Episode 20: Dysfunctional Organisations

[00:00:00] James: hello, I'm James.

[00:00:04] Jimmy: Hi, I'm Jimmy.

[00:00:05] James: Welcome to A Job Done Well,

[00:00:08] Jimmy: the podcast about the world of work and how to improve the daily grind

[00:00:12] James: Good morning, how are you doing?

[00:00:15] Jimmy: How you been James?

[00:00:16] James: Am I doing?

Alright, thank you very much. The sun is shining and the blossom is on the trees. What was it you said to me? That's a sign you're getting old when you start to

[00:00:26] Jimmy: Appreciating the blossom on trees. Definitely. I'm not as good as you, only because we're recording this the day after Forrest lost four points.

They got a penalty from the Premier League , four point stop which puts them in the relegation

[00:00:41] James: How many of our audience do you think care?

[00:00:43] Jimmy: you think care? Anyone who's following Forest cares. Three of us.

[00:00:47] James: Right then, what are we talking today? Oh, actually that's quite topical. So today we are going to talk about

[00:00:53] Jimmy: So

[00:00:54] James: dysfunctional behaviour.

[00:00:55] Jimmy: Yeah, absolutely.

, we'll try and

define what dysfunctional behavior is, dysfunctional cultures, and we'll try and help set people right on how they avoid them, how they cope with them.

[00:01:07] James: they

[00:01:09] Jimmy: as ever, let's start off with a definition. What is a dysfunctional culture? Well,

[00:01:14] James: with them. I'll start off with the definition. What is a dysfunctional culture?

[00:01:28] Jimmy: either unable function

[00:01:32] James: either unable to function , normally or properly, or of or characterized by abnormal or impaired psychological functioning. So you've got a dysfunctional family and dysfunctional behavior.

alternatively, a dysfunctional work culture is one that is characterized by a set of negative norms and poor behavior that hinder effectiveness, employee and team well being, and overall success.

So there you go. Dysfunctional, but here's a question for you.

[00:02:04] Jimmy: there

[00:02:05] James: Is there really such a thing as a dysfunctional

culture? So I looked a bit further.

[00:02:13] Jimmy: out? So the

[00:02:14] James: this is going to be deep, this is. So the word dysfunctional comes from the prefix dys, from the green meaning bad, abnormal, or difficult, or impaired.

[00:02:23] Jimmy: impaired. Yeah.

[00:02:23] James: Yeah. And so if something is dysfunctional, then it means that it is not consistent with the goal it is supposed to pursue.

Are

[00:02:31] Jimmy: pursue. Are you learning Greek or something? Yeah. Because didn't we have that in the governance

one?

[00:02:36] James: mate. Yeah, he should

[00:02:37] Jimmy: nine. Yeah. Yes, you did. You should have been on YouTube again looking up how to pronounce

[00:02:41] James: that was me. . But here's the question right is If it's not consistent with the goal, it's supposed to pursue

Who sets the goal? Yeah. Yeah another thought for you, which somebody said a chap called jeff lawrence apparently A social system including any organization or a country or family is the way it is because the people in that system You At least those individuals and factions with the most leverage

want it that way.

But the point being though, who's to say what the function is and whether or not something's dysfunctional,

[00:03:13] Jimmy: think that's one of the things that we'll explore a bit more, is we talk about dysfunctional companies, dysfunctional cultures, but it all depends on your perspective.

As you say, it's set up to achieve a certain purpose. That's, that's it's function. Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean it's dysfunctional. It's just dysfunctional in your,

[00:03:34] James: in your personal view. Yeah and then of course that

causes real problems if you're in an organization, you're the one who's there shouting about it, saying this organization is dysfunctional, because there are bound to be plenty of people in the organization who like it that way, and don't want to change it.

So who the hell are you to say something's dysfunctional?

[00:03:53] Jimmy: organisation who like it that way, and don't want to change it, so who the hell are you to say something's dysfunctional? Impacts your well being. That's another way of looking at it. And ultimately though, to that, the point

if you get what you pay for overall success.

