What is a Good Cult? David Allen, GTD, and New Religious Movements

Among the most interesting things that came out of my research on GTD was the program's roots in the human potential movement of the 1970s, and the role David Allen played in one of its most vivid chapters. He was involved in the creation of a new religion.

The religion is called the Movement for Spiritual Inner Awareness, but it is better known by its initials, MSIA. (In earlier days, this acronym was pronounced "messiah," but this may have seemed a bit like over-reaching, because it soon fell by the wayside.) In the story, I describe Allen's life with MSIA and the concern this causes some GTD users when they learn about it. (Here is a link to a rather intense discussion of David Allen and MSIA at 43 Folders.)

One of the interesting moments in editing the piece came in a discussion with Angela Watercutter, a research editor at the magazine whom I like and respect. Angela objected to my using the word "cult" in connection to MSIA, pointing out that it was disparaging, and passing on a cautionary notice from the magazine's legal staff that use of the word cult in connection with Scientology had embroiled Time in a painful lawsuit.

One possible response to this sort of thing is to point out that Time won the lawsuit.

But what interests me more is disparaging. Many of the poisonous associations we have with the word cult connect with the very period in which MSIA was flourishing. These associations, while understandable, also hide something. The ruthless techniques of manipulation seen in the seventies' cults were intermixed with accurate intuitions, some of which even rose to the level of ideas, about how humans could change. The cults were popular test beds for the application of these techniques, and the intoxicating effect of discovering how well they worked may have been partially responsible for the ruthlessness on display.

The anti-cult and deprogramming movements were one reaction, a kind of convulsive and paranoid counter-attack, against the success cults were having. (There's a great, short essay on this in Andreas Killen's book 1973 Nervous Breakdown.) But there was another reaction, whose effects have lasted longer and are still being felt. That is, to try and identify the valuable components of the cults, to extract them and, if not exactly purify them, at least to amalgamate them into less toxic compounds. This reprocessing of cult knowledge is part of the formation of civilization; in the past it was how we got our religions.

In a few days, when I have a chance, I'll post some of the sources on the cult influence in the productivity movement.

Courtesy, Conditioning and GTD

I argued this month in Wired that the methods David Allen prescribes in Getting Things Done are more than practical hints; they are tools of civilization that make new demands on our conscience. Getting Things Done is to us what manuals of social comportment and table manners were to the middle ages.

Here is a summary by Norbert Elias of what he found in those medieval primers:

Again and again we find the injunctions to take one's allotted place and not to touch one's nose and ears at table... There are very frequent reminders not to scratch oneself or fall greedily on the food. Nor should one put a piece that one has had in one's mouth back into the communal dish; this, too, is often repeated. Not less frequent is the instruction to wash one's hands before eating, or not to dip food into the salt-cellar. Then it is repeated over and over again: do not clean your teeth with your knife. Do not spit on or over the table... Do not clean your teeth with the tablecloth. Do not offer others the remainder of your soup or the bread you have already bitten into. Do not blow your nose too noisily. Do not fall asleep... [Elias, The Civilizing Process, "Changes in the Behavior of the Secular Upper Classes in the West"]

Once the secular upper classes, as Elias calls them, learned these manners, they were very proud to display them. The new rules of social hygiene David Allen describes also make those who obey them feel proud. Yes, the necessity of communicating with unceasing eagerness and courtesy, of answering emails promptly, of being available day and night, puts tremendous pressure on elites today; but this pressure is also felt as a type of social distinction.

Last year, Melissa Mazmanian and two of her professors at the MIT Sloan School of Management gave a conference paper on the use of Blackberrys in a small financial firm. At the conclusion of the paper, the authors wrote:

...a self-reinforcing cycle of BlackBerry use and compulsion emerged, frustrating firm and professional values, and creating tension, consternation, resentment, and stress. These negative ramifications, however, did not appear to have diminished use or reduced reliance on the BlackBerrys.

What were the members of the firm using their devices for? They were using them to stay on top of email responses that other members of the firm were sending with their own BlackBerrys.

