We don’t know the implications of the changes emerging in this post-Covid era. I’m particularly interested in what this might mean for the traditional, hierarchical organisation. I currently see many organisations dealing with higher levels of turbulence: more confusion, dysfunction, turmoil and turnover than has recently been the case. Is this an emerging norm or am I falling for the bias of my admittedly small sample size? 

It’s as though a readjustment is taking place and we can’t as yet see what that adjustment might create in the place of the traditional, hierarchical organisation. This adjustment might be a result of people relocating to somewhere more enabling of a good life; taking previously-thought of risky choices, such as travelling for six months; leaving a controlling boss or organisation; seeking more meaningful work; finding a better balance of time with family; deciding not to work for someone or within an extractive hierarchy, and so on. 

Perhaps, then, our organisations are at the frontline of what new might look like in core areas of society. People are changing at the deepest level, within themselves, and seeking more, looking for different, for more aligned work. Perhaps there is a generational aspect to this as well. Our organisations won’t change quickly enough to respond to these trends, resulting in dysfunction and turmoil, particularly as those in the most senior role of the most bureaucratic, large, or well-established organisations are most likely to be run by older people schooled in traditional ways of working. Beneficiaries of a social contract that has been broken over the last decade and is even more outdated post-Covid. A contract predicated on a largely predictable, linear life sequence and a ‘work hard’ philosophy. 

At the same time, the prevailing economic paradigm is coming under increasing challenge, the idea of infinite growth finally seen as flawed, the needs of the planet and the more-than-human beings centred, as are the needs of future generations. Nearly a decade and a half of austerity has shredded any pretence of a social safety net for the most vulnerable in society and dragged even more into higher risk, more precarious and less healthy situations. At the same time the divide between the haves and have-nots is exponentially growing, the flaws in our political systems are open wounds for all to see and organisations managing our common goods such as water are now vehicles for profiteering and environmental degradation. 

Our organisations aren’t in a place to adequately respond to these challenges because they are all a part of a wider system that perpetuates them. It worries me that things will need to get much worse before we turn the corner into a clearer and perhaps more equitable world. How might this happen?

Perhaps, if our collective beliefs, values and mental models are changing, then eventually we may reach a tipping point when the structures and processes that permeate our organisations and society at large will finally change to reflect this new world view and set of priorities. Perhaps this is what we are seeing in our organisations at the moment, a dissonance between the two. And as people’s behaviours are starting to change, we see that structures and processes come under attack from both angles: beliefs and behaviours. Popping up here and there are the more visible actions and events that emerge as a result; the resignations, conflicts and organisational pronouncements. 

A challenge organisations will be facing in light of such pressure is how to respond. Not recognising that it’s the fundamental basis on which they exist that is shifting, the very paradigm that created them in the first place. Those who instead see the behaviours and activities of staff as being in some way a form of subordination or rebellion and therefore try to crowd them out with stricter enforcement of rules or the creation of new ones will be addressing the challenge at the wrong level. You can’t fight changing beliefs and values with rules and processes, it’s like bringing a knife to a gunfight. 

Over constraining the complex system that is an organisation by doubling down on rules and processes will increase the likelihood of it tipping into chaos and dysfunction. It becomes a self-reinforcing cycle. It’s a case of trying to win the game by assuming that what worked yesterday will also work tomorrow. Instead we must realise that the whole game has changed and a new one has emerged in its place. Is this the challenge that we are seeing play out in some of our organisations at the moment?