I just wonder if it might be worth distinguishing between personal and social modes of this behavior. Not sure here though. Initially my thought on your first two examples were they are not really normalized deviations but simply poor discipline—and somewhat still view them as that. The point about allowing some slack, however, is important to keep in mind here too. (Plus there are other aspects here—like is the habit to be formed really something one wants or just thinks they should want it because its some general consensus or it works for other people).
Much of your view here does seem to apply to the environment in which I work and always find myself oscillating between thinking I need to try to help enforce the stated rule/goal/behavior and realizing it is not to be taken at face value and interpreted in a slightly different way (that would be a deviation from the ostensible policy. I find it very difficult though, it creates a lot of frustration for me and a sense of cognitive dissonance for me mentally.
I just wonder if it might be worth distinguishing between personal and social modes of this behavior.
Probably. By the time the idea of normalization of deviance reached me it had gone through a generalization process such that it was no longer about organizations, but systems generally, and individual people are also systems. The general phenomenon is worth noting, but I think how it manifests and how it is dealt with differ a lot based on the details, and there are likely important differences between the individual and group cases in terms of how it arises and what responses to it are tenable.
I find it very difficult though, it creates a lot of frustration for me and a sense of cognitive dissonance for me mentally.
Ah, right, I forgot about the cognitive dissonance aspect at play in normalization of deviance (for taboo reasons). A common narrative around normalization of deviance in organizations is that things would have worked out better if only management/leadership/others would have listened to workers/smart people/me, but interestingly this narrative mostly serves to inhibit action rather than correct deviance, because it gives a reason why the deviance can’t be corrected, excusing the failure in advance such that there’s no attempt to try to correct it (if that be the beneficial thing to do). Other narratives are also likely, but this is just the one that came to mind first.
I just wonder if it might be worth distinguishing between personal and social modes of this behavior. Not sure here though. Initially my thought on your first two examples were they are not really normalized deviations but simply poor discipline—and somewhat still view them as that. The point about allowing some slack, however, is important to keep in mind here too. (Plus there are other aspects here—like is the habit to be formed really something one wants or just thinks they should want it because its some general consensus or it works for other people).
Much of your view here does seem to apply to the environment in which I work and always find myself oscillating between thinking I need to try to help enforce the stated rule/goal/behavior and realizing it is not to be taken at face value and interpreted in a slightly different way (that would be a deviation from the ostensible policy. I find it very difficult though, it creates a lot of frustration for me and a sense of cognitive dissonance for me mentally.
Probably. By the time the idea of normalization of deviance reached me it had gone through a generalization process such that it was no longer about organizations, but systems generally, and individual people are also systems. The general phenomenon is worth noting, but I think how it manifests and how it is dealt with differ a lot based on the details, and there are likely important differences between the individual and group cases in terms of how it arises and what responses to it are tenable.
Ah, right, I forgot about the cognitive dissonance aspect at play in normalization of deviance (for taboo reasons). A common narrative around normalization of deviance in organizations is that things would have worked out better if only management/leadership/others would have listened to workers/smart people/me, but interestingly this narrative mostly serves to inhibit action rather than correct deviance, because it gives a reason why the deviance can’t be corrected, excusing the failure in advance such that there’s no attempt to try to correct it (if that be the beneficial thing to do). Other narratives are also likely, but this is just the one that came to mind first.