Organizational Blobs

In Catastrophe, Crisis and Victory, Mishkin Berteig wrote:

So perhaps we should also discuss the terms "Catastrophic Team Change" and "Catastrophic Personal Change"? [...] Catastrophic change at any level is the sign of disease. As agile coaches, trainers, practitioners, we should be encouraging a healthy cycle of crisis and victory not a process of crisis, crisis, crisis, crisis, crisis, CRISIS!, CATASTROPHE!!!,... change.

I concur with the main point Mishkin makes in his article. Change should be - and healthy change usually is - continuous. The small crises that trigger those changes are learning opportunities, if recognized and responded to sooner rather than later. They inform us, we learn, we adapt, we improve.

I don't think I am saying that change must be catastrophic, I am observing that it is, and that sometimes if we try to avoid that kind of change, or run from it, we end up with no change, or perhaps even more damaging (in its untruth), "pretend change" or "surface change".

But as Mishkin points out, there are different levels of change within an organization. I'd like to comment on the other potentially catastrophic changes he refers to, beginning with "Catastrophic Team Change". Catastrophic change at a team level is not necessary, and not desirable. Teams work with leaders, or coaches, or are fully self-organized; in all cases they work within a clear and solid inspect/adapt framework which allows continuous listening, tuning and adjustment. There is no value in letting a team make catastrophic mistakes before realizing that change is needed. As coaches, facilitators, educators, we can guide teams to early recognition of warning signs. We can, and we do. That is why people engage us in this work.

My thoughts on "Catastrophic Personal Change" have less clarity. Having been through such change, I know it is not to be desired; I also know that sometimes that's just the way it is. Most of us don't have personal coaches to guide our thinking and behaviors in the way we can guide teams (and would we listen, even if we did have them?). Most of us do not make visible what is going on internally. We perceive that as weakness. We mask, we bluff, we talk the talk. We build facades and we find ways to hide our vulnerability and our mistakes, and we even cover for others, to avoid conflict. We like things to be nice. And therein lie the ingredients for a catastrophe. The majority of us will not see a psychotherapist, a spiritual guide, a marriage guidance counselor, or even a doctor until we reach crisis point - often crisis-bordering-on-catastrophe. Admitting defeat is too devastating a proposition.

I think it is human nature to deny problems. We are a hopeful species. Look at Katrina. It was known that Lake Pontchartrain levys were weak; it was known they might collapse... but drawing analogies with natural disasters is not always helpful. The point is, with good guidance and early intervention catastrophe can be avoided. In our personal lives, to some extent, and with teams, to a greater extent, we have the ability to intercept. What about at the organizational level? That's tougher.

At the team and individual level, we are dealing with people; people we can meet, talk to, get to know. At the organizational level we cease dealing with people. Organizations are amorphous blobs, sometimes huge ones. They resemble those strange sea creatures you see in Jacques Cousteau documentaries, where you can't distinguish the face from the anus. Many such creatures may not even have a central nervous system. There may be a person in charge of the blob, but so often that is in name only, and usually that person is answerable to a board of directors - and then to shareholders, who are all so far removed from the day to day process, from the passion, as to be unreachable. Which orifice of the blob do we address ourselves to? Who, or what, makes the "change decisions"?

"Catastrophic Organizational Change" doesn't come about because we choose it; it comes about (or we hope it does!) because the knowledge of how to introduce sustainable change into a large organization is not yet well known. That's how it is. We are on a voyage of discovery.

Organizational change is a very, very different animal to team change and personal change. Each type of change needs to be considered in its own context. We do each one a disservice by grouping it with the others, and assuming the issues can be addressed with a single strategy.

Personal change often needs a very individual awakening to occur, and that will be different for each different person. As facilitators we can provide creative space to inform and guide that process, but we cannot make it happen.

From a team perspective, I believe Mishkin's suggested model of "crisis and victory" is the correct way to proceed as we introduce Agile thinking and behaviors into big organizations; but I don't think we should fool ourselves into thinking that the success we see at the team level, will ripple up through the organization in a similar, healthy way. I predict it will not.

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Related Links

Catastrophic Organizational Change by Tobias Mayer