Frozen accidents in workspace
Frozen accidents are chance happenings that have become ad hoc standards because it would take too much effort to switch to another configuration. The term “frozen accidents” is primarily used in discussions of Darwinian evolution. An example: the heart is generally a little to the left of center in a person’s body. There’s no particular reason that evolution didn’t roll the dice differently early on, leading to hearts being a little to the right of center. But once the original configuration was set, it got locked in.
In the abstract space of the working world, frozen accidents are ubiquitous. Even if, in principle, there are fifteen ways to route the paperwork, there’s only one way for which the boss (or the bureaucrats pushing the paper) say, “but THIS is the way it’s done here.” Because a decision was made sometime in the past, it has become an ad hoc standard. Now, the logic behind some decisions made in the past may still be apropos, but we all know situations in which a) the logic employed at the time of the decision is inappropriate in the present context, or b) there wasn’t logic - it was a choice that could have been made by rolling dice or some other chance method.
Sometimes, institutional memory is insufficient to figure out why a decision was made the way it was. Many decisions made in the past can seem like they were accidental choices.
In any event, the decisions have been frozen. I like to call them “frozen accidents” because the idea behind the term is so powerful.
Here’s what it looks like:
- A choice is made between various perceived, available configurations in a very specific context.
- Later, the context has changed, but the choice that was made remains active, a “frozen accident.”
- At this later time, other configurations can be perceived, but they’re no longer “available.”
The idea of “frozen accidents” is helpful in understanding why good ideas sometimes don’t get off the ground. It is part of the reason organizational change isn’t easier.
Here are some examples of frozen accidents in the abstract “space” of work, in the specific context of the university where I work. Some of these are specific to my workplace, others are more general:
- Saturday and Sunday are the weekend days. Need these always be the same? The same for everybody? Do weeks have to be seven days long?
- There are two regular semesters and a summer semester per 12 month period. Other universities have quarters, for example. But it’s rare for a university to switch from one system to the other, although some do.
- Faculty and students interact through “courses” taught within “disciplines.” There are other models besides “courses” for learning. Most people learn much more outside of courses than they do in them. Internships, problem-based learning, etc…
- Student transcripts record pretty much only what “letter grade” a student “earned” in each course. We do it because that’s how it’s been done, it’s simple (although oversimplifying what happened in the student’s learning), and it’s an ad hoc standard that employers understand.
- Courses all begin at the beginning of a semester and end at the end of a semester. Why should all courses/topics have the same duration of treatment? When courses all end at the same time, all the final projects and exams fall at the same time, inefficient at best and a recipe for burnout at worst.
For anyone who perceives the tensions between the way things are and the way they “should” or “could” be, frozen accidents are both interesting and frustrating. They represent the “inertia” of the system, and we know that organizations with too much inertia invariably decline.
November 17th, 2006 at 10:48 pm
Frozen accidents in the workspace are almost always problems because the workspace is usually geared toward noncreativity: you aren’t supposed to imagine; you are supposed to produce. Even in a job like I have, being a university professor with “academic freedom,” frankly the rewards and security are set up to support “towing the line,” producing research $$, classes that “make” - the language itself is about product, not about imagined possibilities. There’s no time or money to spend on possibilites because the nature of possibilities is that sometimes they don’t work out - they are a bust. But how can anyone produce things of sustainable value outside of imaginative acts? Producing profit outside of imaginative acts is nothing more than the aggressive use of power: power over others, power to make others do something that serves your own interests. The whole effect of imagination is ecstasy - literally out of self/body - something beyond what one already knows and thinks and is, beyond what one’s world already is. An imaginative act transforms the actor. Imagination is a desire, strong and passionate, for difference, for other.
