Sunday morning musings… Team A writes a 1-pager as part of a heavyweight annual planning process. No 1-pager, no budget. Hurry! Hurry! The leadership team has a hundred 1-pagers to review! Be first in line! What have you got? Does this fall into investment bucket 1 or 2? Hurry!
The post we all need John. The inability to differentiate processes vs systems is so prevalent. And it goes both ways - legit systems often fail to launch because they’re naively perceived as “process” by folks who haven’t seen the difference.
John, you absolutely nailed it with this post. This sentence especially resonated with me: "a perpetual reactivity with no incentive to improve."
From the companies you know where Team B exists (if any, haha!) what are the specific preconditions for it? Namely, is there something different in the maturity, skill set, and emotional intelligence of its senior leadership?
Lastly, like you, I spend a lot of time thinking about this. The question that haunts me is how what is almost always a bunch of extremely smart, talented and well-intentioned people ends up soulless, burnt out, disengaged. I believe a big part of it has to do with the disconnect I highlight in a recent post of mine: https://hagakure.substack.com/p/twh48-okrs-are-not-ok
I wonder what you think about that complexity-related disconnect...
It feels a lot like "good" culture, "bad" culture. It feels it has a lot to do with fear from executive not willing to delegate, infantilazing the reporting teams, especially when things are not clear at some point. It would be interesting to see the genesis of how a "company" turn into the Team A paradim , where the actors come from, what personality traits they have.
Think its prevalent in companies? Companies run poorly eventually run out of money.
Now do government organizations, where especially at the federal level seemingly "we've run out of money" is never a backstop to mediocrity, and where "I've got to clear this with my boss" is an hourly statement.
The post we all need John. The inability to differentiate processes vs systems is so prevalent. And it goes both ways - legit systems often fail to launch because they’re naively perceived as “process” by folks who haven’t seen the difference.
John, you absolutely nailed it with this post. This sentence especially resonated with me: "a perpetual reactivity with no incentive to improve."
From the companies you know where Team B exists (if any, haha!) what are the specific preconditions for it? Namely, is there something different in the maturity, skill set, and emotional intelligence of its senior leadership?
Lastly, like you, I spend a lot of time thinking about this. The question that haunts me is how what is almost always a bunch of extremely smart, talented and well-intentioned people ends up soulless, burnt out, disengaged. I believe a big part of it has to do with the disconnect I highlight in a recent post of mine: https://hagakure.substack.com/p/twh48-okrs-are-not-ok
I wonder what you think about that complexity-related disconnect...
It feels a lot like "good" culture, "bad" culture. It feels it has a lot to do with fear from executive not willing to delegate, infantilazing the reporting teams, especially when things are not clear at some point. It would be interesting to see the genesis of how a "company" turn into the Team A paradim , where the actors come from, what personality traits they have.
"All in all, it's institutionalized mediocrity." The gasp I just GASPed.
Think its prevalent in companies? Companies run poorly eventually run out of money.
Now do government organizations, where especially at the federal level seemingly "we've run out of money" is never a backstop to mediocrity, and where "I've got to clear this with my boss" is an hourly statement.