What Are the Ways That Organizations Sabotage Theirself From the Inside?

3min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Comments

Transcript

Episode notes

Organizations sabotage themselves from the inside in three ways. Firstly, they tend to overreact and implement policies or procedures immediately when something goes wrong, without waiting for patterns to emerge. Secondly, organizations get stuck focusing on metrics that become incentives for mismanagement, optimizing for proxies or abstract goals instead of reality itself. Lastly, organizations confuse the context they are operating in by applying a complicated approach to complex systems, which leads to struggles and failure. They tend to overemphasize complexity and fail to recognize the dispositional nature of complex systems.

What if you could change the way your company operates, even if you’re not the CEO? Aaron Dignan believes it’s possible, and in this episode he’s offering a wealth of insights into how organizations are run, the perils of stagnant bureaucracy, and all the various hurdles keeping us from doing our best work.

As the founder of The Ready - a global organizational transformation and coaching practice - Dignan helps companies large and small adopt new forms of self-organization and dynamic teaming. He’s worked with clients such as American Express, Microsoft, Citibank, Hyatt, Johnson & Johnson, Airbnb, and Sweetgreen. He’s also an active angel investor who helps build partnerships between the startups and end-ups he advises. Dignan is also the author of Brave New Work, co-host of the Brave New Work podcast and founder of Murmur.

Want even more? Members get early access, hand-edited transcripts, member-only episodes, and so much more. Learn more here: https://fs.blog/membership/

Every Sunday our Brain Food newsletter shares timeless insights and ideas that you can use at work and home. Add it to your inbox: https://fs.blog/newsletter/

Follow Shane on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/ShaneAParrish

Our Sponsors:

MetaLab: Helping the world’s top companies design, build, and ship amazing products and services. https://www.metalab.com

Aeropress: Press your perfect cup, every time. https://aeropress.com

Athletic Greens: Comprehensive nutrition and gut health support in one simple scoop.