The Enemy Is Out There
I have written about the first Organisational Learning Disability: “I am my position” in my previous article. The second one is ‘The enemy is out there’. It is about pointing fingers at (blaming), something, someone or some other system when things go wrong.
I have seen (as well as experienced as a child) the following sequence of actions numerous times: A child falls down and cries. An adult runs in and beats the floor while picking up the child (to pacify the child). So I have learnt my fist lesson on ‘Enemy is out there’: “If I fall down it is the mistake of the floor… not mine”.
Another example is: I say in my mother tongue ‘The table hit me’, when I bang against the table. And we all know the language represents our culture.
I have facilitated many meetings for Root Cause Analysis (RCA) or problem solving. The initial and majority of the responses from participants would be:
- The client changed the requirements.
- The other team which we are dependent on delivered bad quality.
- HR did not give the right people at the right time.
- Budget was not adequate.
- Our competitor is giving super discounts.
- The government changed its policy.
- The monsoon has affected our sales target.
How does this disability affect our organisations?
This disability leads to shifting the burden to someone else or some other system. Once we shift the ownership to some one else, we can’t do anything about it. We end up feeling helpless and powerless. `
A lot time and energy is spent in finding ‘the enemy’ and creating the story of ‘how enemy has messed it up’. In team situations the ball drops in the middle because every one is waiting for someone else to catch it.
How many times did you hear people saying ‘Enemy is out there’ in the systems you belong to in the last one week? How can we change the language to ‘Enemy is in here’?
Do share your reflections on this Organisational Disability.
With inputs from Deepa Ram Bhat
Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.
