The Origin
In 1982, James Q. Wilson, an American political scientist and professor at UCLA and Harvard University, and George Kelling, an American criminologist and professor at Rutgers University, published an article in The Atlantic titled “Broken Windows: The Police and Neighborhood Safety“.
In it, they observed that disorder and crime were inextricably linked and described their work on methods to improve neighborhood safety, based on studies they conducted in Newark, New Jersey.
The premise was that if a window in a building was broken and left unrepaired, the remaining windows would soon be broken as well, for an unrepaired window signaled to some members of the community that no one cared.
Those individuals would then feel that breaking additional windows carried no consequence, which would make the next act of vandalism more likely. One broken window would soon become many, and the deterioration would gradually spread to the building, the street, the neighborhood, and eventually the entire community.
Wilson and Kelling also observed that this phenomenon was independent of location, proving true in both affluent and run-down neighborhoods.
Not About Location
In 1969, Philip Zimbardo, a Stanford psychologist, conducted an experiment, testing what would later be known as the broken-window theory. He placed two automobiles, both without license plates and with their hoods raised, in two separate neighborhoods, one affluent and one run-down.
In the run-down neighborhood, the car was attacked within ten minutes, and everything of value was removed within twenty-four hours. In the affluent neighborhood, nothing happened to the car for a week. Zimbardo then smashed one of its windows, and within a few hours, the car was completely vandalized.
This demonstrated that vandalism could occur anywhere and confirmed once again that behavior deteriorated quickly when people perceived that no one cared.
Lessons Learned
Wilson and Kelling asserted that this phenomenon also applied to neighborhoods, driving a process of urban decay, from broken windows to accumulating litter, to unintended behaviors and rising crime.
The remedial approach was straightforward: by promptly fixing a single broken window, neighborhoods could interrupt the sequence of events and prevent the predictable but undesirable deterioration of the building and its surroundings.
Even better, assigning foot patrols to establish rules of behavior with community members and enforce the laws helped prevent new broken windows.
Although less efficient logistically than patrols in cars, the on-foot approach removed physical barriers to communication, such as car doors, between officers and community members, fostering better and more direct interaction.
The Business Perspective
The Broken Window Theory describes how neighborhoods and communities, much like employees within an organization, respond to visible and manageable cues.
The theory suggests that neglected and disorderly environments foster further neglect and disorder in a self-reinforcing vicious cycle: signs of neglect lead to undesirable behaviors, which lead to deteriorating environments, which in turn generate more neglect signals.
I contend that the concept also applies to businesses. Organizations that address signs of poor behavior or performance early are rewarded, while those that fail to do so are penalized.
In business organizations, an unwanted employee or management behavior is a broken window. A neglected or dysfunctional process is a broken window. A violation of company guidelines is a broken window. So is a poor customer experience, or a subpar work environment, among many others.
All these broken windows foster environments where lax governance becomes the norm, where employees perceive that “no one cares,” and where the next, predictably larger violation would carry no consequence, making it significantly more likely to occur.
When employees feel that no one cares, they leave or their performance declines. And when that happens, customer experience suffers, customer defections increase, and the company’s brand and results are negatively impacted.
As in the social experiment, remediation in business also benefits from direct communication without barriers, overly formal settings in lieu of car doors in this case, whether among managers, employees, or customers. And as in the experiment, direct communication will foster better, more timely, and actionable insights.
Finally, as seen in Wilson and Kelling’s research, preventing these broken windows or swiftly remediating those situations will significantly improve employees’ behavior and company performance.