“I usually solve problems by letting them devour me.”
Franz Kafka, Letter to Max Brod
This blog is named after a great short story by Franz Kafka, a writer who should be read by every Quality professional.
Franz Kafka’s work has huge relevance for management and organization. The characteristics of bureaucracy that we find in Kafka’s fiction are widespread in the real world bureaucracies we find ourselves in, particularly the ambiguity of rules, the existence of informal networks within organizations, and systemic corruption. Reading Kafka has greatly influenced my ideas of organizational sense-making and has shaped many of my ideas on ethical issues and conflicts that arise within organizations. It is no exaggeration to say that Kafka’s name is as closely linked to the notion of bureaucracy as Weber’s, and deserves a central place in all organizational studies. Quite frankly, Quality as a practice and a profession would do well to read Kafka thoroughly.
Investigations of a Dog 