But the registrar wouldn't let him do a triple major. Why?
For anyone familiar with bureaucratic behavior, the answer may appear obvious: because no one had ever done it before.
Yet, the college had, indeed, had some triple majors -- though none in recent years. So why wouldn't the registrar let him major in three different fields?
For anyone familiar with databases, the answer may now be obvious: the registrar's database did not contain a field for a third major -- only fields for a first and second major. (In the old days, someone could simply have shoved a note into the student's file folder -- manilla file folder, that is.)
Electronic databases do have a large number of advantages. You can use them to create a list of everyone with an address in a specific Zip code or who has earned an A in differential equations -- provided, however, that the people who designed the database included such a field.
Still, electronic databases possess some significant limitations. Once they have been created, they become unalterable. Thus, they constrain human behavior. They can, for example, prevent people from doing something that is perfectly reasonable -- and was quite possible before the advent of the database.
This is the tyranny of the template. The people who created the template have made some things easier. At the same time, they have made some things impossible. And they are reluctant to modify their template to permit you to do what you want to do, because then they will have to do the same for everyone else.
(My son solved his triple-major problem politically; that is, he got the math department, which needed every major it could get, to put pressure on the registrar.)
Remember your old Rolodex. You probably created an implicit template for it. Last name first. Phone numbers in the upper right-hand corner. Business address first, then home address. Nevertheless, each Rolodex card was very flexible. You could include a spouse's office phone number or list a friend's children. There was no limit to the kinds of information you could squeeze onto a Rolodex card.
Now think of your fancy electronic database. If you want to include a spouse's office phone number, you need to create a field for it. No field, no place to put the information. Of course, you could create a large field for "notes," into which you could put any kind of miscellaneous information. Still, entering that information into the database is not as easy as scribbling something onto a blank spot on the Rolodex card. And looking for something in this notes field is not as quick as scanning the old-fashioned card.
Templates, of course, do not require computers. Consider the immortal performance-appraisal form. It is a template, designed by your jurisdiction's HR department to apply to every individual who works in every subunit. This template requires you to enter a score for such capabilities as "time management" and "delegation skills."
(Enter the phrase "performance appraisal template" into Google, and you get 996 hits. Enter the phrase "performance management software" and you get 550,000 hits. Who thinks that someone else's generic software template can do the management necessary to improve your organization's performance?)
Suppose, however, an individual's job doesn't require much delegation? Or suppose that someone has lousy time-management skills but produces significant results? Irrelevant. The template demands a score. By creating a template that applies to everyone, the HR department has created a template that applies to no one.
If your HR office has somehow failed to provide you with a performance-appraisal template, you are in luck. You can design your own -- one that reflects what specific results your organization is attempting to achieve and the specific skills and unique requirements of each job.
Or, if that is too difficult, or if you don't have enough time, you can go to your local office supply store and buy a performance-appraisal template -- either a paper form or an electronic one. No thinking required. Just fill in the template.
Of course, the ubiquity of such performance-appraisal templates has created a market opportunity: books of phrases to help managers fill out these templates. The titles (numbers in parentheses are the Amazon.com sales rank) include: Effective Phrases for Performance Appraisals (2,284); Perfect Phrases for Performance Reviews (4,975); 2600 Phrases for Effective Performance Reviews (2,209); and Performance Appraisal Phrase Book (19,709).
The manager who must fill out an armada of performance appraisals needs only to open the book randomly to find a variety of impressive yet completely meaningless phrases: "displays positive effectivity," "excels in developing synergistic strategies," "effectively prevents over-staffing," "conveys executive stature." As Dave Barry would say,"Honest, I am not making this up."
Moreover, the Amazon rankings do not reflect pure serendipity. Individual managers don't just stumble across these books. Sales are not dependent on word-of-mouth advertising. Many organizations actually buy these books in bulk and distribute them to their managers. Do the designers of the performance-appraisal templates really believe that humans are thinking long and carefully about every entry they make?
The fundamental purpose of a performance appraisal -- and thus of its associated template -- is to help individuals and thus the entire organization improve performance. And yet, the template -- not as it is conceived in theory, but as it is used in practice -- actually negates this purpose. It destroys the opportunity to have a meaningful discussion of what people must do -- individually and collectively -- to improve performance, replacing it with a silly ritual whose catechism is derived from vacuous phrases.
Templates can certainly help people (and thus organizations) achieve their purposes. They can also get in the way. Whether you are designing a template, modifying a template or simply trying to use someone else's inflexible template, you have to start with the same basic question: What are we trying to accomplish?