So if you set your culture up a certain way that gives you a certain product, certain outcome, is that dysfunctional? Cause that's just the way you set up your, your system, your

[00:04:31] James: just the way you set up your, your

[00:04:43] Jimmy: Yeah.

[00:04:43] James: your culture. And so that's the point, I

[00:04:53] Jimmy: so that's the point, I guess, part of the system is set up to incentivize those execs around short term performance, they then set the organization up is.

[00:05:07] James: Yeah, so it's a bit of a metaphysical debate, isn't it, really?

[00:05:11] Jimmy: really? Yeah, I guess, ultimately, I think dysfunction is in the eye of the beholder, the person who's on the receiving end of it.

[00:05:19] James: Yeah, and for me, I think dysfunction, if I was to define it, I would say dysfunctional behaviour is when the organisation is not doing what you have set it up to do.

But what's your take? What do you think?

[00:05:32] Jimmy: So I think if you go back to some of the things that we've seen and experienced, and hopefully, , people who listen to this will, , some of these will resonate with them. I think people, , focus on job titles and status and their job grades and that's what becomes important to them.

[00:05:52] James: grades and that's what becomes important to them.

And it was just amazing. You walk into the office and you know, do they have a square desk or a round desk? Do they have a secondary table? Do the carpet go right the way to the edge of the walls? Or was it, and there were just all these little hints so you could tell exactly how senior somebody was. And it was just a stream of status symbols.

I

[00:06:13] Jimmy: I joined one organization that was quite old fashioned and the office that I was based in, the, the . Local manager sat there and the, the guy who ran the, the building, the facilities guy was so apologetic. He looked everywhere. He couldn't find a desk that was bigger than the local office manager's

[00:06:36] James: He's like, yeah,

[00:06:37] Jimmy: like, I don't care. I just need to be able to put my laptop down. He's like, yeah, I know, but he's got a desk. And it was like, it's desk, I'm not joking. It was a size of table tennis table. So he's like, I've tried, but I can't find one that that's bigger. But

[00:06:51] James: But I think that's that really points at the issue then. So when it becomes more important, how big the manager's desk is and the perception is of how important somebody is rather than the performance of the organization. Yeah, That for me is a sign of dysfunctional behavior.

What else have you seen?

[00:07:08] Jimmy: seen? I think , we talked last week about curiosity, I think one of the dysfunctions, , is that , managers know all of the answers, and they have the right answers. There's no, diverting from that. So people don't speak up. , people who do speak out are ostracized.

People who are agreeing all the time, , are, , they're favorites. Have you watched the office? I'm watching the American office at the moment. , , if you want, we could just play an episode of that. Yeah. If you want dysfunction. But there's a, a character in there who's the assistant, the regional director.

And he's bothered because he says he's assistant regional and they can correctly say no assistant to the regional director. Anyhow, he's, he conforms and he agrees with everything. And , it bends over backwards. But yeah. What if you want to know about dysfunction? What the

[00:07:59] James: That's the program to watch. But if you build on that, what that means is that the people who get rewarded and get promoted are the people who just agree with their boss. It's got nothing to do with performance at all. It just depends how much you agree with your boss.

Another thing that's really winds me up personally is you get this whole sort of good news culture. So lots and lots of, we've done this, we've done that. We've done the other. But nobody talks about failure

because nobody talks about failure problems just get hidden

[00:08:27] Jimmy: I think another example of a dysfunction that I've experienced is

 We're going to talk a bit about performance appraisals in a few weeks time. Well, performance appraisals

[00:08:38] James: be on a

[00:08:39] Jimmy: aren't we all, a 20 minute rant from James Lawler, but in all seriousness, performance appraisals can often focus on the end outcome, the result, And not how you get there

[00:08:49] James: Yeah,

[00:08:50] Jimmy: And I remember going into one organization. And we were having a discussion around a particular subject. It wasn't anything too controversial. And one of the guys, I, I didn't know him just had a massive rant. And he was , shouting and screaming about his stuff. And I said to his, his manager afterwards, , are you gonna talk to him?

