Reverse Antimatter Principle

As you probably know by now, the Antimatter Principle states:

“Attend to Folks’ Needs”

– as a means to nurture the social dynamic of an organisation, and thus encourage desirable things like employee engagement, improved morale, increased discretionary effort, improved interpersonal relationships, and joy.

(There are many posts here on this blog explaining and exploring the consequences of the Antimatter Principe).

In the same way that Conway’s Law also has a reverse formulation, we can formulate the Antimatter Principle in reverse, too:

“Create situations where folks’ needs are aligned to the needs of the Core Group, and the organisation itself.”

For example, there’s not much point in hiring people with needs that are misaligned with the needs of the organisation. If the organisation needs folks to learn and upskill, and yet new hires don’t have that need, that’s a wasteful and probably frustrating misalignment of needs. So, having a hiring policy that plays to the reverse Antimatter Principle will be beneficial.

– Bob