Summary

The website content discusses the concept of cargo cult culture, where people perform rituals or follow processes without understanding their purpose, often because "that's just the way it's always been done," and how this phenomenon can be addressed in the workplace.

Abstract

The article "Cargo Cult Culture: The Art of Doing Without Ever Questioning Why" explores the cargo cult culture phenomenon, where individuals or groups perform actions or rituals without understanding their underlying purpose, simply because they are established practices. This behavior is exemplified by the Melanesian Islanders during World War II, who mimicked military routines in hopes of receiving supply drops. The article extends this concept to modern workplaces, where similar practices, such as unnecessary coding habits or the blind adherence to legacy system features, can persist. It suggests that such behaviors stem from a lack of understanding or misinformation, and emphasizes the importance of questioning and understanding the reasons behind actions to avoid these ineffective practices. The article also references L. David Marquet's book "Leadership Is Language," advocating for thoughtful communication to foster a culture of openness and collaboration, enabling the dismantling of cargo cult practices through shared understanding and trust.

Opinions

The author views cargo cult culture as a symptom of misinformation or misunderstanding, not a reflection of intelligence.
The article implies that the cargo cult culture can be detrimental in the workplace, leading to inefficiencies and a lack of innovation.
The author suggests that modern examples of cargo cult culture, such as "cargo cult programming," are prevalent and should be addressed by encouraging critical thinking and understanding of actions.
The author advocates for a non-confrontational approach when questioning established practices, using language that fosters open dialogue and trust.
There is an opinion that understanding the history and context of a company's practices is crucial for new employees to effectively contribute to and improve the organization.
The author believes that by creating a safe environment for discussion, employees are more likely to share their knowledge and experiences, leading to a collective understanding that can dispel unnecessary rituals and processes.

Cargo Cult Culture: The Art of Doing Without Ever Questioning Why

People have their own lucky rituals that they believe deliver desired outcomes. How do you handle this behavior in the workplace though?

You’re a few weeks into your new job and things are going well. The new colleagues are a pleasure to work with and everyone is aligned in reaching a mutual goal. However, the more you settle into the day-to-day goings-on, you realise a few things just aren’t making sense. Certain processes and actions that are being conducted that are either riddled with workarounds or seemingly defy all logic. Upon asking a few of your team why the processes stipulates that they must carry out their work in such a way, they shrug their shoulders and retort with, “I’m not sure… That’s just the way it’s always been done”.

The company is showing the symptoms of having a cargo cult culture.

cargo cult: a belief system in a relatively undeveloped society in which adherents practice superstitious rituals hoping to bring modern goods supplied by a more technologically advanced society

Origin of the term

The term “cargo cult” originates from as far back as the late 1800s. The most commonly referred to occurrence stems from World War II on the Melanesian Islands, off the coasts of Australia. Over this period of conflict, at separate times, both Japanese and Allied forces arrived to set up base. The inhabitants of the Melanesian Islands witnessed their visitors bringing with them clothing, medicine, food, weapons and unfathomable gifts from worlds away.

Due to the remote nature of the islands, these supplies had to be dropped by aircraft. The indigenous people watched on in awe as the military personnel signaled the packages down from the aircraft passing over. Much to the appreciation of the locals, the visitors shared their supplies with them in exchange for their help and assistance.

The people of Tanna (Vanuatu) with the airplane they crafted from straw

Naturally, the war came to an end as did the visits from the soldiers. Missing the luxuries that their visitors had brought with them, the people of the Melanesian Islands took action in a bid to continue the good fortune of supply drops. They believed that the outcome of conducting the soldiers’ daily routines would be airdropped supplies. Therefore, they fashioned their own runways, made aircraft out of straw, lit signals, carved model rifles out of wood, and actively took part in ground drills as if they were soldiers.

Although the supply drops never came, good fortune would sometimes coincidentally align with their rituals and reward them with plentiful rain for their crops or a good yield of fish, cementing their beliefs that the rituals were working.

The cargo cult culture was born.

21st century cargo cults

To modern day people, these rituals seem far-fetched and possibly naive. These are not the actions of stupid people however — they stem from people being misinformed or misunderstanding purpose. Behaviors such as this, albeit with a 21st century twist, continue to happen today. It tends to occur when people don’t take a moment to pause and understand why (and if) their actions are giving them their desired outcome.

Examples of this can be seen in computer programming, happening so frequently it’s attracted the phrase cargo cult programming. It refers to the act of software engineers introducing code to the codebase without either understanding what it does or what the original problem they set out to solve was caused by. It may get the desired outcome, but purely by coincidence.

Examples of this include:

Excessive null reference checks
Excessive try-catch statements
Unnecessary conversions of types

Another example stems from my own experience. In recent years, I worked on a project that involved the replacement of a legacy software system with a new system to be mapped to the business’ processes. During the discovery & analysis phase of the project we needed to understand how the support staff used a particular screen. The screen in question was used to note down queries from callers and logging it as a job in the system.

Upon being asked what aspects of the legacy system worked for them, one of the staff responded, “All these fields are needed to ensure we can log a new job. Please can we have them all in the new system?”. The legacy screen was littered with input fields but they all made sense apart from one. In the middle of nowhere, just floating on it’s own, was an unnamed checkbox. Asking what it was and what it does, the users were unsure but insisted “We must have it in the new system or new jobs won’t be logged correctly!”. None of the users knew what the checkbox did but were concerned that without it, the process of logging jobs in the system wouldn’t work.

Getting the scent of a cargo cult vibe, I was hesitant (but more importantly, not reluctant) to introduce this mystery checkbox to the new system. Upon speaking to the technical staff that administered the legacy system, it turns out that the checkbox acted as a trigger to call a database stored procedure. This database query updated a date in the system, the result of an ill-performing process and the legacy system being mapped incorrectly to it. In implementing the new system, we were able to rectify the underlying issue and remove the need for any magic checkboxes.

How to approach a cargo cult

Within L. David Marquet’s book Leadership Is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say and What You Don’t, Marquet’s consistent message is that when engaging with people, subtle changes in how we phrase ourselves can have a resounding impact on our future success as leaders.

When entering an unfamiliar environment, such as a new job, you should remain mindful that the current state of the business is the result of months, years and sometimes decades of strategic decisions, employee turnover, and equal amounts of successes and failures. If the history of the business were to be a book being written in real-time, you are joining this narrative on what happens to be currently its last page. In the same sense that you can’t draw up an informed opinion of a novel by reading a single page part-way through the book, you can’t judge how a company operates today without knowing some of its history as to how it got there.

It’s quite easy to get the sense of a cargo cult culture when joining a new business. It’s all alien to you and you are subconsciously judging what you see based on your past experiences from previous places of employment.

When conversing with colleagues to understand why they are carrying out certain actions, you should remain humble and open-minded.

Taken from one of Marquet’s 2016 blog posts, he explores this approach:

Assume in this particular case that they may be right. Do your best to wipe your mind free of preconceived notions. Create a mindset that is open and curious and ask them about that decision. When you ask those questions, try to stay away from the word “why.” Don’t say “Why do you want to do that?”. Instead say “Tell me about this.” “Tell me about” is less provocative and it will feel to them like they’re competence is not being challenged. They will be more open to simply telling you about the issue and then you can make the decision about whether or not you’re going to let them do it.

By coming across as non-challenging and curious, people feel safe to tell their stories. You start to earn their trust that you wish to work with them and that any change that needs to happen will be done in collaboration with them instead of being imposed upon them.

Taking this approach will help you find the elements of truth within a cargo cult culture and formulate new ways of thinking and working founded on fact and shared understanding.