While all Plymouth members report valuing the use of the BlackBerry to keep them connected and allowing them to stay "on top of" the large amounts of communication they receive, they seem less aware of the extent to which their constant checking and frequent responding generates additional email traffic for others to check and respond to, which in turn, generates more email, and so on, in a self-reinforcing loop.

In short: meet George Jetson.

On the other hand, perhaps the stated goal of staying on top of things should be understood more literally. The status competition in a private equity firm can be as intense and as unyielding as that in any little princely despotism; employees are together day and night, aggression is encouraged, and while there is great wealth and pleasure associated with success, progress also depends to a large extent on opinion and reputation. The company Mazmanian studied "believes" in work-life balance, but in the 18th century, the French court "believed" in the virtue of natural comportment. In both cases the realization of these fantasies was a reward for power already attained, and thus is a taunting reminder to work harder (in one case), and to be more self-controlled (in the other).

"Crackberry," is already a cliche, but it may be an accurate joke in the simplest sense that answering email messages all day long is conditioned response. It probably it isn't any harder to train a banker to hug his BlackBerry tighter than his children than it is to train a courtier to grow his fingernail long and scratch at the door instead of knocking. Such things, even when done ruefully, are done with pride. They mean a person is in the mix, a respectable character, on top of things, rising through the crowd.

As part of her research Mazmanian interviewed the spouses of employees. Of the women she talked to spoke explicitly about social pride:

I think that they're addicted to the idea that someone needs them all the time. That they can be important to someone and that things can't go smoothly unless they're involved.

This context helps explain why so many people have so gratefully responded to David Allen's work. Allen accepts the notion of a perfect responder, he feeds that contemporary pride. But by channeling the seemingly infinite demand of the new communication regimes into a set of elaborate (but routine) processes, he reduces the emotional charge in the conditioning. One is no longer responding, every time, out of that sense of urgency or compulsion that characterizes the addict. Responsiveness is less like scratching a itch, or getting a fix, or any other painful pleasure; and more like saying thank you, or using a fork, or not even thinking to spit on the floor: just another norm.

Sometimes, in talking to people about GTD, I hear the word "robot," as if the ideal of the perfect responder is some kind of mechanical and soulless being. I don't think that's the right metaphor. The model of GTD is not the rotation of a gear, but the cycling of a processor; not the movement of celestial spheres or a divine clock, but rather the magical decision making of Maxwell's demon, who can choose when to open a gate without expending energy of any kind. But this crosses back into the religious influence on GTD, and best left for another day.

David Allen, GTD and The Civilizing Process

In the profile of David Allen in the October issue of Wired I discuss some of his intellectual antecedents, the influences that shaped Getting Things Done, and indirectly, all of its users, including myself. The story is an intellectual profile, with different aims than this piece, recently published in Business2.0, which focused on Allen as a model businessman. Wired, with an indulgence born of familiarity (or perhaps resignation) allowed me to ignore the immediate interest Allen holds for people trying to become more wealthy and successful. I looked instead at his role in a longer, slower, and more general process of mental change, a change in our civilization.

While it may seem silly to look for evidence of this sort of change in a $14, er, $8.99 paperback, I was encouraged by a great old study by the pioneering sociologist Norbert Elias, whose book The Civilizing Process is full of references to popular how-to guides from the middle ages and Renaissance.

NORBERT ELIAS

As we attempt to improve ourselves, working hard to optimize our behavior and to exchange bad habits for good ones, we are continuing a process that was already occurring in the distant past. The dimensions of this labor are not purely practical. They involve deep feelings of pride and shame. What is at stake is our sense of goodness, of personal virtue, our "self-worth."

Giving readers of a glossy magazine, even one like Wired, more than one or two quotes from a 70 year old academic tome is considered bad form, but no such rules apply on the Web, so in the next day or two I'm going to post more about Elias and the connection between the research he did in the1930s and the cult of productivity today.

Books mentioned in this post:

The Civilizing Process, Norbert Elias

Getting Things Done, David Allen