{"id":79746,"date":"2019-10-31T18:01:58","date_gmt":"2019-11-01T00:01:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=79746"},"modified":"2019-11-01T16:56:07","modified_gmt":"2019-11-01T22:56:07","slug":"true-or-false-companies-arent-families-theyre-battlefields-in-a-civil-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2019\/10\/true-or-false-companies-arent-families-theyre-battlefields-in-a-civil-war.html","title":{"rendered":"True or False? “Companies aren\u2019t families.\u00a0They\u2019re battlefields in a civil war.”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Kallia<\/a>
As anybody familiar with the overall story of \u201cKalila wa-Dimna\u201d will immediately recognize, this fifteenth-century manuscript illumination occurs near the end of the collection.
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The very first book that we read in the Islamic Humanities class (IHUM 242) that I teach during both fall and winter semesters (and am teaching right now, have just taught this afternoon) is the eighth-century AD\u00a0Kalila wa Dimna<\/em> of Ibn al-Muqaffa\u2018. \u00a0It is an animal fable that can be read \u2014 in fact, it almost certainly must<\/em> be read \u2014 as a satire upon life in a royal court and on the perils and dangers that one faces from court intrigue and disingenuous false friends.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Relatively few of those in my classes will go on to be princes or princesses, but a number of them will eventually work in business offices. \u00a0Some of those offices will feature at least one scheming false friend, one rival. \u00a0So I thought that, even apart from its intrinsic merits, the Kalila wa Dimna<\/em> might be a book to which members of the class will be inclined to return (or even to re-read) at some point later in their lives, as it will have taken on a specific meaning for them.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

In recent years, I\u2019ve begun my discussion of the Kalila wa Dimna<\/em> with a quotation from Charles Duhigg, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter at the New York Times.<\/em>\u00a0 He is referring to 1982 book by Richard Nelson and Sidney Winter, of Yale, entitled An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change<\/em>:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Most economists are accustomed to treating companies as idyllic places where everyone is devoted to a common goal: making as much money as possible.\u00a0 Nelson and Winter pointed out that, in the real world, that\u2019s not how things work at all.\u00a0 Companies aren\u2019t big happy families where everyone plays together nicely.\u00a0 Rather, most workplaces are made up of fiefdoms where executives compete for power and credit, often in hidden skirmishes that make their own performances appear superior and their rivals\u2019 seem worse.\u00a0 Divisions compete for resources and sabotage each other to steal glory.\u00a0 Bosses pit their subordinates against one another to that no one can mount a coup.<\/span><\/p>\n

Companies aren\u2019t families.\u00a0 They\u2019re battlefields in a civil war.[1]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business<\/em> (New York: Random House, 2014), 162.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I hope that Duhigg\u2019s judgment is a bit too harsh with regard to most companies. \u00a0Still, I think that it contains some truth and that Kalila wa Dimna<\/em> can provide at least some wisdom to apply in such cases.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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