The conclusion of Davies' second extract — about e.g. being bumped off a flight — is recognisable but the conclusions are actually wrong. The situation in these cases is actually more subtle. The person you're speaking to does normally have *some* capacity to escalate in exceptional cases. But they can't do it as a matter of course, and have to maintain publicly that it's actually impossible.
The people who get what they want in these situations are the ones who are prepared to behave sufficiently unreasonably. This is a second order consequence of 'unaccountability' that Davies misses. For the customer, or object of the system, it incentivises people to behave *as unpleasantly as possible* — because it's often the only way to trigger the exception / escalation / special case, and get what you want.
So interesting! As*unpleasantly as possible*! I used to be a regular flyer, and experienced many unwanted delays and other inconveniences over the years. And I also witnessed many people who, having difficulty accepting the inconvenience, behaved *quite unpleasantly* to the only people who might be able to help them, the airline staff. Either flight attendants or gate staff or etc. And I never once observed that "unpleasant behavior" to "work". Not to say it wouldn't. But I never saw it. The airline people have a little discretion. Not much, but a little. Being unpleasant to them, in my experience, just convinces them that they're not going to do anything extraordinary for the unpleasant one, if at all possible.
In contrast my perspective was to behave as patiently and empathetically as possible with the other passengers and with the airline staff, keeping in mind that the airline people are probably SO DONE with all the unpleasantness. While frequent flyers might fly once or twice a month, and every once in a while have an unpleasant experience, these staff work at the airport every day and surely someone is unhappy every day.
So my goal was to be pleasant, affable, empathetic. Not with an ulterior motive. Just in recognition that some things cannot be helped. And even so, I would get special treatment from the staff, without even asking.
So many important issues are touched upon and pointed to. Now—if we want to apply the concept of accountability sinks in practice with desired results--we need to explore them in a more precise way, and this requires making some important distinctions, between:
1) accountability in a healthy organization vs. in an organization suffering from Adams-Judge Syndrome ( http://oecisland.com/AJS.pdf ), where people lost faith that they can achieve the organization’s mission;
2) accountability of adhering to, so-called, Best Practices or Standard of Care vs. accountability according to results;
3) risk-avoiding vs. award-seeking accountability;
4) cost-cutting vs. growth-oriented accountability;
5) accountability according to meaningful (performance-related) indicators vs. to arbitrary (imposed by authorities to maintain loyalty at all costs) ones;
6) accountability sinks with a goal of allowing some “breathing space” for innovators and in the case of unique situations vs. allowing to get away with low performance ( http://oecisland.com/SOVBUR.pdf ).
In general, when performing a positive role, accountability sinks are a part of well-working problem-solving and decision-making network, which performs a role of organizational nervous system.
If it was that easy. Tyrannical state goes with lack of accountability. Calcified bureaucracy goes with too much accountability.
On the state level, I find Acemoglu & Robinson's model from "The Narrow Corridor" useful. They argue that you get liberty when the power of state is in balance with the power of the civic society. Neither increasing state capacity via less accountability to the people, nor increasing power of the civic society via more accountability of the state is enough by itself.
There are some subtle differences between the institutions in these examples that affect how people are even able to interact with them or be accountable within them.
In "Postscript on the Societies of Control" Deleuze talks about how our institutions are transitioning from using "discipline" to using "controls" for managing behaviors.
In the disciplinary institutions, like the hospital ER and the Nazi bureaucracy, deviation from the process is punished, but still possible.
In the control institutions, like the airline gate agent or the credit card company, deviation from the process simply isn't possible. The technological means to solve a problem by leaving the process simply doesn't exist.
I've been in enough post-mortems to know they represent a transition between the two. We assume people are making the best decisions they can with the information they have, so we know discipline is meaningless. Sometimes we decide education is the right answer, but we can't educate everyone on everything all the time. So the "best" end-result of a post-mortem is a new control that makes the deviation that caused the incident impossible.
It’s even more subtle than that. As a response to an incident, you can introduce either an inviolable procedure or something more akin to a "best practice". Because of rigidity cascades (https://www.eatingpolicy.com/p/understanding-the-cascade-of-rigidity) etc. the states intent of the policy (hard rule vs. best practice) does not matter. What matters is whether the procedure is imposed top-down or simply by yourself on yourself. In the former case you get an accountability sink, in the latter you do not.
The conclusion of Davies' second extract — about e.g. being bumped off a flight — is recognisable but the conclusions are actually wrong. The situation in these cases is actually more subtle. The person you're speaking to does normally have *some* capacity to escalate in exceptional cases. But they can't do it as a matter of course, and have to maintain publicly that it's actually impossible.
The people who get what they want in these situations are the ones who are prepared to behave sufficiently unreasonably. This is a second order consequence of 'unaccountability' that Davies misses. For the customer, or object of the system, it incentivises people to behave *as unpleasantly as possible* — because it's often the only way to trigger the exception / escalation / special case, and get what you want.
