Diagnostics of Administration: HawthornitisAuthor(s): Albert PorterSource: Public Administration Review, Vol. 22, No. 2 (Spring, 1962), pp. 82-83Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Society for Public AdministrationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/973719 .

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Diagnostics of Administration: Hawthorn itis

By DR. ALBERT PORTER Associate Professor of Business San Jose State College

XXVII. Hawthornltis

A. Etiology H -AWTHORNITIS results in many cases from introduction of a virus tentatively la- belled HR into the middle or upper

administrative channels, although for reasons not yet fully understood, the uppermost chan- nels serve only as carriers, remaining un- affected themselves.

Whatever its origin, the condition is usually at first an acute localized infection contained in the organizational tissues surrounding the point of introduction of the virus; but later in its course the infection spreads throughout the organization, almost always in a down- ward direction, fanning out into the lower branches as the disease progresses.

B. Symptoms The onset is generally abrupt, most com-

monly on return from a symposium or train- ing program where a prime carrier or "hu- man relator" (after Leavitt) has been active in dynamic group situations. Internal organi- zational manifestations consist chiefly of a fever of "participation" and a rash of com- mittees, leading to a generally short-lived eu- phoria followed by a downward trend in mo- rale and a concomitant upward trend in apathy, with creativity being numbed. Ex- ternal manifestations include the aimless drift -or mental strabismus-usually associated with senility and with sclerosis and thrombosis of administrative circulatory channels.

On becoming aware of the above-mentioned

> The Review was fortunate in having obtained the latest information on the dread disease "Haw- thornitis." As is frequently the case, there will probably be numerous additions to the battery of treatments presently offered when the ponderous research machinery swings into action financed by foundation grants, a march of dollars, and the Fed- eral government. Whether the epidemic can be halted or not only the future will tell, but it is, without a doubt, zero hour for manning the bar- ricades.

external manifestations, the higher cerebral members of the organization normally make violent attempts at self-compensation, often through an increase in the tempo of "partici- pation" and the creation of additional com- mittees-sometimes leading to a "committee on committees" and, in one case whose authenticity is somewhat questionable, a "com- mittee on committees on committees." Unfor- tunately it appears that such internal-correc- tion reactions very often lead to the dreaded and as yet baffling "terminal Parkinson's spiral," which some have likened to the avi- ator's "flat spin."

C. Treatment There appear to be great individual differ-

ences among organization members as to sus- ceptibility to Hawthornitis and as to response to treatment. Some members are virtually im- mune to HR virus, while at the other extreme are members who seem able to contract the disease through mere proximity to an afflicted area of the organization. In some cases a com- plete restoration to health has been effected by a minor event such as a chance reading of

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DIAGNOSTICS OF ADMINISTRATION 83

Elbert Hubbard's A Message to Garcia, or by a superior's remarking "Is this a social club or what?"

Unfortunately the clinical study of Haw- thornitis is still in the primitive stages and there are rather basic disagreements among re- searchers as to the best general approach to treatment-indeed as to the very possibility of cure. One rather prevalent line of thought includes the abolition of all committees and a course of daily reading from the works of Parkinson, the Whytes, Leavitt, Whisler, Di- mock, Mead, Machiavelli, Hubbard, Benton,

etc., until fever and rash have disappeared or at least abated.

One rather drastic hypothesis, as yet felt by many researchers to be more extreme than warranted by present knowledge, dictates com- plete liquidation of the organization followed by reconstruction in an atmosphere free from HR carriers.

Since this disease appears to be reaching epidemic level, it is hoped that laboratory studies now under way will soon provide rea- sonably well-validated treatment for this highly debilitating affliction.

Organization Men?

Processionary Caterpillars feed upon pine needles. They move through the trees in a long procession, one leading and the others following- each with his eyes half closed and his head snugly fitted against the rear extremity of his predecessor.

Jean-Henri Fabre, the great French naturalist, after patiently experi- menting with a group of the caterpillars, finally enticed them to the rim of a large flower pot where he succeeded in getting the first one con- nected up with the last one, thus forming a complete circle, which started moving around in a procession, which had neither beginning nor end.

The naturalist expected that after a while they would catch on to the joke, get tired of their useless march and start off in some new direction. But not so. ...

Through sheer force of habit, the living creeping circle kept moving around the rim of the pot-around and around, keeping the same re- lentless pace for seven days and seven nights-and would doubtless have continued longer had it not been for sheer exhaustion and ultimate starvation.

- Visitor, July 1961, p. 6.

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