On failings of humans

Well, we’re back in full force. Vacations are really nice; Svetlana and I drove to Seattle to see both kids and our future son-in-law and his folks. But now I am so much back, the vacation seems like a distant memory.

One thing we all need to learn is tolerance for imperfection. In a complex organization like a university, nothing works perfectly. Things that one expects to be done often are not done; what should work, sometimes does not work, or works not as intended. Partly, this is just the human conditions: where people are involved, errors always occur. Besides, people tend to get engrossed in personal relationships, and develop skewed perspective on issues. They tend to find scapegoats and do not tolerate stress well. People have rather weak and selective memories; they are not at all like computers. Everyone who works with people must understand these weaknesses in others and in oneself. This is just what people are, and nothing could be done to change that. Sometimes we might think that only that or this person would go away, things will change to the better. This rarely happens, because any replacement will have either the same, or different problems. No one is perfect, and those close to being perfect we can never afford to hire.

Now, people also fun to be around, and they are a lot smarter than any machine, so let’s not forget that. People have common sense and sense of humor; they can work and get things done. It is just amazing how we take the good things about each other for granted, but are irritated by the weaknesses. But both are a part of the same package. If you cannot tolerate other people’s failings, take a hard look at yourself first. If still no tolerance to human failings, just go work with computers or other machines.

Bureaucracies are really social technologies designed to counteract some of the human failings, because in large organizations, those tend to multiply. We design policies, procedures, databases, forms, checks and balances, etc. They help, but then bureaucracies in turn bring new problems. Most remarkably, they slow down human interaction and tend to misrepresent human intentions. Humans have evolved to communicate in small face-to-face groups; we express a wealth of information through non-verbal cues. We also can keep a limited number of factors on our mind when making decisions. When we start writing letters, e-mails, talk on the phone, and develop complex projects involving many other people, we simply fail to communicate and to cooperate well. Hunting a wild boar or tending to a small garden – that we can do easily, if no more than couple dozen other people are involved. Now, designing programs of study, financial accountability procedures, evaluating employee performance – not so much. The very crutches we develop both help and impede us. Decision-making bodies routinely create more problems than they resolve; smart database systems create more confusion that existed before them; our policies have unintended consequences that are sometimes worse than the initial problem. That is just how bureaucracies work; this is the other side of human failings.

Our brains are great at recognizing patterns; way better than any computer now or for decades to come. We are quick learners, and we can learn operating in a bureaucracy just as well as we learn how to live in a forest. One thing that I wish everyone would give up is a belief that in the modern technologically advanced society, things will run smoothly, and no error or confusion will occur. So, here is a commandment for modern times: thou shall not be irritated by imperfection.