So interesting! As*unpleasantly as possible*! I used to be a regular flyer, and experienced many unwanted delays and other inconveniences over the years. And I also witnessed many people who, having difficulty accepting the inconvenience, behaved *quite unpleasantly* to the only people who might be able to help them, the airline staff. Either flight attendants or gate staff or etc. And I never once observed that "unpleasant behavior" to "work". Not to say it wouldn't. But I never saw it. The airline people have a little discretion. Not much, but a little. Being unpleasant to them, in my experience, just convinces them that they're not going to do anything extraordinary for the unpleasant one, if at all possible.
In contrast my perspective was to behave as patiently and empathetically as possible with the other passengers and with the airline staff, keeping in mind that the airline people are probably SO DONE with all the unpleasantness. While frequent flyers might fly once or twice a month, and every once in a while have an unpleasant experience, these staff work at the airport every day and surely someone is unhappy every day.
So my goal was to be pleasant, affable, empathetic. Not with an ulterior motive. Just in recognition that some things cannot be helped. And even so, I would get special treatment from the staff, without even asking.
That's how Atlas Shrugged starts off so incredibly strong, since the protag is introduced by immediately cutting thru that nonsense:
«“Lady, I don’t intend to stick my neck out,” he said.
“He means,” said the fireman, “that our job’s to wait for orders.”
“Your job is to run this train.”
“Not against a red light. If the light says stop, we stop.”
“A red light means danger, lady,” said the passenger.
“We’re not taking any chances,” said the engineer. “Whoever’s responsible
for it, he’ll switch the blame to us if we move. So we’re not moving till
somebody tells us to.”
“And if nobody does?”
“Somebody will turn up sooner or later.”
“How long do you propose to wait?”
The engineer shrugged. “Who is John Galt?”
“He means,” said the fireman, “don’t ask questions nobody can answer.”
She looked at the red light and at the rail that went off into the black,
untouched distance.
She said, “Proceed with caution to the next signal. If it’s in order, proceed
to the main track. Then stop at the first open office.”
“Yeah? Who says so?”
“I do.”
“Who are you?”
It was only the briefest pause, a moment of astonishment at a question she
had not expected, but the engineer looked more closely at her face, and in
time with her answer he gasped, “Good God!”
She answered, not offensively, merely like a person who does not hear the
question often:
“Dagny Taggart.”»
So many important issues are touched upon and pointed to. Now—if we want to apply the concept of accountability sinks in practice with desired results--we need to explore them in a more precise way, and this requires making some important distinctions, between:
1) accountability in a healthy organization vs. in an organization suffering from Adams-Judge Syndrome ( http://oecisland.com/AJS.pdf ), where people lost faith that they can achieve the organization’s mission;
2) accountability of adhering to, so-called, Best Practices or Standard of Care vs. accountability according to results;
3) risk-avoiding vs. award-seeking accountability;
4) cost-cutting vs. growth-oriented accountability;
5) accountability according to meaningful (performance-related) indicators vs. to arbitrary (imposed by authorities to maintain loyalty at all costs) ones;
6) accountability sinks with a goal of allowing some “breathing space” for innovators and in the case of unique situations vs. allowing to get away with low performance ( http://oecisland.com/SOVBUR.pdf ).
In general, when performing a positive role, accountability sinks are a part of well-working problem-solving and decision-making network, which performs a role of organizational nervous system.
Lack of accountability and bureaucracy (e.g. a calcified Government/ the tyrannical State) go hand in hand.
If it was that easy. Tyrannical state goes with lack of accountability. Calcified bureaucracy goes with too much accountability.
On the state level, I find Acemoglu & Robinson's model from "The Narrow Corridor" useful. They argue that you get liberty when the power of state is in balance with the power of the civic society. Neither increasing state capacity via less accountability to the people, nor increasing power of the civic society via more accountability of the state is enough by itself.
There are some subtle differences between the institutions in these examples that affect how people are even able to interact with them or be accountable within them.
In "Postscript on the Societies of Control" Deleuze talks about how our institutions are transitioning from using "discipline" to using "controls" for managing behaviors.
In the disciplinary institutions, like the hospital ER and the Nazi bureaucracy, deviation from the process is punished, but still possible.
In the control institutions, like the airline gate agent or the credit card company, deviation from the process simply isn't possible. The technological means to solve a problem by leaving the process simply doesn't exist.
I've been in enough post-mortems to know they represent a transition between the two. We assume people are making the best decisions they can with the information they have, so we know discipline is meaningless. Sometimes we decide education is the right answer, but we can't educate everyone on everything all the time. So the "best" end-result of a post-mortem is a new control that makes the deviation that caused the incident impossible.
It’s even more subtle than that. As a response to an incident, you can introduce either an inviolable procedure or something more akin to a "best practice". Because of rigidity cascades (https://www.eatingpolicy.com/p/understanding-the-cascade-of-rigidity) etc. the states intent of the policy (hard rule vs. best practice) does not matter. What matters is whether the procedure is imposed top-down or simply by yourself on yourself. In the former case you get an accountability sink, in the latter you do not.