Interestingly, I think this could also be an example of normalization of deviance being adaptive proving that it’s a problem. For example, let’s suppose that by failing to fill out all the paperwork something bad happens, so bad that someone bothers to investigate the causes (maybe not on the order of the Challenger explosion but more than a typical postmortem), and they would (hopefully) identify normalization of deviance as part of the reason for the bad thing happening, although hopefully they won’t stop there and notice that short staffing caused the normalization of deviance and not something else. This points, in my mind, to one of the tricky things about normalization of deviance in real organizations: it, like anything, can be used to rationalize whatever outcome is politically expedient, such that even if it’s happening, it might not be an ultimate cause, but acting as if it’s an ultimate cause might allow shifting the blame around to a more convenient location.
I think this has obvious implications if you are thinking about normalization of deviance in broader contexts, including normalization of deviance within a single person.
Interestingly, I think this could also be an example of normalization of deviance being adaptive proving that it’s a problem. For example, let’s suppose that by failing to fill out all the paperwork something bad happens, so bad that someone bothers to investigate the causes (maybe not on the order of the Challenger explosion but more than a typical postmortem), and they would (hopefully) identify normalization of deviance as part of the reason for the bad thing happening, although hopefully they won’t stop there and notice that short staffing caused the normalization of deviance and not something else. This points, in my mind, to one of the tricky things about normalization of deviance in real organizations: it, like anything, can be used to rationalize whatever outcome is politically expedient, such that even if it’s happening, it might not be an ultimate cause, but acting as if it’s an ultimate cause might allow shifting the blame around to a more convenient location.
I think this has obvious implications if you are thinking about normalization of deviance in broader contexts, including normalization of deviance within a single person.