Pointless Organizational Structures

In My Humble Opinion
1

This is intended as a general thought, but it was inspired by watching a particular “reality” show on Discovery: The Devils Ride - a show about a motorcycle gang.

What was most striking to me was that - as depicted by this show - the MC gang was all about organization, structure, and rules. And not much else. They did ride around on motorcycles, but for the most part the club seemed more focused on how this or that group or subgroup was organized, who held what position, what the “protocols” were or weren’t, and incessant squabbling about the “disrespect” shown by those who violated those protocols.

All the gang members seemed like immature losers, and what it reminded me of more than anything was the Raccoon Club, of Honeymooners fame. (Also, of the GROSS club, of which Calvin was President for Life, and Hobbes, First Tiger.)

[FWIW I looked around a bit and there is apparently considerable speculation as to whether this MC club actually exists. (ISTM more likely that it does.) But the striking thing to me the comment of one actual MC member - he felt it couldn’t possibly be a real club because the members were not taking their protocols seriously enough. I found that bizarre.]

So the thought came to me that it would seem that all these rules and protocols and organizational structure were ends to themselves. It’s not that they serve to enable some sort of accomplishment to get done. To the contrary, whatever got done was merely a pretext to have the organizational structure in place. And that - for some people - there is some sort of need that is met by being part of an organization with a uniform, rules, titles etc.

Weird. And especially weird that this is so for bikers - you would have thought that these guys are a bunch of free spirited “rebels”. But I tend to think this is the case.

This has ramifications for other organizations as well, e.g. corporations or governments. In these cases, there actually is some purpose that the organization serves. But it’s nonetheless possible that some of the organizational structure is based on this same need to create organizations as you have in the case of these clubs.

2

Not exactly what you’re talking about…but… For a year, I worked for a company that used a “Matrix” organizational structure.

Disaster! Everyone had two bosses. The “vertical” and the “horizontal” boss. We were all in both a column and a row. (A bit more complex than that, but that’s the essence.)

It killed responsibility. Everyone was constantly pointing fingers. “Sorry, my other boss said I had to do it this way.” “Well, stop it immediately…” Then, at the next meeting, the other boss asked, “Why have you stopped doing what I told you?” Ping…pong…ping…pong…

Gimme an old-fashioned “tree” diagram any day. At least I know whom to obey!

3

Reminds me of the game Nomic wherein players do nothing but amend the rules of the game.

4

Damn fun game!

(I’ve actually been in one for the last umpty-odd years. We may have stopped playing, but we never actually ended the game.)

(Heck, you might be in it! Nomic works that way!)

5

It sort of helps to think of a MC to be essentially a troop of primates. There is a firm order and structure to keep them sorted out so it isn’t constant fighting for rank. I think that the study on IIRC chimp ‘tribal’ structure is the best way to look at it. Or maybe Planet of the Apes [the original one] Remember how everybody had a place, and if they stayed in that place they didn’t get their asses kicked by the ones higher in the power structure. Same for bikers in an MC. <shrug> That is how it worked with the members of the Pagans I knew once upon a time.

6

See nearby thread on Homeowners’ Associations, and compare.

7

I agree with the OP. Sometimes an organization exists for no purpose other than to have an organization.

8

Sometimes it’s just nice to know where everyone’s place is in a group. When I was in college, I was a member of a large-ish sci-fi club that was broken down into seven or eight formal committees (Small Programs, Student Affairs, Public Relations, AggieCon, Finance, etc.) and several less formal groups (the Anime group, the Gaming group, the LARPers) which all had their designated leaders to organize everything. Even some of the commitees had smaller branches of organization (particularly AggieCon, which as a rule employed everybody in every other committee in some form anyways).

But then, we were admittedly a bunch of nerds. We tended to be fairly laid back about protocol as long as our planned events were happening and nobody was doing anything crazy enough to get us disbanded by the University (again).

9

College fraternities and sororities have no real point, other than being a self-selecting single sex dorm for about 30-40 undergrads. There are house officers and jobs to do and whatnot. But most of those jobs are related to either maintaining the house or recruiting new members to join every year.
I suppose the ramifications for government or business is that it is wasteful to create groups, departments or teams that ultimately don’t seem to serve any purpose but growing and perpetuatiing itself.

10

Hell will be sort of like that, I imagine.

11

Oh my heavens yes. My Brother was riding with the Bandidos for a while. Basically he was too much of a F’up for them to put up with. If you are seen riding without your “colors” (three piece patch on jacket) there will be blood LOTS of stuff like that. Really disgusting misogynistic treatment of wives and girlfriends…uh, I mean bitches. The colors thing is about marking territory. A Bandido caught alone in HA territory might be in trouble.

Hell’s Angles and Bandidos and indys are most of the real 1%ers. There are a lot of wannbe poser groups at the level portrayed in “Wild Hogs”.