That's, that's not, that's not right. He was like, no, no, it's just, it's just good old, you know, he, you know what he's like. But he's, he's a great, he's a great trader and he's really great in the market. . So it's like,

[00:09:22] James: Oh, and that makes it okay. Yeah.

[00:09:23] Jimmy: it okay. So he gets the end result, but his behavior on the way is appalling.

And I think that's, for me, is a dysfunction , it isn't just about the performance. It's about how you

[00:09:35] James: you get Oh, yeah, success, what did I . The ends justifies the means. And it really doesn't, it really doesn't. No, I've seen people like that.

What else have you

seen? Oh, just the, we talked about this, but endless reorganizations and associated turf wars.

And if you've got that going on, you've got so much management effort into that, rather than, Fixing anything that a customer would worry about. Yeah, so there's dysfunction if ever I saw it. Success claimed by leaders and failure is blamed on staff. That's another one of of my personal favorites.

[00:10:08] Jimmy: . Other things that I've seen, , rules based organizations where, , because we have rules and policies, everything will be okay.

And actually. There isn't really the thought behind those rules and policies. Do they get the outcomes that you want? Do they drive the behaviors you want? Often they don't, but it doesn't matter. We're still doing it that way because that's what the policy says. Yeah. Yeah. . I've seen policies in organizations that, that do damage the wellbeing of their people or the customers, but that's okay because that's what the policy says.

. Alright, another one then. I worked in an organization and quite a senior bloke, and he was working in an office south of London. Yeah. And we had offices all over the country. Yeah. And he'd been in this company for, I think it might be about 10, 12 years.

[00:10:55] James: Yeah. And he had never, ever, ever,

Been to an office north of London and you know, we've got about three four hundred people working in this place And he'd never been so you've got managers who's more interested in And make sure they're home for tea rather than going on and see what's going on in their organization Yeah, so yeah managers are more interested in making themselves comfortable.

That's dysfunctional

[00:11:17] Jimmy: Yeah, , again, the old fashioned, organisation I joined I was , the UK head of ops, and everyone expected me to get everyone to come to, to me. So they thought that the office I was in was going to become the centre of the, the world.

And I was like, why would you think that? Well, , that's how it had always been done. Because the previous incumbent in the role had sat in his home office, same thing, and just got everyone to travel to him. , which is just nonsense. It's just nonsense. , they didn't understand the importance of going to , , people's offices and see the work and see the people in their, environment rather than

[00:11:55] James: which I suppose comes back to the point about bosses knowing everything.

Yeah. Yeah well a few more left for me then. How about,

well, I suppose this is one and the same thing, but metrics left, right, and center that people are chasing but not doing anything about, and related to that, endless employee satisfaction surveys. We must do well in this employee satisfaction

survey, but just to what ends?

 We'll hit a number, the boys, what do they say? The beatings will continue until people start having

[00:12:25] Jimmy: Well, do you remember the one part of one organisation that we worked in that had amongst the highest engagement levels the chief exec of that part of the organization said that the way they got really high,

[00:12:37] James: got really

[00:12:38] Jimmy: so it was a scale of one to five. You should just tell everyone it's one to seven. He was joking, he was joking, but the point, the serious point was, , supposed engagement, high engagement surveys, but then allegations of fraud

[00:12:54] James: fraud and bullying.

Well, yeah. Anything else on your list then? I think I've

[00:12:58] Jimmy: well what about, you know, named, named car parking spaces? You know, senior peoples have theirs nearest the

[00:13:05] James: Executive lifts, I

[00:13:07] Jimmy: Executive lifts. I mean, , back in the day I remember telling somebody that I worked in a great organization 'cause I called, my boss by his first name.

