Conditioning in Bureaucratic Organizations
Ten days later and I can’t get this clip out of my head. Not the substance of it but rather what it says about conditioning.
People trying to get ahead develop an acute sense for the behaviors that are rewarded in their organizations. Junior people begin to compete with each other, and their bosses reward that behavior in an ever escalating, self-reinforcing cycle.
The junior people begin to divine what they think their bosses want and they start pushing the lever in rapid succession with the expectation of receiving more and more pellets.
Some people are better at hiding this escalation than others and tend to get rewarded for it. Others come across as unskilled and over-the-top, and you end up with a breathless, over-acted performance like this.