(Here we go again, with another iteration of my engineering vs. designing theme.)

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Design begins with trying to please. This naturally progresses to trying to understand better how to please, and later, trying to cultivate the best possible relationship — that is, a reciprocal one.

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In situations where people are empowered and have choices, leaders naturally begin to rely on design approaches to persuade people to voluntarily participate in their systems.

In situations where people are disempowered and have few or no choices, leaders naturally begin to rely on engineering approaches to force people to comply to rules of their systems.

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To engineer is to create systems of involuntary components.

To design is to create systems of voluntary and involuntary components.

To the degree the system relies on compulsion alone, it is engineered.

To the degree the system depends on volition, it is designed.

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If the success of your system depends on people behaving in some particular way, two basic approaches are available:

• Engineer it: purge the system of volitional variability so the entire mechanism functions like a well-oiled machine — reliably, predictably, repeatedly. Compel people to participate in the system with the behaviors required to support it. Make it their only viable choice. Remove choices, impose rules that support the system’s requirements.
• Design it. Build volition into the system. Persuade  people to voluntarily participate in the system in ways that support it by making it their best choice. Provide new options, understand participants’ requirements, desires, attitudes, aspirations, unconscious hopes.

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If someone tries to engineer you into a system, it might be that they have not yet fully developed an intersubjective consciousness (that is, they are on the autism spectrum).

Or they may think you lack choices, and are forcing you to do what they want simply because they can and there’s little you can do about it.

Or they may have not yet realized that many 20th Century management practices naturally produce autistic institutions, and that things can be otherwise. And that competition requires them to be. That their survival depends on it.