The Broken Pillar Hypothesis states thus: "A structure held up by pillars will soon collapse should the load imposed on it exceed the summation of the load specification of the pillars supporting it. Stated in another way, the summation of the load specification, L = sum of operating load carrying capacity of all pillars + sum of safety margin for all pillars. Once this load limit is exceeded, the pillars will fail in turn, beginning with the weakest pillar, until all the pillars have failed and the structure then collapses. As each of the pillars fail, the remaining pillars will have to take up the load (which remains unchanged). As the load distribution profile changes with each failed pillar, the rate of failure of the pillars rises exponentially".
This concept should be familiar to all students of Mechanics - you would have encountered this in your Statics classes in your A-level/Sixth Form days. However, this concept in Physics can be extended into management theory. This has interesting ramifications, as it opens up a new way of treating human resources.
The modified version of the Broken Pillar Hypothesis can be thus stated: "An organisation or team supported by a group of pillar can only remain in optimal condition if the workload/stress level imposed on it does not exceed the total workload/stress level which can be supported by the team. However, once this workload/stress level is exceeded, the team members will break down in turn, beginning with the team member with the lowest stress tolerance level, followed by other members in turn until all members break down. As the workload/stress profile changes with each member who breaks down, the rate of failure of team members rises exponentially.".
For humans, breakdowns are manifested as low morale, absenteeism, illness, nervous breakdown and at the extreme end, resignation.
With human resources, this problem gets more interesting as the tolerance level of each member is non-constant. This is because the tolerance level is dynamic and depends on a number of factors, both external and internal. Examples of external factors are family pressure, environment, whereas examples of internal pressure are health level, sleep deprivation and mental stamina.
Hence, it will be prudent for team leads/supervisors to be always aware of the state of each team member, and to ensure that workload is effectively dsitributed in a manner that each team member is capable of handling, whilst at the same time ensuring that the team member is sufficiently stretched to enable him/her to grow.
By the way, the Broken Pillar Hypothesis was my own idea. Perhaps it could be further expounded upon into a topic for a thesis and eventually formalised into a proper management theory.
