thinking "I'm going to signal status today." It's just what feels good and intuitive to them, so they execute these status-signalling behaviours without conscious intent.
As an example, in one big company I worked at, I was very far down the totem-pole, but in a senior technical role. I had, however, firmly established my reputation for honesty (sometimes brutal honesty) and integrity. While some of the managers a few steps above me did not care for me because of this, my direct supervisor respected it, and I was meeting for lunch weekly with the SVP of our business unit to answer any questions he had about the internals of the product and give him "straight answers" about things he had asked about. Sure, in some ways, I was probably backstabbing the guys above me, but only because they were lying to the SVP constantly and that impacted his ability to make good decisions.
Honesty is pretty much always the best policy, no matter who asks. It won't always win you favors, but at least no matter the outcome you can be assured of your own personal integrity. Being dishonest when it seems advantageous may prevent some heartache, but it won't prevent all heartache, and you'll end up seeing yourself as a bad person in the end and have a troubled conscience (unless of course you're a psychopath).
This is a stretch. The same physical arrangement happens when undergrads see a Nobel Prize winner speak.
Undergrads are the paying customers in you example, so they are in charge and the Nobel Prize winner is delivering a service they have paid for and his is expected to satisfy his customers! Yeah, in the bigger overall picture of life and things he's above them, but in that particular situation he's their bitch...
At least this is how I always viewed my teachers, even having benefited from free higher education (and the teachers were way richer than me): they were there to satisfy my needs (for knowledge), just as the McDonals' worker was there to satisfy my need (for a burger).
The undergrads won't be judging the Nobel Prize winner or asking him/her to justify their work. The prize winner will not be sweating or struggling. The flow of status goes in the other direction - the undergrads are supposed to be grateful that the great prize winner has agreed to spend some time with them.
Entrepreneur and money men conversations could just as easily happen with everyone sitting on sofas. The adversarial panel approach is intended to be challenging and adversarial - which is only possible if those who are doing the challenging have higher status and feel a need to display it.
There's a case to be made for the suggestion that the primary product of the entire global economy is status signalling. Physical and intellectual invention is a useful byproduct, but most things in most corporations and markets seem to happen because one primate subgroup wants to impress, seduce, or intimidate some other primate subgroup.
Ever see the show Entourage? Ari Gold can throw tantrums, and he does. (Constantly.) His underlings don't have that privilege. If one of them ever tried to throw an Ari-style tantrum, he'd be out on the street in five minutes flat. [Full disclosure: I worked at a talent agency a long time ago, and what was depicted on Entourage was accurate enough to have passed as a documentary.]
"Of course, like a swagger, the signal is not so much the tantum itself as the fact that someone can get away with it."
> Of course, like a swagger, the signal is not so much the tantum itself as the fact that someone can get away with it.
It also links to a paper[1] about NBA players that deals with this phenomenon. Here's the abstract:
> Casual empiricism suggests that celebrities engage in more anti-social and other socially unapproved behavior than non-celebrities. I consider a number of reasons for this stylized fact, including one new theory, in which workers who are less substitutable in production are enabled to engage in greater levels of misbehavior because their employers cannot substitute away from them. Looking empirically at a particular class of celebrities - NBA basketball players - I find that misbehavior on the court is due to several factors, including prominently this substitutability effect, though income effects and youthful immaturity also may be important.
[1]: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=609946
I don't think so.
But it's shockingly accurate in its depiction of the film industry: movie studios, agencies, the politics of it all, the day to day details, the personalities, and so forth. Hell, even Ari is closely based on a real-life superagent who happens to be named Ari.
I've never been a mover and shaker in Hollywood, and I fled that business long ago. But trust me, I certainly lived and worked in that scene for the better part of a decade. Entourage comes closer to capturing the details and feel of Hollywood than any other depiction I have seen in recent memory. Every so often I actually had a hard time watching the show because it dredged up all sorts of awkward memories and nostalgia.
He's working from a different script, playing a different game, appealing to a different audience. It's staged drama like professional wrestling. The uselessness of the American media helps him along, too.
