Template:M intro design protestant and catholic

It is the JC’s contention that above our heads — at a level of abstraction far beyond the molecular comprehension of our frail, mortal minds — rages an apocalyptic battle between the massed forces of form and substance. It is a battle, and a war, that the subject matter experts have been losing for 30 years (being the more or less the length of the JC’s career.)

Form versus substance in a nutshell

Form is the map: simplified, rationalised, modularised: it establishes, through followable rules, a safe passage through the incomprehensible thickness of the jungle. It tries to reduce complexity — scary, unmanageable, non-linear — to mere complication — fiddly, but tameable by punctilious attention to detail — by prescribing fixed rules and procedures — process — which may be followed even by those with no particular experience or expertise of the territory. As long as you can read, and are generally disposed to quickly and quietly doing what you are told, the only question which is asked of you in such a formal system will be: did you faithfully follow the rules?

Substance is the territory: the fractal, inchoate, indeterminate, dancing, organic mass of messiness in which we are consigned to play our mortal games. Without a map, there is only one way to navigate the territory: by knowing it. Given that it moves — like some diabolical, shapeshifting labyrinth, doors disappear, staircases vanish, chambers and oubliettes wink in and out of existence— knowing it is hard, and takes continuing application, investment, time, patience, energy and skill. A map is a proxy for knowledge, not a substitute: one who has the knowledge, and knows the territory — an expert — will bridle upon being told to use a map.

Put it this way: would you use a map to navigate from the station to your own home?

These are divergent philosophies when organising a complex system.

Formal organisation

So we implement process A, to deal with malign contingency X, but processes being only simplified models — derivatives — of the worlds they represent, process A’s shadow inevitably falls across benign contingencies Y and Z: circumstances not needing process A, but which “it won’t hurt” to subject to Process A anyway.

(The alternative would be to implement a Process A', drawn wholly inside the boundary of malign contingency X, and whose shadow therefore didn’t fall across any benign contingencies, but which also did not quite cover all instances of contingency X. Such a process, which fails to address tail risks, is a bad process).

We should expect process A to get in the way every now and then, when a contingency Y or Z comes about.

The options are:

(i) to run process A anyway, even though everyone knows it isn’t needed, or

(ii) to waive process A, invoking process B (the “process A waiver” process).

Either option has a cost: option (i) being marginally preferable because it is already costed in. Justifying option (ii) involves demonstrating that the cost of obtaining the waiver will be less than the cost of just running process A, and so will result in a saving. This will trigger process C (the “justifying the cost of a new initiatives” process) which will, of course, increase the cost of process B, making process C, and therefore process B more likely to fail.

Substantive organisation

There is another way of doing things, of course: a subject matter expert — which we define as “one who understands the territory and therefore the map’s limitations” — can apprehend that what she beholds is benign contingency Y and make the substantive judgment that, while it is formally applicable, Process A is not substantively relevant, and thereby ignore process A.

This will upset two categories of people: administrators — which we define as “that class of people who are not subject matter experts, don’t understand the territory, fetishise the map, and therefore are aggrieved when the map is disregarded”; and rent-extractors — those who stand to be gain by rigid application of the map, many of whom will be, of course, administrators.

The protestant and the catholic modes or organisation

This leads the JC to offer two modes of operation: the run-of-the-mill protestant mode — being the first one, in which rules are rules, to suffer is divine, and rewards are presumed to be in the next life, since they clearly don’t apply in this one — and the much-talked-about-seldom-seen catholic mode — being the second one, in which you act now and ask for permission, or forgiveness, later. That always seemed more fun, open-minded and apt to uncover opportunities, and expose lurking risks, one might not find when following the same, mandated path home every day. The map may be linear, after all, but the territory is definitely not.

To be catholic is to walk a high wire: there is no room for bluffers, fakers or know-nothings — they may ask for permission, but few will get it. But nor should you hire bluffers or fakers, and if you have hired no-nothings in your protestant strategy, you will be a long time finding a catholic path to redemption.