Broken windows

On a rainy day in 1985, the public transport authority of New York City became sick and tired of the terrible condition of the city’s underground lines: huge amount of garbage, tons of graffiti on the walls, masses of scallywags, lots of robberies and other crimes. Everybody in the authority felt that something must be done to solve the problem; just they did not know what to do. In this desperate situation someone proposed to hire George L. Kelling criminalist as an advisor. That time Kelling has been dealing with the problem of rolling back the level of crime for many years.

Surprisingly Kelling did not advise to occupy the metro lines by police officers, check-men and other officials but to remove all the graffiti and garbage. Actually, the cleaning of the underground took 5 years from 1985 until 1990. Afterwards, in the second step of the project Kelling suggested the authority to concentrate on the fight against the scallywags. By 1995, the improvement was more than obvious, metro lines in NYC became not just cleaner but significantly safer as well.

It was not an accident that Kelling proposed these actions. With his co-author, James Q. Wilson he published his theory back in 1982, in which he explained that crime is an inevitable consequence of disorder. If somewhere a window has got broken but has not got fixed, people who walk there can believe that nobody takes care about that house. Therefore, further windows will be broken soon after which the disarray will spread over the whole street. Broken windows send the message that nothing is forbidden there. Garbage soon will flood the street, graffiti will appear on the walls, robberies and theft will happen much more often.

Broken windows (if no attention paid on fixing them) start a serious negative spiral since they influence people’s attitude and habit very badly.

On the other hand, the theory has another consequence. If we fix and repair the windows, remove the graffiti and the garbage (in other words, we eliminate the factors that erode people’s attitude) we can start a renewal process that will result in better and nicer environment and less crime. In the New York City project, this theory was tested in practice and proved successful.

The theory of Kelling is applicable in a much wider context, since the negative spiral caused by broken windows appears in many other areas. Firstly, it can be observed in communication.

Let us take the example of internal communication of companies. It used to happen in many companies that people communicate aggressively on meetings. They do not listen to others but interrupt them, they handle the opposite opinion in a hostile way and they destroy the innovative ideas of other people with a negative approach. It may also happen at firms that unfriendly, pushy, harsh, blaming emails are sent to others, or arrogant, hostile questions are asked on a company all-employee meeting. These are the broken windows of corporate internal communication.

What happens if these “windows” are not fixed? If no one notices and makes remarks about these aggressive talks, harsh emails, arrogant questions and other incorrect communication habits, then it sends a clear signal that this kind of communication is allowed. As an impact, soon there will be more who will communicate this aggressive, harsh and arrogant way and after a while, this communication will not just be allowed but widely accepted, and finally it will be expected from people like a role model. Needless to say that those who communicate this way at their workplaces, will quite likely communicate the same way in their private lives, with families, spouses and kids. This is how the bad communication circulates in much wider circles.

Bad corporate internal communication results in bad corporate behavior. Those who show aggressive, arrogant, harsh communication, and see that it is tolerated and accepted, will afford not to cooperate (or just to imitate the cooperation), will push themselves into the front, will state incorrect things about others, will cross the lines just to cause damage to others, will react to initiatives negatively, will block changes and reforms. As more and more people behave like this, a negative company culture will evolve, almost unnoticeably and unexplainably for many people.

Does it seem frightening and exaggerating? Maybe it does but only until we think it over whether we have already met companies of this culture. The most astonishing thing is to recognize how many companies like this we actually know.

Broken windows syndrome in communication and cultures is not just the problem of companies. It can also be noticed one step higher, on the level of society. Profanities, muddy talks, bad spelling, discourtesy etc. are broken windows in culture and communication which send bad messages to the whole society, start negative spiral, and form incorrect attitude and bad culture.

However, Kelling’s theory and the NYC project show the solution as well. Similar to the removal of graffiti and the collection of garbage, we must step up against aggressive, arrogant and harsh communication. Let us not tolerate profanities, muddy talks, bad spelling and discourtesy either! We must broach, refuse and correct them! This is the way how we can contribute to fixing the broken windows on a daily basis to make the world around ourselves a bit more livable.