7 Ways to Squash Organizational Swirl

Over breakfast recently, a friend and I were exchanging “war stories” about the pervasiveness of “swirl” in big companies. Now, I don’t mean the normal ebb-and-flow of the business cycle, but when “BAU” is hijacked by:

• The zig-and-zag: A project is greenlighted and is humming along only to suddenly hit a roadblock, often in the form of a passive-aggressive manager, and things ground to a halt. So, you zag only to zig again…and again…and again.
• The blame game: The top of the house announces a strategy and then each leader moves forward with his or her own interpretation of that strategy, leading to conflicting messages, confusion among the rank-and-file, and finger pointing at every level.
• The reverse 80/20 rule: Only 20% of projects you start ever make it past the halfway mark for no clear reason. Basically, 80% of your effort is “wasted.”
• The revolving door: Frustrated at all the time consumed with unproductive work, great talent in the company and on its agency teams say “thanks, but no thanks” and move on to other less swirly opportunities.

When it came to why swirl seemed to be so widespread, we attributed it to the usual suspects: increased organizational complexity as a result of mergers and acquisitions, accelerating pace of change in organizations to keep up with developments in technology, unintended consequences of shifts in how companies work (think waterfall to agile and the rise of scrum teams), changes in leadership, leadership hubris (“if I didn’t think of it, it must not be right/smart”), half-baked strategies, “staccato” (i.e., disconnected, inconsistent) communications, and, last but certainly not least, plain ol’ inertia.

Knowing my results-driven mindset, my friend asked how I “tolerated” swirl in the past and my answer was this: I focused on what I could control and let go of what I couldn’t. I planned for the ‘worst,’ leaving lots of opportunity for upside surprises. And, I did my best not to contribute to the swirl around me.

My up-close-and-personal swim with swirl taught me what teams and organizations of any size can do to keep swirl in check, which I distilled into these 7Cs:

1. Coherence around the organization’s values and culture;
2. Clarity in terms of what the strategic vision is and what success looks like;
3. Clear lines of accountability and decision roles at all levels;
4. Ongoing Communications that address the what, the when as well as the why;
5. Commitment from all levels of management to follow through on all the above;
6. Regular Check-ins to manage both the desired and unintended consequences of change and keep swirl under control; and
7. Courageous leadership at the top of the house that models the behavior that she/he expects from the rest of the organization.

Does this ring true with you? How would you go on offense to keep organizational swirl in check?