Repetetive Organizational Strain Injury

As a young engineer, I gave myself Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. Carpal tunnel is a ‘repetitive strain injury’, leading to numbness in the fingers and loss of strength in the hand. It is easily cured by an intelligent dose of ergonomics. But also easily inflicted through ignorance and even stubbornness. It didn’t take more than 3 months out of college, before my existing work habits started to hurt. If you go on long enough, Carpal Tunnel could take surgical intervention to fix! Talk about unnecessary scars (and expenses)!

Sadly, Organizations can be prone to this kind of ‘self-injury through ignorance’ too. And just like other organisms, Organizational scarring comes as a result. When managing Knowledge Workers, special care must be paid to the kinds of organizational or team-level habits and patterns. Consider this simple question for example: Can your team leaders make their own decisions?

Consider the circumstances, where your team leader’s boss disagrees with the path chosen. Maybe the risks high. You might think that a logical moment for the boss to intervene. But what’s that team leader going to do next time? Will they use their judgment, or just defer to ‘the boss’? Even if they use their judgment, will the team actually move? Or will they wait it out to see if the boss will override again?

This kind of organizational scar-tissue accumulates over time. It’s a even kind of sabotage! Simple Sabotage calls it out as ‘Sabotage by re-opening decisions’. And if you practice it long enough, and you team’s are dulled to any decision. Worse still, you weaken the organization. The team is slow to act. The team leader no longer leads, but waits. And the next generation of leaders in your organization withers away!

I’ve advocated for cultivating employee judgment before. But this is a hard problem to solve. It’s a risk-taking decision. Letting a front line leader decide, and stick to it is hard. But there are a multitude of ways to address hazardous decisions without scarring. Just be aware, repeated action becomes habit. And our habits, for good or ill, create the future for our organization. If we go on long enough, it may take ‘surgical intervention’ or other massive disruptions to fix our problem. With a little discernment, some patience, and a hefty dose of courage, many problems can be treated while they are small. Don’t allow stubbornness or fear to repeatedly strain your organization or your team!