My colleague and co-conspirator Huggy Rao amd I have spent much time over the past five years trying to figure out why organizations tend to add too much of the wrong stuff and little of the right stuff. We call this The Friction Project. As part of this effort, I hosted
Organizations don't just ad unnecessary stuff. They dilligently organize this stuff in elaborate systems that create enormous costs, are rarely fit for purpose and the purpose of which those inside (the organization) soon forgets. Case in point: Performance Management.
Is there evidence that training in understanding classic business biases, delusions, and heuristics makes you less likely to do this? I assume these are all a result of simple cognitive biases (selection bias, survivors bias, narrative bias, ad hoc and post hoc rationalization, halo effetct, etc). So maybe tackling those will help battle such hubris?
For me, so much of this dialogue centers on inclusion & belonging. Not just in engaging across differences of race & gender, but personalities. Organizations tend to prioritize extroverted voices over introverted voices and so bigger, better, louder & more is better. For everything. Right? Part of the solution is in creating a culture of trust & belonging, which relies less on programs & more on micro actions. Developing leaders to have effective coaching conversations that invites trust & creates psychological safety. Unfortunately, those differential leadership skills don’t always get the attention deserved. Great conversation! Looking forward to your next post, Bob.
There’s initially less friction in adding the new-add, often a kludge, than removing/refactoring the old-remove. The initial impact of the new-add is more immediately recognizable than the long-term impact of the old-remove. Nobody wants to be the one to remove the Jenga piece that crashes the system. (Yes, psychological safety comes into play.) Regulated industries probably suffer the most. If the system crashes because of a new-add, “we were following our compliant processes” and “everyone was doing their best” is the easy answer. Regulators add more regulations but do they ever remove any? Productivity is adding not removing! At least that’s the illusion.
- Psychological safety or speaking up culture: probably no one dares to say that the additions are not adding up value and are unneccessary. So organizations should tirelessly encourage people to speak up and discuss
- The appetite of the management of wanting to hear or see something different and NEW. Mid level managers who want to get into the loope of higher managers and their appetite to communicate something new, trying to show that they are thinking forward, which brings me to the next point...
- Fixing and improving the process and adressing this is often downplayed by higher management as something boaring, and the person who is raising the need of fixing without adding something might end up being labelled as a moaner.
-On the other hand fixing a process with existing resources needs the corporation of other departments and a hell lot of conflict management, to get them on the board.
- So why getting all the trouble by spending hours to corporate and fixing things for improving the process, instead departments prefer to adding up things which makes them independent and the image of being innovative by adding something new is the bonus.
- This is a bigger challenge for organizations with greater circulation, since every new manager tries to implement something new to prove that she/he is adding value and driving change. Another point to discuss is that organizations overrate the word change since the word change is often associated with ADDING something new, instead of fixing the existing.
- This brings a huge cost to the organization, on top of all what you have written above, you have departments not corporating, overlapping process, unclear responsibilities, missing decision making of mid level management (because every process has a multiowner. By the way even more with agile teams) therefore bringing more and more decisions to c-level desk
Solution is complex, but definetely encouraging speaking up culture. Most important to drive and motivate departments to collobarate and bring a common solution, instead of every department adding a new solution by their own. This includes also to go deep in conflict management culture of the company to drive the efficiency. Organization should be also very careful before addressing agile teams by trying to understand why the functional teams failed. Otherwise functional teams might resist to corporate agile teams, worrying that the credit might go elsewhere.
Sorry it was too long I hope its not another TLDR for you :)
Organizations don't just ad unnecessary stuff. They dilligently organize this stuff in elaborate systems that create enormous costs, are rarely fit for purpose and the purpose of which those inside (the organization) soon forgets. Case in point: Performance Management.
Is there evidence that training in understanding classic business biases, delusions, and heuristics makes you less likely to do this? I assume these are all a result of simple cognitive biases (selection bias, survivors bias, narrative bias, ad hoc and post hoc rationalization, halo effetct, etc). So maybe tackling those will help battle such hubris?
For me, so much of this dialogue centers on inclusion & belonging. Not just in engaging across differences of race & gender, but personalities. Organizations tend to prioritize extroverted voices over introverted voices and so bigger, better, louder & more is better. For everything. Right? Part of the solution is in creating a culture of trust & belonging, which relies less on programs & more on micro actions. Developing leaders to have effective coaching conversations that invites trust & creates psychological safety. Unfortunately, those differential leadership skills don’t always get the attention deserved. Great conversation! Looking forward to your next post, Bob.
Sounds like an optimization problem. What gives top results having in mind work time, value creation, employee well being.
There’s initially less friction in adding the new-add, often a kludge, than removing/refactoring the old-remove. The initial impact of the new-add is more immediately recognizable than the long-term impact of the old-remove. Nobody wants to be the one to remove the Jenga piece that crashes the system. (Yes, psychological safety comes into play.) Regulated industries probably suffer the most. If the system crashes because of a new-add, “we were following our compliant processes” and “everyone was doing their best” is the easy answer. Regulators add more regulations but do they ever remove any? Productivity is adding not removing! At least that’s the illusion.
Great article, some thoughts from my side
- Psychological safety or speaking up culture: probably no one dares to say that the additions are not adding up value and are unneccessary. So organizations should tirelessly encourage people to speak up and discuss
- The appetite of the management of wanting to hear or see something different and NEW. Mid level managers who want to get into the loope of higher managers and their appetite to communicate something new, trying to show that they are thinking forward, which brings me to the next point...
- Fixing and improving the process and adressing this is often downplayed by higher management as something boaring, and the person who is raising the need of fixing without adding something might end up being labelled as a moaner.
-On the other hand fixing a process with existing resources needs the corporation of other departments and a hell lot of conflict management, to get them on the board.
- So why getting all the trouble by spending hours to corporate and fixing things for improving the process, instead departments prefer to adding up things which makes them independent and the image of being innovative by adding something new is the bonus.
- This is a bigger challenge for organizations with greater circulation, since every new manager tries to implement something new to prove that she/he is adding value and driving change. Another point to discuss is that organizations overrate the word change since the word change is often associated with ADDING something new, instead of fixing the existing.
- This brings a huge cost to the organization, on top of all what you have written above, you have departments not corporating, overlapping process, unclear responsibilities, missing decision making of mid level management (because every process has a multiowner. By the way even more with agile teams) therefore bringing more and more decisions to c-level desk
Solution is complex, but definetely encouraging speaking up culture. Most important to drive and motivate departments to collobarate and bring a common solution, instead of every department adding a new solution by their own. This includes also to go deep in conflict management culture of the company to drive the efficiency. Organization should be also very careful before addressing agile teams by trying to understand why the functional teams failed. Otherwise functional teams might resist to corporate agile teams, worrying that the credit might go elsewhere.
Sorry it was too long I hope its not another TLDR for you :)