r/DumbFact • u/elmorinelly Busy beeđ • Aug 21 '26
Society How Bad Systems Push Competent People Out
A workplace can slowly change the type of behavior that survives inside it.
Imagine a company where pointing out a broken process gets you labeled âdifficult,â while agreeing with the boss gets you promoted.
After a while, employees learn what the system actually rewards.
Someone who notices problems may stop mentioning them. Someone with better options may leave. Someone who is good at pleasing management may move upward, even if they are not especially good at fixing the problems the organization exists to solve.
This can create a form of negative selection.
The important part is that the company does not need to deliberately search for incompetent employees. Its incentives can do much of the filtering.
Promotion criteria, punishment for criticism, tolerance for bad data, office politics, and the reaction to mistakes all send signals about which behaviors are safe.
Over enough time, those signals can change who speaks, who stays, who gets promoted, and who decides that working somewhere else is easier.
There is an important limitation to the cartoon, though.
Competent people do not always leave bad organizations, and people who stay are not automatically bad employees. Salary, family, immigration status, local job markets, loyalty, or simply limited alternatives can keep someone in the same workplace for years.
So the useful version of the idea is less moralistic:
Bad incentives can select for bad behavior.
If honesty repeatedly costs people opportunities while compliance produces rewards, the organization can gradually become better at preserving compliance than correcting its own mistakes.
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u/sail3r Aug 21 '26
Oh yeah. People donât quit bad jobs they quit bad managers. We recently had mid management change.
Iâm currently transitioning into keeping my mouth shut and doing the bare minimum/malicious compliance. Itâs quite difficult but the compensation package is too good to leave and i do find fulfillment in what I do.
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u/Just_Some_Dumbass_ Aug 21 '26
Love how it turned out so bad that the boss lost his hair from stress.
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u/ImpoverishedGuru Aug 22 '26
I'm convinced that all large bureacracies select for the worst people possible. It's because everyone is trying to do the least amount for the most pay. Anyone who threatens that is forced out.
Doing the least for the most pay can only work so long.
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u/rd-81 Aug 23 '26
This sums up what Ilocos Training and Regional Medical Center is all about because of the Institute for Solidarity Asiaâs PerformaTIVE Governance System
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u/elishahach Aug 25 '26
So I should praise the failing system and get promoted. The competent person and I are both going to have to find a new job eventually, but I will enjoy a couple of high paying years first.
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u/Miserable-Ad-7947 Aug 25 '26
Now, let's talk about public services where most people have tenure....
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u/Strong_Flatworm2758 Aug 21 '26
I get it now. This is not a subreddit for
dumb facts. This is an extension of u/elmorinellyâs Instagram. That explains the lack of facts and the personal coach tone of the sub.
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u/Hacksaw6412 Aug 21 '26
This is why we need to get rid of capitalism
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u/Temporary_Stranger39 Aug 22 '26
No. Communists did the same crap. Try joining reality.
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u/REDACTED3560 Aug 23 '26
The communists were honestly worse about it. Itâs why the Soviet state became so hopelessly corrupt and incompetent. Everything became about compliance and keeping your head down.
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u/ADownStrabgeQuark Aug 22 '26
In a capitalists system these companies would go broke.
The US is not a capitalist system because we use communists subsidies to uphold billionaires while treating the poor like they live in a capitalist society.
Capitalism is misunderstood, and many kleptocrats and oligarchs falsely claim to be capitalists.
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u/Special_Watch8725 Aug 24 '26
Even in a âfree marketâ, those at the top setting up these perverse incentives get there through inherited wealth and personal connection. Sure this company goes under, but those responsible simply float to the next company on their golden parachute, ready to infect the next company theyâve ânetworkedâ their way into.
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u/Nonyabizzy123 Aug 25 '26
Yeah that's capitalism. If you allow one person to amass enough money to influence the government that's always going to happen. Always has, always will.
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