[00:13:16] James: But I suppose all of it is just really rigid hierarchical organizations where the power is flowing up and down the organization, rather than worrying about how things work and how the

[00:13:28] Jimmy: power is flowing up and down the organization, rather than worrying about what the system is doing.

and the

purpose of the organization. Yeah. Yeah. You want to deliver great service for your customers, but you just don't set yourself up to deliver that.

Yeah. And worse than that, the way of behaving, the way you've set yourself up harms customers and harms your employees.

[00:14:02] James: Yeah, no, I totally agree. I was I was once told in an appraisal that my problem was I was a bit too much of a truth seeker.

But for me, it's when you see managers doing what's right for the manager rather than what's right for the organization. But, you know, examples of dysfunctional organizations. So I had a look at this online. The one, well, I found two. Or two sort of big name ones.

[00:14:24] Jimmy: As I say, there's a lot more than two out there.

[00:14:26] James: I've worked for a number of them.

I would argue every organization I've worked for being dysfunctional in one way or shape or form, but maybe just to different levels. The one, one which was very interesting was Uber. So Uber, apparently very sort of threatening, bullying culture. Uber actually went as far in their annual report to write and I will quote you this our workplace culture and forward leaning approach forward leaning meaning Yeah created significant operational and cultural challenges that have in the past harmed and may in the future Continue to harm our business results and find that financial condition and they wrote A failure to rehabilitate our brand and reputation will cause our business to suffer.

So that was quite interesting. Yeah

The other one and this is a fascinating one is amazon because

It really depends where you sit with amazon Is it great or terrible because if you look at some of the things that people say about it work there Do you know it's just bruising and it's relentless what they say churn and burn.

But then on the other hand, there's an organization which is really good at giving customers what they want and has grown like topsy afterwards.

[00:15:36] Jimmy: think that's what an interesting point though James is you just Given two great examples of potentially dysfunctional organizations, from one person's perspective they might be dysfunctional, from other they're not, and also they are, in many many ways, highly successful.

[00:15:55] James: What are the things, you know, culturally that you think need to be faced into to make a organization work better?

[00:16:03] Jimmy: I think if you flip it on its head, we've discussed quite a few times some of the key attributes we see in a functioning positive culture.

So I think it's worth us just having a having a quick run through those as a counterbalance to these are things of dysfunction. Here's the things that we've seen in our experience that work seem to work really well.

[00:16:24] James: But before we go into that little bit,

advert break.

[00:16:28] Jimmy: is, so that's all from us.

[00:16:29] James: We cover a whole host of topics on this

[00:16:33] Jimmy: Purpose to corporate jargon.

[00:16:34] James: but always focused on one thing, getting the job done well.

[00:16:38] Jimmy: Easier said than done. So, If you've got Unhappy customers or employees Bosses or regulators Breathing down your neck

[00:16:47] James: of control and your costs are spiraling and that big IT transformation project that you've been promised just keeps failing to deliver. So

[00:16:57] Jimmy: Can help if you need to improve your performance, your team's performance, or your organization's.

Get in touch at jimmy at jobdonewell. com

[00:17:07] James: Or james at jobdonewell. com.

[00:17:10] James: where were we? What were we talking about?

[00:17:13] Jimmy: So starting off,

[00:17:16] James: would go with would you believe purpose? Yeah, so being really clear what it is you are here to do. The more you are clear about what your actual purpose is, the less likely you are to be dysfunctional because then you can't.

Just create the conversation about well, are we meeting our purpose or not? So that's the first thing I would do I would really emphasize purpose in the organization

[00:17:38] Jimmy: the gain Everyone to work together as one team to deliver on that purpose, rather than fractured. I think that's the second attributes. , one team working together.

[00:17:51] James: and you see I mean a lot of what we do in organizations Just sets people up in competition with each other, as opposed to cooperating.

I mean, the classic example of that is the whole thing about the CIA and the FBI,

and the 9 11 atrocity. Yeah, so,

the belief is that if those guys had shared the information that they had, it would have never happened, but they were too busy protecting their own turf, to

to stop the terrorist attack from happening.

