The movie trailer for “The Boys in the Boat” brings to light a unique aspect of some Olympic sports in countries like the US. In sports such as curling and certain rowing classes, the national bodies select teams as cohesive units rather than assembling national teams from individual top athletes (source: StackExchange). Although these are special instances, they underscore that ogregore behavior emerges from both individual and collective agency.
The Substitution Rule
With curling and rowing, at least, one can’t swap out individuals and maintain the quality of the team. There’s apparently something about group chemistry in these sports that trumps combining the best individuals. In such small groups, the substitution rule for group action is not applicable: “A large organization may be said to be the relevant actor in the explanation of an interorganizational process if a substitution of the people occupying specific roles in its authority structure leaves the organizational policies and its daily routines intact” (DeLanda, A New Philosophy of Society, 2006: 37).
Bands
Symphony orchestras exemplify situations where the substitution rule applies. Even with frequent turnover of players or conductors, they can maintain a distinctive sound. For instance, the Vienna Philharmonic is renowned for its distinctive, warm, and lush sound (source: NYTimes). Other examples include the Berlin Phil and Boston Symphony (source: GPT-4).
Similarly, sports teams like the San Antonio Spurs, Manchester United, and the New York Yankees have demonstrated sustained excellence over time despite changes in players and coaches.
Businesses
Such consistency leads us to the realm of businesses, where a strong corporate culture can ensure long-term success. Companies like 3M, Procter & Gamble, IBM, and Toyota are often cited as examplars.
Arie de Geus's concept of “living companies” (source: HBR) such as Stora, Sumitomo, Nokia, and Shell, are special cases where corporate culture and decentralized management take precedence over high-profile CEOs. According to De Geus, these companies' managers see themselves as stewards rather than short-term profit maximizers. Such attitudes reinforce the collective identity of a company, making it easier to perceive it as an ogregore—an organized human-based entity with intelligent agency comparable to states, corporations, unions, political movements, and standards bodies.
Collectives or Leaders?
Corporate actions are often more strongly determined by the business context than top leaders. For example, the WSJ reported that “CVS and Walgreens pharmacy employees say they are overworked, understaffed, and more liable to make prescription errors due to the companies prioritizing profits.” Pharmacists at those companies have staged sporadic job walkouts around the country in recent weeks to publicize their complaints. (A Rite Aid pharmacist told me this week that their situation is no better.) The problems are structural, according to the WSJ. Filling prescriptions has become less profitable and online shopping has hurt the retail front end of the pharmacy store.
Neither CVS’ nor Walgreens’ CEOs were quoted in the WSJ story. That’s typical. When outcomes are favorable, leaders often take credit regardless of their actual influence. However, when things go wrong, CEOs decline interviews, forcing journalists to focus on systemic explanations and citing analysts. Hence, crises often reveal ogregores as collectives.
Even high-profile CEOs may have less influence than their PR flacks might have one believe. For instance, when Rex Tillerson became CEO of Exxon in 2006, his public acceptance of climate change risks drew much media attention. However, another recent WSJ story revealed that Exxon leadership continued to question the severity of climate change's impacts internally.
Of course, individuals can make a difference, and not just well-known ones like Napoleon or Steve Jobs. For example, the firing of Anna Walentynowicz, a popular crane operator and activist, in August 1980 galvanized outraged workers into action at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk, eventually leading to the downfall of the communist government. Conversely, movements without central organizing structures, such as Occupy Wall Street or the Tea Party, can also have a significant societal impact.
Seeing the forest, not the towering egos
Our fascination with celebrity and human-interest stories often impedes our ability to objectively analyze companies (and other ogregores) dispassionately. Those elements are stripped away when executive egos dive for cover.
An umwelt view of view ogregores, which abandons an anthropocentric perspective and tries to de-humanize our image of nature (Agamben, The Circle, 2004 : 39, pdf), can also help. While it’s impossible to eradicate our human perspective, especially when telling stories, it helps to imagine what the world feels like to sports teams, companies, and other human-based but non-human entities. Each member of a rowing crew is unique, but the sum is more than its parts.
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