Of Atlas, Munchausen and the pursuit of relevance at the workplace

“I create problems, and then I solve them. That is my style!”, declared the department head smugly.

I heard this statement a long time ago. At that time, I didn’t take it too seriously as I thought that it was the peculiarity of one rather ‘strange’ individual. After having spent a couple of decades in business organizations, I have come to realize that this was not an isolated incident. It prompted me to think more deeply about the underlying factors and led me to the all-important topic of 'relevance in business organizations' and the various ways in which we try to achieve and maintain/enhance relevance. 

Relevance is the central theme in organizational life. Relevance comes from ‘value addition’. What is valuable and how much it should be valued is always defined by the customer. The term 'customer' includes internal customers also. The most pragmatic definition of a ‘value added activity’ that I have come across is that ‘it is an activity that the customer is willing to pay for adequately’.  Of course, the payment (especially in the case of internal customers) need not be a direct payment.  

 When we talk about value addition, it includes the ‘perceived’ value addition in addition to the ‘real’ value addition. Again, when we look at the perceived value addition, there are multiple aspects like ‘what one thinks his/her value addition is’, ‘what others think one’s value addition is’, ‘what one thinks others think to be his/her value addition’ etc. This indeed can degenerate into a ‘mind game’ and that is where characters like Atlas and Munchausen come in. 

Munchausen Syndrome is named after Baron Munchausen, who became famous for telling exaggerated tales about his exploits in the past. Munchausen syndrome refers to a mental disorder in which someone tries to get attention and sympathy by falsifying, inducing, or exaggerating an illness. This is very different from ‘hypochondria’ because a person with hypochondria really believes that he/she has a serious illness, which is not true in the case of the Munchausen Syndrome. 

Closer to our topic is the so called ‘Munchausen by proxy’, in which a caregiver exaggerates, fabricates, or induces illness in another person in order to get praise for then helping the victim. In the workplace context, this takes the form of employees creating or inventing organizational problems and then solving them, all in the hope that it would make them more important in the eyes of the leaders and coworkers. This pattern of behavior, called Munchausen at Work (MAW) does waste time and resources though it might be quite hard to detect. 

In business organizations, MAW is also employed as ‘survival tactics’ or even as ‘IR tactics'. Ultimately, this is a deliberate attempt to maintain/enhance their relevance in the organization. I have seen people trying to keep their job/highlight the importance of the job by creating problems/letting preventable problems occur and then solving them. In its milder form, MAW manifests as a tendency to 'overcomplicate' things, in an attempt to demonstrate one's expertise or to create a need that would require one's expertise. Obviously, they have no appetite for the simplicity on the other side of complexity. 

Of course, no one will admit that they are doing this. Skilled operators at MAW (the sort who survive in organizations) will cover their tracks well. Therefore, studying/diagnosing this and/or addressing this becomes difficult. This puts people who proactively prevent problems from occurring at a 'double disadvantage' as their efforts (and the value they have added) are not visible. The solution to MAW could be in terms of building trust, skills and psychological safety so that such behavior is not required in the first place.

Let’s look at the Atlas Complex now. The name Atlas Complex comes from the Greek myth of Atlas, who is supposed ‘to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders’. Similarly, a person with Atlas Complex tend to think that he is carrying the weight of 'his world' on his shoulders, and it will collapse unless he continues to do so. This can happen in the case of personal life ('personal world'), work life ('work world') or both. 

At the workplace, the Atlas Complex comes from the pursuit of relevance at work. A person who has the Atlas Complex tends to think that he/she is very critical to the team/organization and that if he/she is not around everything will fall apart. This leads to the person working very hard and unwilling to let others take the responsibility. This goes much beyond ‘busy-ness’ (acting busy to gain importance).  Sometimes, this does work, and the person is able to generate/maintain a sense of importance. However, sometimes it just makes him/her an object of scorn or even ridicule, even when he/she has been putting in a super-human effort at the expense of his/her health and personal life. In such cases, Atlas Complex can also lead to 'silent depression'.

Unlike MAW, Atlas Complex is quite visible to the coworkers and leaders and hence easier to diagnose. However, it might not be so easy to remedy, especially in those cases where the pattern of behavior has become deep-rooted. Addictions are hard to cure! Again, unlike that in the case of MAW, people with Atlas complex might indeed be adding significant value to the organization and to coworkers. Afterall, if someone takes extra responsibility and consistently delivers on the same, it can indeed make life easier for people around him/her.

Here, the solution could be in terms of helping the person (in a non-threatening manner) to recognize his/her pattern of behavior and its consequences and to enable him/her to gradually switch over to a more appropriate pattern of behavior. Coaching can be very helpful in this context. Of course, the most important thing in such a situation is to enable the person to feel that he/she can add sufficient value (and hence maintain relevance in the organization) without having to resort to Atlas-like behavior.  

It is interesting to note that the Atlas Complex and Munchausen at Work (MAW) have similarities with what Scott Peck refers to as the two fundamental types of 'disorders of responsibility' – ‘neuroticism’ and ‘character disorder’. People with neuroticism tend to assume too much responsibility (like people with Atlas complex) and people with character disorder tends to assume too less responsibility/look after only their self-interest (like people with MAW) in any given situation. 

Atlas Complex and MAW are dysfunctional ways to seek relevance in organizations. There are indeed functional ways to pursue relevance, like enhancing one's capability, understanding of the organization, alignment to team/organization goals and hence enhancing one's contribution (value addition). However, these dysfunctional ways are quite common. It is possible that certain organizational contexts and leadership styles increase the probability of these dysfunctional ways occurring/becoming entrenched in the organization. 

Atlas Complex and MAW are by no means the only psychological disorders found at the workplace. Workplace pathologies are quite widespread both at the individual level and at the group/organization level. It can even be argued that many groups are held together by Convenient Collective Delusions. Maybe, part of these problems come from the fact that workplaces are still not the ‘natural habitats’ for most humans!

Any comments/thoughts?