So yeah, working as one team.

[00:18:16] Jimmy: think the next one, . Thinking long term. Yeah. Yeah. Setting your organization, your culture up to appreciate the long term and long term success, , particularly companies with, , a purpose, the purpose is not something that is delivered , this month, this fiscal year, whatever it is we're targeting.

So I think that thinking more long term and making long term decisions, I mean, without getting too much into it,

if you looked at.

 Many aspects of the, UK today, a lot of the way services, public services, public finances, the economy, a lot of these things have evolved because people running the country or running councils, whatever it is, we're thinking very short term.

[00:19:01] James: Yeah, hit your current target and not worry about too much about the future yeah, and there's another thing there, isn't it? What did they say? The last mile is always the one with the fewest people on

but the point being, if you really want to succeed, you've got to keep going out over the long term.

[00:19:16] Jimmy: long term. Yeah.

 

[00:19:17] Jimmy: Yeah.

[00:19:17] James: So making sure that , everybody in your organization is communicating and sharing knowledge and not doing it on a need to know basis. I used to have a boss when I was working for Unilever, , he took me aside once and he said, we need to make sure we know what Unilever knows.

And you know, that's priceless because there is no point in an organization having knowledge if it's not sharing it across the entire organization.

[00:19:39] Jimmy: Yeah, when I worked at FSCS, , we used to deal with huge amounts of complexity,

[00:19:44] James: Yeah.

[00:19:45] Jimmy: and I maintained that every question that we ever faced, the knowledge was somewhere in our organization, somewhere in our wider ecosystem, whether it was with Claims handler in Glasgow or a lawyer down in London.

It was somewhere. The art of communication is making sure those networks operate and the information flows freely, which it rarely does. Yeah,

[00:20:09] James: but the whole, you know, information is power. Well, yeah, but only if you're sharing it. And then my big one, just creating no blame culture. Yeah, the minute you start jumping up and down on people's heads is the minute you start to fail.

Yeah, there's a lovely story about oh, Williams Reno. Oh, I'm going back a bit. Nigel Mansell had a incident, didn't he? Where was it?

[00:20:30] Jimmy: Nigel Mansell was a British racing

[00:20:34] James: in the 1990s. A

[00:20:35] Jimmy: 1990s. A long time

[00:20:36] James: Yeah, yeah, 30 years ago. Yeah, thanks. But they they pulled into a pit stop and Nigel Mansell, I don't know why these things take five seconds, and then off he drove and the wheel dropped off.

I mean, literally the wheel dropped off. . And when they looked at it, they discovered that what should have happened was everybody does their job, and then when they finish they raise their hands, and And they, then the guys with the stop go stick says go, and off he goes.

But one guy hadn't finished his job and had raised his hands, but he'd actually raised his hands to get help. But you jump up and down on people's heads like that, and they'll hide problems and you won't get anywhere at all. Incidentally, they solved the problem and they won the following year.

[00:21:16] James: So there you go, those are, I think, the five key aspects culturally, being really clear about your purpose, then going on to the whole thing about no blame, communication, thinking long term and making sure you've got one team. Easy to say, right?

[00:21:31] Jimmy: On a more you know, local level,

when you haven't got the opportunity to fix those things, what can you do?

I think I think those things are good. Aspects of a positive culture. And I think often you can, even if you're not running the whole organization, you can influence how things are around your area.

But one of the things , I've looked at is make sure you just worry about what you can fix. So in , you maybe can't fix the whole organization's culture, but there will be aspects of things that happen within your

[00:22:07] James: within your,

[00:22:08] Jimmy: Your environment, your team, how you interact.

[00:22:12] James: yeah, if you've got a team of two people, your boss might be an arse, that doesn't mean you have to be an arse.

Yeah, so, yeah, fix the bits you can fix, I totally agree with that.

