Workplace Memes

The word meme was coined by Richard Dawkins in his book, The Selfish Gene. A meme is a concept, usually embedded in culture, and easily propagated from person to person. It might not be within the awareness of the members of the culture, but because they share it, they can act and interact in patterns everyone knows, which improves social efficiency. That's usually helpful, but if the goals thereby achieved are counter-productive, memes serve to enable the society to undermine itself — efficiently.

Workplace memes are artifacts of workplace culture. For instance, associated with meetings is a meme that governs their timing and duration. Most are scheduled to take one hour, or an integer number of hours, beginning at the top of an hour. This meme has the effect of setting the durations of meetings to whole hours, even if we need only 48 minutes. Note to meeting chairs: if you need only 48 minutes, start the meeting at 12 minutes past the hour. People will hug you.

Here are four other workplace memes, emphasizing the counter-productive.

Candy dishes and doughnut meetings

Sugary treats areIf you need only 48 minutes for
a meeting, start it at 12 minutes
past the hour. People will hug you. fun. Nearly everyone enjoys them. But spiking blood sugar leads inevitably to the sugar crash, sleepy afternoons, and elevated risk of bad decisions in meetings.

Fruits, granola bars, or little packs of nuts or trail mix present far less risk to the organization.

Slogan posters

Slogan posters are those large colorful wall posters that bear platitudinous messages that sound like they make sense, but actually do not. Examples: "Good Things Come to Those Who Hustle;" "To Stand Out from the Competition, Stand Together as a Team."

Inspiration is the intention, of course. But inspiration comes from inspirational people, not posters. If there aren't enough inspirational people among existing employees, have a look at your hiring and retention practices. And take down the posters.

Bullet points

Presentation software favors bullet points — short text fragments that suggest an intended meaning, but which are often too short to exclude unintended meanings. We're so accustomed to using presentations to communicate that we've begun to talk and think in bullet points. Unintended meanings abound.

Let's go back to thinking and speaking not in bullet points, but in more fully formed, less ambiguous, and more complete thoughts.

Reorganizations

Reorganizations change the organizational authority hierarchy of the organization, and possibly the responsibilities of its people. The goal, we're told, is improved alignment between the organizational structure and the needs of a changing environment. We adapt.

But associated with reorganizations is some collateral damage. Reorgs scramble relationships, which can be a source of sadness and lost effectiveness, though we rarely give that much thought. And often, just as we settle in with the new way things are, along comes another reorg. One must wonder: maybe the reorgs aren't about effectiveness. Maybe scrambling relationships is the point.

Memes are everywhere, but recognizing them can be difficult. We need a meme for that.  Top    Next Issue

Are your projects always (or almost always) late and over budget? Are your project teams plagued by turnover, burnout, and high defect rates? Turn your culture around. Read 52 Tips for Leaders of Project-Oriented Organizations, filled with tips and techniques for organizational leaders. Order Now!

Your comments are welcome

About Point Lookout

Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful, and that you'll consider recommending it to a friend.

This article in its entirety was written by a human being. No machine intelligence was involved in any way.

Point Lookout is a free weekly email newsletter. Browse the archive of past issues. Subscribe for free.

Support Point Lookout by joining the Friends of Point Lookout, as an individual or as an organization.

Do you face a complex interpersonal situation? Send it in, anonymously if you like, and I'll give you my two cents.

Related articles

More articles on Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness:

Let Me Finish, Please

We use meetings to exchange information and to explore complex issues. In open discussion, we tend to interrupt each other. Interruptions can be disruptive, distracting, funny, essential, and frustratingly common. What can we do to limit interruptions without depriving ourselves of their benefits?

Discussion Distractions: II

Meetings are less productive than they might be, if we could learn to recognize and prevent the most common distractions. Here is Part II of a small catalog of distractions frequently seen in meetings.

Management Debt: I

Management debt, like technical debt, arises when we choose paths — usually the lowest-cost paths — that lead to recurring costs that are typically higher than alternatives. Why do we take on management debt? How can we pay it down?

Creating Toxic Conflict: I

Many managers seem to operate as if their primary goal is to create toxic conflict among their subordinates. Here's a collection of methods for sowing toxic conflict that can help bad managers become worse managers.

Notes to Self

Many of us jot important reminders to ourselves on sticky notes, used envelopes, scraps of paper, and whatnot. Often we misplace these notes, or later find them too late to serve their purposes. Here's a low-tech alternative that works better for some.

See also Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness for more related articles.

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming August 13: Leaving High-Touch Jobs: How

High-touch jobs require that we work closely with colleagues, teammates, clients, or suppliers. Because choosing to leave such a job affects all these people, and the person departing, we would do well find a path that respects all involved. Here are some suggestions. Available here and by RSS on August 13.

And on August 20: Earned Value and Goodhart's Law

Earned Value Management, widely used approach to project management, is most useful in contexts in which estimators are familiar with the Tasks, the Technologies, and the Teams. But even then, it is vulnerable to the tactics of those who game the metrics. Available here and by RSS on August 20.

Coaching services

I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrenaXXxGCwVgbgLZDuRner@ChacDjdMAATPdDNJnrSwoCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.

Get the ebook!

Past issues of Point Lookout are available in six ebooks:

• Get 2001-2 in Geese Don't Land on Twigs (PDF, )
• Get 2003-4 in Why Dogs Wag (PDF, )
• Get 2005-6 in Loopy Things We Do (PDF, )
• Get 2007-8 in Things We Believe That Maybe Aren't So True (PDF, )
• Get 2009-10 in The Questions Not Asked (PDF, )
• Get all of the first twelve years (2001-2012) in The Collected Issues of Point Lookout (PDF, )

Are you a writer, editor or publisher on deadline? Are you looking for an article that will get people talking and get compliments flying your way? You can have 500-1000 words in your inbox in one hour. License any article from this Web site. More info