Deboxification

The first systemic disease of organizations we pictured by:

A crotchety manager with a square face and heavy jaws sits crouched in a meeting behind his stack of reports and position papers. Everybody else sits uncomfortably in their own invisible partitions. (Displeasure, tension, mutual distrust.)

How comes such a situation about and what can be done about it?
Why do people box themselves in? To defend themselves against attacks or while they are attacking others. The reason is usually a history of being attacked. Since this situation has formed, it feeds on itself. That can go on indefinitely, unless the whole organization breaks down.
The prime reasons are:

1. The top people are aggressive and egotistical. For them, subordinates are problems to be controlled and minimized.
2. The top people feel insecure, because their subordinates are more able or knowledgeable. They should not gang up against the boss, but kept apart. Divide and conquer.
3. The top people have a cogwheel view on organization and think that if every person will perform well, the whole will perform well too.They specify what is to be done, but not why. Individual functions may be defined well, but the connections are not taken care of. The internal market of information is neglected.
4. The same but worse: internal competition is used to drive motivation.

This situation is often worsened when the prospects for the organization are dim and the prospects on the labor market as well.
Solutions are difficult and require persistent effort and attention from the top - as well as giving a good example.

1. Mapping the flows of objects, services, information or money between the different position. Who needs what from whom? Why? How: How often? People are often amazed to discover that what people need of them is different from what they expected. And that people who deliver things to them are misguided about what they are supposed to deliver.
2. Discussing the map, the differences in expected needs and benefits between the different functions.
3. Explaining the why of tasks and assignments. Give meaning to each function.
4. Sharing the strategy, even if the tactics have to remain confidential.
5. Avoid threats.
6. Minimize attack and defense in all forms of communication.

Let’s call the process that leads to competitive islands in an organization boxification. Then we may call the efforts to overcome this condition deboxification.

(Since writing this, I found out that CERN at Geneva has a management practice that is the reverse of the situation described here. Consultation, consultation, consultation. And with great results.)

Systemic diseases of organizations

In what kind of organizational situations the usual approaches remain ineffective? Below, I present eleven pictures of such situations. We could call them systemic diseases. In my next blogs I will consider them one by one from the perspective of system dynamics and of constellations. I start with an artist's impression of each type of situation. That may touch you also at an intuitive level.
Remember, any similarity with your own organizational situation is by accident!

1. A crotchety manager with a square face and heavy jaws sits crouched in a meeting behind his stack of reports and position papers. Everybody sits uncomfortably in their own invisible partitions. (Displeasure, tension, mutual distrust.)
2. People argue in a jeep on a rock plateau, blaming each other. They are stranded. How to proceed? In which direction to go? Or better wait and see? (problem-makers quarrel)
3. In a moonlit night the tomb of the founder. His statue looks with dead eyes conceited into nothingness. But one feels somewhere, somehow a spying, suspicious stare. Next to the tomb is an open grave. It might be yours. (shadows of the past)
4. In a Chinese palace garden a school of fish jumps out of the water in gracious arcs, their scales glistening in the sun. The fountains behind them produce a rainbow. In a gilded boat, rowed by servants, the prince looks about in great satisfaction. Even the fish jump for him. A big carper lies gasping and dying on the bottom of the boat before his feet. He studiously avoids to look at it. (The top sponges on the workers. The next echelon is breaking under the strain. A financial black hole is approaching.)
5. A chess player in a simultaneous display. His real competitor is not among his opponents. His attention drops. What is doing here? (Incessant action without any strategy.)
6. A cylinder is pulled through a half-open gutter, again and again and again and again. To minimize friction, they say. It is never good enough. (useless perfectionism)
7. A lot of buzz in an auction room. Small groups watch each other surreptitiously. Bidding is about to start. Who will go home with what? (everything is politics)
8. Somebody is repairing a complicated machine. Others hand over tools or spare parts. Every time it seems to work, but then it doesn’t - as if the devil has a hand in it. Gremlins have a field day. (solvable problems remain unsolvable)
9. A Japanese house with many complicated paper walls and especially complicated paper ceilings with many layers. It seems designed by a crazy architect. (managing by abstract numbers instead of real facts.)
10. Nails are hammered in a huge wooden plate. Threads are stretched and wound between them. It doesn’t result in a recognizable picture. Grown-ups play children’s games without pleasure. (unthinking application of management techniques)
11. An audience listens enchanted to a wise and brilliant speaker. They leave in a daze, no idea what to do next. (management by fads)