Many regard business fads as creations of their advocates, and adopters who waste resources on fads as innocent, if foolish, victims. While this view does contain some truth, it isn't entirely correct. Both adopters and advocates play roles in creating and sustaining fads.
Most business fads are indeed constructed by advocates. The instructions to advocates for creating and sustaining fads were written long ago by Edward Bernays, who summarized them in his 1928 book, Propaganda. In describing the role of a publicist, he writes:In short, creating or sustaining business fads entails artful manipulation of the opinion-making organs of the subculture targeted for the fad. For business fads, this means publishing books, journal articles, magazine articles, newsletters, Web sites, and tweets, while speaking at conferences and trade associations, appearing on business broadcasts, being interviewed by journalists, securing endorsements of opinion leaders, and, of course, advertising. But advocacy would have little effect if people weren't susceptible to these means of influence. That susceptibility arises from multiple sources, many of which can be understood as components of what James G. March calls the logic of appropriateness. The term denotes the set of rules that apply to a specific kind of person in a specific kind of situation. This logic prescribes appropriate actions, including, perhaps, adopting a fad. Here are three components of the logic.He studies the groups which must be reached, and the leaders through whom he may approach these groups. Social groups, economic groups, geographical groups, age groups, doctrinal groups, language groups, cultural groups, all these represent the divisions through which, on behalf of his client, he may talk to the public.
- Normative standards
- Normative standards are formal or informal expectations that decision makers must meet. Their supervisors expect them to behave in ways similar to the behavior of others in analogous positions.
- If your subordinates have wasted resources on fads, perhaps you've been communicating expectations that might have contributed to their adoption decisions.
- The fear of doing nothing
- When a fad is ascendant, failure to adopt it, To insulate oneself from the pressure
to adopt fads, doing nothing
has to be acceptableor to at least be conversant in its concepts, can be interpreted as being ignorant, indolent or worse. - To insulate oneself from the pressure to adopt fads, doing nothing has to be acceptable.
- The need for justification
- When decision makers need to justify their actions, there is no easier or more convenient "justification" than everyone-is-doing-it. It isn't actually a justification of anything, but supervisors often take it as such.
- To control fad adoption, start by noticing that everyone-is-doing-it justifies nothing.
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Edward Bernays, author of Propaganda, is regarded as the founder of the field of public relations.
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More articles on Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness:
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- Most of what we know about person-to-person communication applies when levels of stress are low. But
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- Business Fads and Their Value
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that they threaten the enterprise. Still, the ideas and methods that become fads can have intrinsic
value. Where does that value come from? Where does it go?
- Indicators of Lock-In: I
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- Congruent Decision Making: I
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See also Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness and Project Management for more related articles.
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