How Society is impacted by Obedience to Authority, Group Think and Herd Instincts? A POV

Introduction

Yesterday, I was attending my younger daughter’s annual day function. Her kindergarten class performed a dance. It was a brilliant act of harmony by 20 odd youngsters choreographed to perfection. I was proud of my child, so would the other 20+ parents. It was a brilliant act of obedience to a command and delivering perfectly. Very positive outcome. No one harmed but elated by this virtuoso performance.

Schooling and factory model delivery

Just before the cultural activities began, the head of the Noveau theme of schooling shared her experience about early age schooling for children spanning 3 decades. It was a very hard-hitting, brilliant and a thought-provoking speech. It covered the aspects of schooling in India where a factory style output is getting produced. Standard academic curricula. Multiple tests. Homework. Exercises. Competitive exams, contests etc. The kids generally become a drop in a concentrated jug of water/juice or whatever you want to call it. In some cases, they are just a drop in a pond, river or a ocean. Will this be the right mode to teach and train the kids to be independent and future proof? What will happen to individuality, leadership, creativity, and confidence? Are these kids coached to possess all this in a factory like consistency? Well, it is anybody’s guess.

At the end of the day, you have talented kids with good memorizing skills and lo-and-behold, followers who will deliver obediently what you ask for – in a pure mechanical precision, to their best of their ability? Is this the right way? Will this work? Is this future generation proof? We may have in-numerous questions on whether this model will work or not.

Role of Obedience in Corporate World

Take a step forward and think of the corporate world. Majority of the corporates have a standard operating procedure, culture and a way of operating. With the current working population, we have over 4 generations working together, if not more. Will the factory style, manufacturing style operation work for current corporate structures? Well, it is anybody’s guess and a debatable question with plentitude of discussion points. We are at a cross-road where organizations are taking a paradigm shift to get away with the bell-curves and traditional models of management to what will be relevant and resonating models. Still, if you look at how most of the corporates are run, it is pretty much like what comes out of schooling system. Be obedient, be a follower, blindly follow authority. Many bosses follow “My way or Highway” style of operations to produce consistency in outcomes. Diversity in thinking and inclusion of tangential topics happens in pockets and most of these diverse firms are market leaders and make disruptive innovations and progress. On the other hand, those who follow “by hook or crook” normally falter and face the challenges afterwards. Again obedience to authority is a de-facto standard in many firms across the globe.

Benefits of Obedience

It is a good thing to be obedient, follow the orders, if the outcome is always positive with zero negative impact to a fellow human-being. Being obedient and following order is considered a very positive trait and a key decision point in promoting a soldier to an officer and an officer to a commander in military like situation. However, in a life or death situation, the human psychology kicks in and this is where it an important role.

Take a situation in school where a kid is taught false history, fact or an egregiously wrong approach early in their formative years. Take a situation where ethically incorrect procedures are recommended by senior leaders to junior staff in a corporate world. Take a situation where followers are brain-washed or ordered to do things that are grossly wrong – be it war time, religious or societal situations?

Obedience to Authority - Classical Experiment and outcome

This brings to the key point for this article – Obedience to Authority.  I saw the movie “The Experimenter” last week. Albeit a docudrama, the movie was powerful enactment of one of the seminal studies in social psychology. All the points highlighted in the film are still valid and re-ascertained by various researchers.

Beauty of the experiments done by Dr. Stanley Milgram is that however good we are, we are neurologically wired (at least most of us) to do things that we may not like to do otherwise, when we are in a strict obedience to authority mode.  This has resulted in phenomenal disasters in history. Wars, Genocides, Riots and most of the issues can be attributed to this.

