How do organisations get so entangled with themselves at times?

How does a culture turn 'toxic'?

Several conversations with senior leaders last week about growth by acquisition and strategy triggered some thoughts on Organisational Trauma.

I recently published a post about why we act the way we do and that we are a sum of everything that has happened to us. https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/richard-galbraith-clandestine-coaching_why-do-we-act-the-way-we-do-we-are-a-sum-activity-7292084344033034240-rmac

If we expand that to consider organisations are a sum of their people, and by extension both a sum of everything that has happened to their people AND of situations that the organisation has been through...

It can feel quite complex...

Believe it or not, it may stem from best intent to avoid or want to return from bad situations. Its also not considering the people who have gone through their own experiences, as well as collectively with the organisation.

It could be Organisational Trauma.

If we formalise this thinking - A definition of Organisational Trauma could be:

"Organisational trauma is caused by a major event or series of events, or by persistent, toxic conditions, that have an overwhelming effect on a group, family, organisation and/or community, impairing the ability of the whole to function on balanced physical, emotional, mental and spiritual planes." (Bailleur, 2018)

Here is an example:

A small and innovative family organisation is taken over by a multinational. The founder, and original owner, never managed to settle into the new company, which, after much struggle, let him go. Due mainly to the anger and the frustration the founder felt around the leaving process, it did not go well. A result was that many of the people who had worked with him believed that he had been unfairly treated.        

Once the founder had left, the new organisation underwent one change process after another: first they called it integration, then streamlining, then process optimisation.  Bit by bit, everything that the family business had stood for was suppressed.        

In this example, the organisational trauma became stronger and more deeply embedded in the relational fabric of the organisation. Because the employees did not feel heard and their loyalty was still with the founder, they became and remained stuck. Stuck in old pain and old patterns.

(story extracted from Bailleur (2018))

It would be near impossible to move forward without considering where this comes from.

As well as hostile takeovers, other organisational traumas could include:

? Shareholder or member revolt over decisions or direction (changes in governance, renumeration agreements or strategy).

? A very public mistake or fraud (eg Enron or BP disasters).

? Removal of a popular CEO or senior leader.

Each of these can lead to both difficult individual experiences where they were involved, and organisational trauma.

The trust of the internal staff and colleagues is dramatically eroded. The fear of what could happen again because of what has happened before is very real.

Command and Control.

Leaders revert to a micromanagement culture to avoid future controversy.

An intense focus on "doing" and "process", and managing at a granular level. When something doesn't look right or move in the right direction, leaders break it down further to understand it, inadvertently taking it out of context of the big picture. It perpetuates the situation.

There is more focus on 'protect' than 'progress', and ironically, neither crystallise.

We can see this when leaders focus on results by only zooming in rather than combining with an important systemic 'zooming out' perspective:

These behaviours usually come from a place of positive intent to get an organisation 'back on track', when results are not as desired.

However, I remember being in an organisation where I was hit with 3 significant restructures in 18 months, at each point my role was at risk. This lead to a lot of people leaving the company.

I've also seen this appear after a difficult time in an organisations history, with significant governance and personnel changes, with a turnover of several CEO's over a period of 5 years.

Leader behaviours can manifest themselves in the avoidance of bad reputational outcomes rather than doing the right thing. Leaders forget who are are doing this for, and why we are doing this. As soon as we take our eyes of our stakeholders, the purpose, and those people that serve this purpose, we risk making a situation worse.

Failing to consider the needs of the employees and organisation, or who they serve. "This is only about 'us'."

Someone who has never learned to look systemically would reduce this to a problem with the 'sick' part. while someone adept at looking systemically would see this as a symptom of a sick whole.

So how do we approach this differently?

This is part of a longer conversation, but to start,

?? think about the history of where we're at and how we've ended up here.

?? take a systemic approach. It feels counterintuitive, but diving into the detail and getting MORE granular is sometimes the last thing we need to do. In times of great stress, or organisational trauma, look at the big picture.

?? understand the people in the organisation - this is a living system, and our organisation IS the people. How do people connected. What do they need?

?? consider the context of the situation.

?? work with the people to develop a future vision - co-create, and understand what we need to do together to get there. This is not just another change project.

A systemic approach will start by aiming to understand the history of an organisation, the internal dynamics and connections of its people to lead to a place to start from and how we move forward together.

Difficult times don't necessarily mean difficult future, but we need to work together to create something different.

Further Reading:

Bailleur, P (2018), Stuck, Dealing with Organizational Trauma, Systemic Books Publishing

Richard Galbraith MSc FIA CERA ACC is a certified ICF Leadership Coach and Systemic Team Coach.

You can work with Richard directly through Clandestine Coaching Limited, or via his associate partners with Leading Figures LLP or Coaching With Chemistry.

To work with me as an individual coach, or to support your Team using a Systemic approach, please write to me on [email protected] or message me directly.