This keeps getting repeated. But honestly these days I can't tell the god damn difference. What is malice, other than incompetent people struggling to survive like anyone else, and paradoxically sticking up for each other through the same repetitive cycle of abuse that prevents them from aspiring to competece?
Functionally, though, your experiences may be very similar on the receiving end of incompetence vs malice.
edit: I want to append this to say: The purpose of the original phrase in my opinion was to encourage cooperation and communication as the solution. In a sufficiently structured corporate environment this solution may be impossible for reasons other than malicious behavior, in which case the statement is without practical value.
Malice is a legal, quasi-religious concept. A tiger can also quite actively exploit weaknesses and imbalances for the harm of its prey, yet we don't judge the animal as malicious - because we don't attribute concsiousness to it in the same way we attribute it to humans.
To have "malice", you need "intent", for which you need need "consciousness", in the classical folk understanding of the term: taking "selfhood", "free will", and "adequate theory of mind" as axioms. Whatever the scientific consensus on those, they seem to have little explanatory power in the domain of business. They're also a pretty high bar, so to speak - certainly higher than we give 'em credit for.
If those words really meant what they purported to mean, we'd be functioning in a much more humane economy; but for whatever reason these concepts just don't "stick" to what's really going on in the day-to-day. They're just the wishful thinking of Western humanist authors who were trying to set an example, i.e. mold the world in their own image a little bit.
> Functionally, though, your experiences may be very similar on the receiving end of incompetence vs malice.
Precisely. And since we're just people who just have objectives to accomplish, and our understanding of the consciousness of others takes at best a pragmatic role in pursuing those, our response to others failing us ends up being essentially the same: looking for ways to enforce compliance so that the counterparty delivers.
At the end of the day, "attributing malice" vs. "attributing incompetence" is about saving face - for the counterparty as well as for ourselves. Either way, dedicating effort to saving face detracts from the effort of understanding the problem at hand, which like you said is fundamentally structural.
> A tiger can also quite actively exploit weaknesses and imbalances for the harm of its prey, yet we don't judge the animal as malicious
A tiger is not malicious when it harms prey, because the intent is survival, and it cannot have that without harm. The survival of abusive CEOs and managers does not require harm to be done to anyone, yet they do it (sometimes for no tangible benefit).
> To have "malice", you need "intent"
You need not intend for your actions to be malicious, for them to be. If you are willfully ignorant of malicious consequences of your actions, your actions are still malicious. This is why "I didn't know what I was doing was harming people" defense doesn't fly, not in the legal sense and not in the moral. At some point it is your duty to determine the consequences of your actions, and something being your job is definitely over that threshold.
I think this is almost the same point as parent, albeit slightly askew from that one.
The hint is in your use of the word “willfully” — that is, you know what you are doing will result in harm, and you choose to do it anyway.
A difference is that “intending to harm” may be a differently intractable behavior because it is effectively sadism. That is a tighter reward loop than “pretending it doesn’t harm” which can just be avoidance.
Of course whether or not you can ever learn which of those (if it isn’t both) you’re dealing with is an entirely different matter.
No, you _don't know_ the consequences and you don't bother finding out before doing it.
I agree that this might have been the original intention, yet the phrase has become a way of virtue signaling and looking down on those who assume malice. IMHO, difference is minuscule, because in many cases consequences are the same.
While this is true — I would be very surprised if anyone was actively malicious towards their hiring pool — it's not an important distinction when trying to decide which employer to apply for.
Oh I completely agree.
The funny thing is I actively enjoy writing - but I look at the long questionnaire for some otherwise quite attractive companies and sigh, and assume that everything internally is just as clueless and so just pass them by for a company who won't waste my time.
Actually this thought process has been problematic for me. Seeing that everyone is actually incompetent is more dangerous than there being a reason (good, bad or otherwise) for their actions.
I no longer subscribe to this line of thought after seeing several borderline sociopaths use this very same mental model in order to try and manipulate people into doing their bidding.
As I see it, "intentional failure" is just a euphemism for sabotage.
https://www.theskimm.com/wellness/weaponized-incompetence
https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/weaponized-incompeten...
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/weaponized-incompetence-women...
Assume this were true. Even if this were the case, this might backfire: "passionate" easily works against a company.
This means that if you filter for passionate people, but reject such passionate candidates, these candidates might passionately work against your company (e.g. tell every friend what a shithole of a company this is etc.).
So, filtering for passionate people in the hiring process (even if it worked) is in my opinion dangerous idea.
I work for John Deere, one of those companies that (where I live) has a lot of loyal customers who teach their children we are the best. Even still the majority of great people I work with just want to work their job and go home. (to avoid burn out we don't allow the passionate to work more than 8 hours very often, so the difference between great; and great and passionate isn't significant)
One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.
Please stop saying this, especially if you have no actual evidence of incompetence. It's the equivalent of clicking your heels together three times because you really, really don't want to live in a world full of casual malice. Wishing doesn't make it so.
I believe the thinking is: "This is a great filter to ensure we only get great and passionate people!" when the reality is: "This is a great filter to ensure that only desperate or unimaginative people will apply!"