TED/Rodrigo Canales: The deadly genius of drug cartels

In the last 6 years, hundreds and thousands of people died in violence acts that were related to drugs. Most of the incidents took place in Mexico, South America. We may believe that it's happening far far away on the other side of the globe, which has just nothing to do with us. In fact, this conflict is getting bigger year by year and says Yale Professor Rodrigo Canales, it's impact is indeed over the world. He points out that these wild behaviors are gradually increasing every day. It isn't just some kind of thugs killing each other for no reason, but is rather the result of some wrong doing management.

Rodrigo Canales talks about his own experience and what he sees about the whole incident through his point of view. He believes that it's very important to understand how individuals influence organizations or systems--even those as complex as the Mexican drug cartels.

Back to our professor, Rodrigo Canales from Yale, who is an associate professor of organizational behavior at the University. There, he researches the role of institutions in entrepreneurship and economic development. More specifically, he focuses on how individuals can change organizations and systems--how their backgrounds, professional identities and roles affect how they relate and act in business.

Canales teaches the core MBA course on innovation at Yale, but decided to drop the subject and focus on something that's bigger, and going on at the moment.

People say that the violence in Mexico is hardly natural. It wasn't that these things hadn't happened before, but the whole parties were growing bigger and losing control.

It is in large part the result of the drug prohibition by the Mexican government The same thing happened during the 1930's alcohol prohibition in the US, which gave rise to organize crime.

The Mexican government is under significant pressure to comply with the US "war on drugs". If Mexico didn't ban drugs, then the US would likely impose trade sanctions, which would be very detrimental to both countries. In that sense, the US is causing much of the violence in Mexico.

On a positive note, a number of South American governments are considering giving up on that policy despite US pressure.