Organizational Dysfunctions: How fault-lines impact organizational effectiveness

Organizational Dysfunctions & Systems Thinking

Before talking about organizational dysfunctions, we need to understand the concept of systems thinking – a much recent mental model which got introduced to the management world in 1990s, in Peter Senge’s masterpiece, The Fifth discipline (the book provides blueprint for Managing change, Building adaptive organizations coping with VUCA world and Improving performance and happiness in the workforce – the combination of these characteristics, is what constitutes ‘learning organizations’). Also see, the essentials for building high performance organizations here.

We have been largely trained to break down the problems into small parts (with the aim to improve optimization, efficiency). This makes complex tasks manageable, the reductionist approach works great for efficiency objectives (but not as much for effectiveness, as that forms the whole view), but we no longer see connections and the big picture.

Now Systems also influence behavior. To understand a specific occurence, we need to understand the entire ecosystem, not just part of the pattern. Bcos a system of archetypes of multiple micro functions, interrelated to get to the overall objective, we need a mind-shift from seeing parts to wholes, from reacting to creating. It means concurrently seeing the trees and the forest, the detailed and broad patterns. Organizations, on a similar lens, are archetypes of multiple systems at work, and hence, subject to dysfunctionalities, impeding in realizing its objectives.