From what I've seen of the US, being able to get someone angry is a sign of superior status in New York and the Northeast; getting angry is a sign of low status in the Midwest, although being able to get someone angry isn't a sign of high status; while in the South, well, it's a good thing dueling is illegal.
I suspect that this may go back to smooth mercantile Lowlands English versus tempestuous Celts, but I certainly can't prove as much; and most of the Southern aristocracy comes from the West Country, not the Scottish border.
http://isteve.blogspot.com/2012/10/pinker-takes-crack-at-exp...
But while these theories help explain why the seemingly diverse convictions within the right-wing and left-wing mind-sets hang together, they don’t explain why they are tied to geography. The historian David Hackett Fischer traces the divide back to the British settlers of colonial America. The North was largely settled by English farmers, the inland South by Scots-Irish herders. Anthropologists have long noted that societies that herd livestock in rugged terrain tend to develop a “culture of honor.” Since their wealth has feet and can be stolen in an eye blink, they are forced to deter rustlers by cultivating a hair-trigger for violent retaliation against any trespass or insult that probes their resolve. Farmers can afford to be less belligerent because it is harder to steal their land out from under them, particularly in territories within the reach of law enforcement. As the settlers moved westward, they took their respective cultures with them. The psychologist Richard Nisbett has shown that Southerners today continue to manifest a culture of honor which legitimizes violent retaliation. ... Admittedly, it’s hard to believe that today’s Southerners and Westerners carry a cultural memory of sheepherding ancestors. But it may not be the herding profession itself that nurtures a culture of honor so much as living in anarchy.
Expressed this lucidly, I almost feel that the exception is those without a culture of honor, not those with one -- that the North and not the South is the odd one. After all, while it's hard to drive off land, it's perfectly possible to burn buildings and loot crops... unless the farmers can band together into militias more powerful than the invading army, which the North certainly does.
My anecdotal experience as a Southerner living in the North was that everyone cared about conformity and hierarchy (including seeing where you were in the hierarchy), and was hostile to the South's combination of a hot temper and a live-and-let-live outlook. But you don't want hot heads or amiability in a territorial militia, and you do want a lot of concern with hierarchy; otherwise your militia will be uncontrollable.
You wouldn't happen to be in the Seattle area, would you? I'd love to get together, and to have the chance to talk about these sorts of things in person.
I've said it. When someone acts like a child, it's not patronizing to call them out: it's treating them with respect.
While this is actually correct, someone wise enough to intuitively grasp this probably isn't going to be throwing a tantrum in the first place.
Anger comes from fear.
Sometimes anger comes from habit.
(I never used that successfully)
> Of course, like a swagger, the signal is not so much the tantum itself as the fact that someone can get away with it.
Or is this a cultural thing and in US people with real power still loose their temper (and face) like in the movies? I can't believe it... Will Mr Page shout like a kid because G+ did not meet expectations? I hope not...
A CEO will tantrum and get away with it with the upper management. The CEO's interaction with middle management and the workers will be much more even and charming.
- Shout back and stare down. Match such a person eye-to-eye. But don't take the heat personally. Simply play-back the game.
- Never-ever (NEVER EVER!!) let anybody (ANYBODY!!) shape your career.
- Rebuff the Lead/Architect: Tell him/her that this immature behavior will not be tolerated and if this continues, you will take your own direction and won't require his/her services as your lead.
However, sometimes ahole Lead/Architect are too powerful/influential and can actually impact your career. In such cases, don't waste time and apply elsewhere.
Um... How does one do that exactly? I think you mean: Never-ever form a concept of how much other people actually do shape your career. Which is obviously stupid advice. Not that I don't find obsequiousness as annoying as you apparently do.
So, your if team lead can throw a tantrum and get away with it, they will only do so with no one above them present.
It's about status and power. If they cannot get away with a tantrum, ask yourself why? Possibly it's because their underlings perform the same things as your advice advocates. What would such a boss do in this situation to consolidate their status?