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Chris Forando, Head of Org Effectiveness, Learning & Leader Development CoE, SubwayOrganizations are living systems that learn and exhibit adaptive, dynamic, and self-preserving behaviors. They are products of the environments in which they exist and in time develop a cohesive ‘personality’ construct with values, cognitive processes (decision-making and problem-solving), and behavior patterns. With repetition and self-reinforcement, certain of these patterns become ossified, automatic, and asynchronous, leading to an eventual unconscious detachment from reality. Out of sight and out of mind, these behavior patterns - system archetypes – impact performance and are disguised as symptoms including turnover, disengagement, team dysfunction, poor performance, declining employee morale, and cultural deterioration.
Who are these uninvited guests? Archetypes are organization-level patterns of behavior. Elusive and innervated throughout organizations, archetypes act as the ‘master of puppets’, pulling the cognitive strings of leaders at all levels. This article introduces two common archetypes through actual case examples and offers treatments for each. Diagnosing archetypal forms is critical for orchestrating solutions to highly complex business problems. Archetypes may be subtly disruptive, or they can present a significant risk to an organization’s competitive posture, sustained performance, and cultural vitality.
Archetype One: ‘Faster is Slower’
Situation: A recent example involved a US consumer products brand that went from 30% YOY growth to a -10% decline in two years. The mindset was that launches equaled revenue. As shown below, that assumption was proven false by the OD team. Despite 30% increases in product launches in some years, the result was less than a 1% increase in revenues. It was evident that over-forecasting was the brand leadership’s core competency (100% probability). Turnover was 40%. A workplace stress assessment revealed 26% of the team scored in the maladaptive range (the norm is 2%).
On the organization’s annual Health Check survey, the senior executive team had a -100 NPS score and scored at or near 0 in each of the following: (1) Strategic Clarity & Alignment, (2) Consumer Centricity, (3) Customer Focused Goals, (4) Time Focused on Consumer and (5) Effective Cooperation Between Teams.
“Socio-political unrest and an epidemic have distracted organizations and cannibalized their ability to manage cognitive complexities."
Diagnosis: In this archetype, the organization plans a series of projects and allocates budget and resources accordingly. It is soon determined that quarterly financial targets will be missed, pressuring leadership to quickly initiate new projects to close gaps. Without additional budget and headcount, funding and resources are siphoned from existing projects to source new ones, thereby sub-optimizing all projects. The overextension of people leads to frustration, exhaustion, and turnover.
Wash. Rinse. Repeat. With the full project portfolio sub-optimized, targets are once again missed, and more projects are introduced to close a widening gap. Suboptimization worsens, resulting in budget overruns, sliding timelines, and team infighting and blaming. The organization is quickly chasing a number. It is slowing down the faster it goes. The more it slows down, the stronger the need to go faster. It is now hopelessly entrapped in a closed-loop dynamic.
Treatment: To dismantle this archetype, organizations must identify and isolate root cause issues from symptoms. Discipline is critical to stabilize, prioritize, and optimize projects within constraints, while root causes are addressed. In the case of the consumer brand, the root cause was a lack of consumer centricity, exacerbated by excessive decision-makers (8) and a lack of project prioritization.
Archetype Two: Shifted Burden
Situation: At a software technology company multiple sources confidentially shared concerns with HR regarding product quality and a growing backlog of bugs and defects (technical debt). Tech debt was near 18,000 and worsening. Evidence suggested ‘tech debt’ was affecting customer willingness to invest in additional products, including an email from a client’s Chief Medical Officer to the company CEO informing him the client was going back to pen and paper for documentation because product quality was so poor.
To remediate this, HR was pressured to accelerate the hiring of developers and testers, resulting in 157 new hires and a payroll increase of $15M within 6 months. OD was directed to analyze the quality situation and provide recommendations.
Diagnosis: With the Shifted Burden archetype - the quiet handmaiden of others - an organization attempts to solve a ‘problem’ by developing solutions for the symptoms. The human tendency is to assume the proximity of cause and effect. In fact, cause and effect often do not co-exist in time and space (non-spaciotemporality). Accordingly, the focus is shifted to addressing known symptoms. The trap is sprung. The burden is now shifted from the problem and its originator to symptoms and those who own experience them.
The genesis of poor product quality and high-tech debt had nothing to do with engineers and testers. It was Sales who were incentivized to do “as much as you can, as fast as you can.” Accordingly, Sales sold product functionality and customization that did not exist with unrealistic delivery times. Quality was sacrificed to meet release dates. The hiring of additional engineers unbalanced the developer-to-tester ratio, overwhelming testers. The product was insufficiently or not tested at all, leading to implementation problems and increasing backlog. Poor quality and customer dissatisfaction were never the problems but rather the indicators that a problem existed.
More than any other function, HR bears the burden of resolving issues of employee engagement, increasing turnover, and declining morale. These are not problems. They are dashboard lights indicative of a problem.
Treatment: The most effective solution is to isolate the root cause and shift focus from symptoms to the problem. In this case, Tech should be directly involved in client discussions to ensure that desired functionality and delivery are feasible.
Strategies for HR
1. Increase HRBP and OD understanding of system dynamics and archetypal forms
2. Upskill HRBPs in data analytics and execution forensics
3. Train HRBPs and business leads in Deviation Analysis to monitor expected results against actual
Today’s operating environments are increasingly volatile, complex, and simply unmatched in their rate of change. Socio-political unrest and an epidemic have distracted organizations and cannibalized their ability to manage cognitive complexities. Leaders have become overly dependent on unsophisticated HR teams to triage businesses’ self-inflicted wounds.
Leaders often report feeling alone with their problems. The nefarious nature of archetypes is their power to remain unseen and unchecked. You are never alone. You have uninvited guests with you.
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