Frozen accidents in things that are specifically creative, things that value/require/use imagination, - say a baby, a quilt, a painting - these are often quite wonderful and produce marvelous things. If they produce problems, they are at least complex, interesting, challenging problems that might push us to be more than we already are or more than we think we can be. A quilt might start with an idea, pattern, plan … but invariably certain things about the best quilts are “frozen accidents”: this was the available fabric; this was the person you were making the quilt for; this this this - very particular stuff - very accidental, circumstantial, situational. Or a painting: these were the colors and technology available to the artist; these were the things within sight to work with. Or a baby. Talk about a frozen accident - so what if “the context has changed” or another configuration “can be perceived”; there’s no going back and there’s no parallel universe that you can move to. But there is always going forward, and going forward can be done artfully, thoughtfully, creatively, and generatively, or not. We choose. Not that choice is easy; not that the consequences of our choices are easy. And choice itself doesn’t occur in a vacuum - it needs support.
In engineering they call a limitation a design constraint. In a way a frozen accident is a design constraint. Theoretically at least, the “good” engineers don’t ever give up on the importance and efficiacy of imaginative design. They recognize the reality of constraint, and they accept its challenge as a stimulus - a sort of fertilizing catalyst that impregnates the imagination … nine months later, wow! look what happens!
One of the most important effects of imagination is to unfreeze things - to loosen the accident from the sedentary sediment and make it work, to mobilize the fossilized, to grab the frozen accident and hurl it into the swirling, rocking moment and see what opportunities and possibilities arise. Perhaps the frozen accident will implode and release both its components and those of us whom it impedes to reconfigure and move more freely. Perhaps it will speak for itself and invoke a recommitment to the old, “normative” way of doing things that feels fresh and vital and important now. Without the heat of imagination, though, I don’t see how any frozen accident can be “quickened” into mobility or utility.
In Leslie Marmon Silko’s novel Ceremony, the Navajo medicine man Betonie says that even traditional ceremonies must change - must respond to changes in the world - in order to be vital and in order to contribute to the vitality of the world. Emerson says in “Circles” that “pause” and “preservation” are counter to life itself: “all things renew, germinate and spring.” The Frozen Accident capitalized and revered for its frozenness (or, alternatively, bowed to in abject submission) is counter to life : to the life of the individual employee, to the life of the corporation or institution, to the life of the planet.
One of the hardest things for me about the workplace is that the imagination, my imagination, requires certain things to help it be productive. It needs a certain amount of freedom, nourishment, and stimulation. It needs to learn, and learning requires the confirmation, contradiction, and continuity afforded by good teaching (as Baxter-Magolda says). When the work environment is not also a learning environment for me, my imaginative capacity suffers. The imaginative stores I have get used up, and I have to find other ways to replenish them.
I don’t think corporate or institutional America is really going to provide a learning and teaching environment, even (and most disappointingly) within educational institutions. I think we have to work together to create that environment for ourselves partly by rethinking our work environment into being more supportive of the art of imagination.
November 20th, 2006 at 11:41 pm
Interesting concept that is very applicable to most facets of today’s society. For me, what strikes home is the idea of “frozen faith” or more accurately, “frozen religion.” I’m not quite sure why some moments of Leviticus, Deuteronomy et al, seem to be “frozen” while we’ve progressed in other areas.
I think the big start-up boom was largely a response to the kind of creative stifling that Sue is talking about. Of course once you can find someone to invest in your creativity, sustaining that creativity is a whole different matter.
I think we are locked into favoring “conventional wisdom.” It seems that rather than a modifier, “conventional” has become almost synonymous with “wisdom.” As if the mere fact of Tradition was enough to define the merit of an act.
All that said, we’ve come round in some key areas, albeit far too slowly. In education, at least public education, I don’t see much changing en masse. Critical thinking is the key to unfreezing ourselves and goodness knows that is certainly not what is valued by a lot of educational institutions (particularly at the elementary level where it needs to begin).
I’m wondering though if the blogosphere isn’t a bit of a response to all of that? A chance for those who do want to think critically to get it out there and make contact with others who also engage with life?