Organisational Dysfunction of the Day

Passing the buck

Context: Have you experienced situations at work where you and your team want to decide on something of concern to you, and someone points out that you need to check with the grown-ups first? Passing the buck to someone else, for them to make the decision and, with that, take responsibility.

OST explains: The team is not self-managing, which is fine if they know that and act accordingly (in DP1), but in this situation, they act as if they can, but are unable to commit. If they were truly self-managing, this would not have been relevant even, as they would gladly take the responsibility for the decision and its outcome, as it is what needs to be done to reach their goals (in DP2). Instead, they are confused and uncertain, and afraid, which is a clear signal of laissez-faire, of missing a clear organisational structure. For most, this is even worse than DP1, because at least command & control is predictable and structured.

Organisational Dysfunction of the Day

Retrospectives

Context: You and your team have decided it's time to do a retrospective prescribed by the Agile methodology you are using. You all see the use of it and contribute with a lot of ideas and concerns about your work. You record them all and have a vote on the most important ones, but soon realise almost all of them are outside of your mandate to change. You note them down and hope the department lead can do something about it, but know that probably nothing will change, and the whole exercise feels like a complete waste.

OST explains: The members of the team come into this believing they are self-managing, at least to a level where they are able to adjust the work to make it better. Even the Agile methodology says so by incorporating the retospective as a recommended element. An essential element in learning is both looking back and improving going forward. The issue here is that the team is not self-managing, in a DP2 structure, as they are not able to change what really matters to them. Most likely, they are in an agile setup where the teams have been given some control, but most still reside in management outside, in the existing bureaucratic DP1 organisation. The retrospective and the learning it ought to provide are mostly ineffective.

#OpenSystemsTheory #SocioTechnical #agile

Organisational Dysfunction of the Day

Passivity in team workshops

Context: Workshops are for many a unique opportunity for people to get together and collaboratively work on a problem or a design of something they care about, be it EventStorming, Retrospectives, Design Sprints and such sessions. In larger groups, involving the whole team or even people from different teams, you frequently see people with more formal power join in, be it a team leader, department head, or even a intervening and controlling facilitator, and that often creates an unfortunate dynamic where the participants feel limited and restricted, so much so that many become inactive and passive, and not contributing in a way a way that they could have. Even though they probably really wanted to.

OST explains: This dynamic is very common in autocratic hierarchies, where power over something, be it people directly or even a certain subject like architecture, creates a dynamic where people often submit themselves to that person simply because of their position in the hierarchy. And not because of their expertise or good arguments. These emotional anxieties, often unconscious, can take different forms, in this case a dependency on the leader, but can also be a fight/flight reaction or subgroups forming. These are referred to as Bion's basic assumptions, "bas", and the only way to get rid of them and replace it with real productive work is not having an appointed leader present. Always go for DP2 in workshops, regardless of how you are organised otherwise.

#OpenSystemsTheory #SocioTechnical #OrgDesign