[00:22:20] Jimmy: Yeah, and another thing that I both of us have done is, you've got to find , your outlet.

How do you make sure that when you're working in a dysfunctional environment, that it doesn't just invade the whole of your life? And one of the ways of doing that is, , at the end of the day, go for a run, a walk, , that's what we've

[00:22:40] James: end of the day, you know, go for a run, a walk, you know, that's

[00:22:49] Jimmy: But find, find, find your thing. Find your thing. Whatever that may be,

you know, whether it's exercise, music,

[00:22:58] James: you

[00:22:58] Jimmy: you know, trash TV. Just find what your outlet is and help that create a fire break between that dysfunction and the rest of your life.

[00:23:08] James: of your life Another thing I think you can do is Oh, do you remember now?

I'm going back. This isn't 1990s. This is 2000s But there was a big thing about the pike's place fish market and they were yeah slinging fish about but they had this whole thing Which was choose your chute

[00:23:23] Jimmy: shoot. What's

[00:23:24] James: And attitude apparently i'm not cool. Seattle.

[00:23:27] Jimmy: It probably sounded cooler when they did it.

[00:23:30] James: You think, yeah, but you can decide what your mindset is.

Yeah. And I think that's really powerful. If you decide you're going to go into this positively, it will make a massive difference.

[00:23:41] Jimmy: definitely. And don't, don't take it personally. Often the dysfunction that's in the system is, is not about you. It might feel it in the moment, but back to your thing about mindset, you know, just getting that in your head that actually. The system is bigger than just you and the problems are are bigger than just you.

[00:24:00] James: Yeah, yeah, and then the final one for me, I think is just this whole thing about Every now and again you need to have a bitch in the mouth. Yeah, or some constructive criticism but find a safe sounding board so somebody you can talk to It will help you think your way around the problems that you've got because there is invariably something you can do But it's an awful lot two heads being better than one

[00:24:23] Jimmy: definitely. So they're some of the things that we've done, but if you take a step back and think about it,

[00:24:30] James: Well, I think you got five options, really? Yeah. Yeah.

So number

one, just remember this too shall pass.

If you

look at the number of managers you've had, the number of chief executives you've had in organizations, the different cultures you've worked in, they ebb and flow. They do change. Yes. So it might seem like it's dreadful, but it won't be dreadful forever.

That's my, I

Try and Right, you do the first two then I'll do

It can be career

limiting, but you will be true to yourself if you do that. So it is an

[00:25:12] Jimmy: way of doing it is shut up.

So just accept the way it is and say nothing. Some people can do that, but that can be limiting on , your health.

So the, the fourth, thing is , change what you can, because there's often more things in your sphere of control than you sometimes think. It's , the prayer of serenity.

[00:25:35] James: on, what is the prayer of serenity? Go on.

[00:25:38] Jimmy: grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

[00:25:46] James: to know

[00:25:49] Jimmy: if all of that fails,

[00:25:51] James: in

[00:25:52] Jimmy: leave.

Yeah.

[00:25:53] James: of that silence. And I think all of

[00:26:00] Jimmy: dysfunctional or dependent way of cooking? You do have some choices, they might not always be great choices, but you do have choices on how you deal with dysfunctional environments.

.

Before we?

[00:26:12] James: So that's all from us then this week.

Thank you very much for listening.

[00:26:15] Jimmy: Hope you've enjoyed this week's episode. And as ever, if you need help dealing with your dysfunctional environment, please And please feel free to

. Get in touch with us at jimmyatajobdonewell.

com Or

[00:26:27] James: or james at jobdonewell. com. And please do not take any of this as career advice.

[00:26:32] Jimmy: advice.

[00:26:33] James: . Alright, very much for

[00:26:34] Jimmy: Thanks, everyone. Have a great week.

[00:26:36] James: have a

[00:26:36] Jimmy: If you'd like to find out more about how James and I can help your business, then have a look at our website at ajobdonewell.Com.