Rituals

Joseph Campbell observed that the more a culture felt threatened or controlled by unpredictable forces, the more rituals it would evolve, the more complex they would be, and the more vigorously they would be enforced.

This is a useful way to understand the fierce and damaging allegiance to industrial manufacturing era hierarchical command-and-control structures despite their poor suitability for knowledge work by skilled problem solvers in the information and computer age. Management and leadership, feeling threatened by their changing role, are seeking protection against adverse outcomes. In actuality, their efforts increase the probability of failure; and the security they believe they create with hierarchical structure is illusory.