Pete’s blog

So had you gotten used to receiving an email on Sunday (or thereabouts)? Did the absence of an email annoy or trouble you at all? I don’t think I have been writing long enough to get your expectations and hopes up completely, so the example may not be perfect… But that is the topic of this email – The Norm, homeostasis, expectation gaps, ruts, routines, bureaucracy, … – whatever form it takes. I am talking about how people adapt to a particular situation or environment, and then how difficult it can be to budge them from that environment.

Biologically, this process is called homeostasis. Your body automatically regulates itself to what normal conditions are – if you feel hot, you sweat, which cools you down. If environmental conditions change, your body works to bring itself to the norm. A parallel can be drawn with society. Society achieves cohesion and order by making sure people stick to the norm. Deviations for the norm are punished by alienation or imprisonment.

As individuals we develop routines, stereotypes, expectations and beliefs which define and regulate our lives and provide us with a reference point. Every Saturday you enjoy watching sport on TV with your mates – if one Saturday there is not a single game on any TV station, you get upset and you complain to your mates “There is no sport on! What is the world coming to!?” Or you are used to buying your Amstels in a green can, but suddenly they change the colour to blue and you can no longer find your favourite beer or your Amstel doesn’t seem to taste like it used to… Bottom line is that people generally hate change – they have their defined norm, and any deviations from that are not welcome.

In companies, this is called bureaucracy. As a company gets older or larger, it gets more people, more procedures, more regulations – a more defined norm. Try and deviate from this norm and you meet the bureaucratic beast that says “Sorry sir, company policy states that a DNA and a urine sample are required to open a cheque account! It is not my fault you just went to the bathroom, you will have to come back later!”

On one hand maintaining the norm is vitally important in the functioning of our bodies, our society, our lives and our companies. On the other hand, it reduces flexibility, creates inefficiencies and breeds prejudices and intolerance. It can also make implementing change a nightmare (ask any project manager). As with most things it is about balance – anarchy and chaos at one extreme, bureaucratic nightmares and totalitarianism at the other.

Homeostasis can also be dangerous – if a change happens gradually, it may not be detected or reacted to appropriately. The allegory that is used is of a frog and a pot of water – if you throw a frog into a pot of hot water, the frog will immediately jump out and so save itself. However if you put the frog into the water and then slowly heat the water, the frog will continue swimming happily until it boils to death. The other danger is of something becoming a norm, and then society either not understanding or forgetting the reason for the norm. The story in this case involves a cage of monkeys, a ladder and a banana hanging at the top of the ladder. If a monkey climbs the ladder and takes the banana, all the monkeys in the cage below get sprayed with cold water. The monkeys quickly learn and attack any monkey that starts climbing the ladder. Over time you take monkeys out of the cage and replace them with different monkeys – until finally not a single original monkey is left in the cage. Now you have a cage full of monkeys that immediately attack a monkey that climbs the ladder, even though they have never been sprayed by water and don’t know why they are attacking the climbing monkey.

Me personally? I don’t like it because of comfort zones and the tendency towards mediocrity and complacency. People might be living in hell, but they are willing to put up with it, because it is what they are used to and comfortable with – as long as today is as crap as yesterday, they are perfectly happy. People are also unwilling to try different things or question what they are doing – “But we have always done it this way! What could possibly be wrong with it?”

Next topic will be about changing the norm… Till then.