Full video as follows

More reference materialPeter Gabriel had funnier take in one of his songs - 

Peter Gabriel had funnier take in one of his songs - We do what we’re told/We do what we’re told/Told to do

• https://www.posbase.uib.no/posbase/Presentasjoner/P_Milgram%20(1963).ppt 
• https://www.webcitation.org/5lLKy3jno
• https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7791278.stm

Two more great examples of conformity and social influence are as follows

• What are you looking at – Social pressure to look based on crowd popularity - 

• Complianceto majority – Elevator experiment 

   

   

• Some of these points outline the herd behaviour where a set of people establish their own rules such as travelling in a no-entry road en-masse or totally ignoring traffic signals in places such as Bangalore.
• One more summary on How Societal pressure plays a role in how we behave https://www.spring.org.uk/2012/03/how-society-works-8-revealing-psychological-insights-into-our-social-behaviour.php

Some key quotes by Dr. Milgram on the study he did are as follows

• “The disappearance of a sense of responsibility is the most far-reaching consequence of submission to authority.”

• “Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.”

• “It may be that we are puppets-puppets controlled by the strings of society. But at least we are puppets with perception, with awareness. And perhaps our awareness is the first step to our liberation. “

• “Each individual possesses a conscience which to a greater or lesser degree serves to restrain the unimpeded flow of impulses destructive to others. But when he merges his person into an organizational structure, a new creature replaces autonomous man, unhindered by the limitations of individual morality, freed of humane inhibition, mindful only of the sanctions of authority.”

• “Control the manner in which a man interprets his world, and you have gone a long way toward controlling his behavior. That is why ideology, an attempt to interpret the condition of man, is always a prominent feature of revolutions, wars, and other circumstances in which individuals are called upon to perform extraordinary action”

Coming back to the first point in the article, are the children better off to be a run of the mill outcome or is it better to be a creative, original, brilliant, innovative individual with a propensity to change the world? Would one want their child to be a follower or a leader? Just like the Dr. Milgram’s experiment, most of us fall prey to the known known than an unknown known or known unknown. It is definitely a no-no for unknown unknowns for the risk-averse majority.

SEEDING the Right Growth

Would you treat your children, ward like how you would take care of your garden? Would you look at conformity and common theme? Would a garden look great only with a particular type of plant, tree or a flower? Would a nursery be fit to call as one if it is only filled with a particular type of red rose? Do you want all your kids to be exactly similar? Say a bamboo tree or a coconut tree farm or a bonsai tree (controlled, confined and a beautiful show-case)? It may serve a purpose in certain aspects but not in all circumstances.  

As a good gardener, you need to see your nursery, garden or a farm with diverse set of seeds and ensure you have a brilliant garden full of colorful, powerful, master-piece of vibrant plants, trees, flowers. This is possible by leveraging different capabilities each one has. Some need support like twiners and climbers. Some need to be pruned and weeded out (of bad habits) to ensure right ingredients are given for growth. Some needs to be given time (like a bamboo tree takes 5+ years to blossom to pick-up growth at a rapid pact), some needs to be given right environment to grow. A child’s growth, learning is similar. They need to focus on confidence, leadership, knowledge and innovation to succeed in their post academic pursuit.

Coming to a corporate world, similar concept is applicable. There could be a need for a run of the mill output expected. For example – in a coconut farm, all you can expect are a particular type of coconut and similar in a vineyard – a particular type of grapes. However, a corporate firm needs to embrace diversity and include all the different success ingredients to succeed in the world of disruptive innovation.

CONCLUSION

To summarize – Would you want your children or employees to be like the teachers in Dr. Milgram’s obedience experiment, or a robot capable of providing repeatable output or a number cruncher, or a follower? Would you rather want your children or employees to be innovative, creative and original thinkers with an intent to make a difference?  To be or not to be – there lies the question.

Your comments are welcome!

P.S:-

One joke I heard made my day.

 A teacher discusses with students on Water Cycle. “Children, When the Sun God Cries, the clouds become black and we have dancing rain during the day”.  An inquizitive and brilliant child asks “Well madam, then how come we have rain during night time when there is no SUN?". Teacher says “Keep quiet”. Next Day the parents get called to school and get a warning – “You son talks too much. Please ask him to follow the orders and be obedient”.

Note:-

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