Tuesday, April 27, 2004
Marriage and Monogamy -- An Organisational Design perspective
I have argued with several readers of this blog about the outmodedness of the institution known as marriage, and in particular monogamy (both from the male and the female). In my mind, monogamy (and by extension, marriage) is a social construct that evolved at some distant time in the past and hasn't really kept up with the times. After all, most of the natural world seems to operate on very different rules from human beings.
So, I was pleasantly surprised to find support for my point-of-view from the unlikeliest of sources -- the late management guru, Sumantra Ghoshal. He uses some of the concepts of organisational design to explain lucidly what I muddle-headedly called outmodedness. In this conversation, reproduced in a remembrance column by a friend in an Indian business magazine, Ghoshal explains why the declining "moral standards" of married men and women in Delhi are in some ways inevitable. The original piece is not accessible to non-subscribers, so I have reproduced the relevant portions in full.
This is not about morality--it is about flawed Organisation Design. He then proceeds to explain to his audience the three central institutions that men are involved with throughout their lives -- the government, the place of work and marriage. Governments through history have evolved, morphed, and adapted to changing contexts from autocracies and plutocracies through monarchies and dictatorships to democracies. Politics of coalition and inclusion predicate the changing needs of our time and respond to the plurality of our polity.
The workplace too, over time, has seen significant changes. It's not enough to think of employees as assets. Perhaps we should see them as volunteer investors, choosing to invest their talents in the organisation they have joined. It is a very different dynamic to "command and control". The context has changed dramatically and the workplace is responding.
Now examaine the institution of marriage. It was designed at a time when the average lifespan of a male was about 30 years. Today, it is well over 70 and there has been no attempt at redisigning this fundamentally important institution. Strictly monogamous men would soon be extinct. Such fallibility is initrinsic to the design of any institution who context has changed dramatically but where the boundaries of design have been held static.
So, I was pleasantly surprised to find support for my point-of-view from the unlikeliest of sources -- the late management guru, Sumantra Ghoshal. He uses some of the concepts of organisational design to explain lucidly what I muddle-headedly called outmodedness. In this conversation, reproduced in a remembrance column by a friend in an Indian business magazine, Ghoshal explains why the declining "moral standards" of married men and women in Delhi are in some ways inevitable. The original piece is not accessible to non-subscribers, so I have reproduced the relevant portions in full.
This is not about morality--it is about flawed Organisation Design. He then proceeds to explain to his audience the three central institutions that men are involved with throughout their lives -- the government, the place of work and marriage. Governments through history have evolved, morphed, and adapted to changing contexts from autocracies and plutocracies through monarchies and dictatorships to democracies. Politics of coalition and inclusion predicate the changing needs of our time and respond to the plurality of our polity.
The workplace too, over time, has seen significant changes. It's not enough to think of employees as assets. Perhaps we should see them as volunteer investors, choosing to invest their talents in the organisation they have joined. It is a very different dynamic to "command and control". The context has changed dramatically and the workplace is responding.
Now examaine the institution of marriage. It was designed at a time when the average lifespan of a male was about 30 years. Today, it is well over 70 and there has been no attempt at redisigning this fundamentally important institution. Strictly monogamous men would soon be extinct. Such fallibility is initrinsic to the design of any institution who context has changed dramatically but where the boundaries of design have been held static.
