Impulses for organisations – Part 13
In the digital world, we are repeatedly confronted with valuable suggestions and impulses from people who deal with cooperation within and between organisations. In this thirteenth part of the series, I would like to focus on some of these impulses. This time, the focus is on the use of lies in companies, the common understanding of customers and software agencies, and challenges in growing companies.
Let’s get started with the new impulses!
‘You’re all liars‘ – and you can’t help it
’Thou shalt not lie’ is what my grandmother preached to me from an early age. ‘Tell the truth, even if it’s unpleasant,’ she demanded. My grandma was and is certainly not the only one who upholds this commandment.
Come on, little white lies are allowed. But on the whole, you should stick to the truth. So why do people in our organisations lie like crazy?
Whether it’s the sales forecast, the project report, the travel expense report or exhaust gas values, the ‘alternative formulation’ is as good as it gets. If people’s noses grew like Pinocchio’s with every lie, nobody would come out of the meeting room and you would no longer be able to understand your own lies because of all the wooden noses clacking against each other.
Recently, I had the pleasure of hearing some managers describe in detail how they deal with reporting in the organisation. At the end, I summarised by asking: ‘So you’re lying?’
A storm of indignation broke out and everyone present made every effort to explain to me that ‘No, you can’t … um … say that … um … it’s more … intentional …’. But the crucial question is:
Why do people in organisations lie so much?
To get closer to an answer, lying must be considered on two levels – the individual and the system level.
We humans lie to maintain our self-esteem and to gain recognition. We also lie when it makes it easier for us to deal with a current situation. It is a form of self-protection that helps us to avoid conflict and anger.
If a salesperson is summoned to the head of sales every week and has to endure tirades because his forecast is too low, he may embellish it. Lying is simply a solution strategy.
And lying is a symptom. So the cause lies deeper. It lies in the system. Over-bureaucratisation, divergent goals and conflict avoidance are just some of the symptoms of rigid organisations. If you want to act in conformity within them, you usually can’t avoid untruth for long. However, the consequences behind this are greater than just a wrong figure in the report or a 10-euro higher invoice.
The most serious consequence is the loss of trust in the entire organisation. It doesn’t matter if we are lied to personally or falsify reports collectively. As soon as we experience untruth, our trust drops. But that is exactly what we need for collaboration, multidisciplinary work and cooperation. And all noble attempts to build trust fail. Because as long as the cycle of untruth persists, trust cannot flourish. So, to paraphrase my grandma: ‘Stop lying and tell the truth!’ That would be nice.
The interaction between customers and software agencies
Said a development company salesperson recently to me,
“What I need from you:
- use case models
- the data model
- detailed wireframes,
- users & interactions
- workflow descriptions
- …
Then we can build this for you.”
My response: “If we did 99% of the work already – why should I hire your company instead of simply also doing the rest?”
The hard part in software development is figuring out what’s needed, how and why.
The easy part is turning that into code.
I don’t know – there are still so many agencies taking clients for a ride.
If you believe that the client can nail down both the business and technical design before implementation and end up with the right solution, then you don’t understand software.
As a bit of life advice: avoid agencies that expect you to be responsible for getting the design and requirements right before handing over to their developers.
Software agencies that are interested in your success will want to interact with you on the need and propose potential designs in order to spot the flaws in your and their mental model of the solution. This is a mandatory part of the process.
Why 100 employees are slower than 10
CEO: ‘We are now slower with 100 people than we were with 10.’
This is such a common challenge – companies raise money, hire more people, and then slow down.
What’s going on?
There are three main causes:
1) Metcalfe’s law: a linear increase in the number of team members can lead to an exponential increase in communication complexity. This requires consciously redesigning the communication structures as you grow.
2) Lehman’s Laws: If every customer needs a custom feature, technical debt grow until the maintenance cost far exceeds the capacity for new features. This requires strategic focus and great product management.
3) Mikitani’s Rule: Every time an organisation triples in size, everything breaks (for example, the management system – how you set and communicate strategy, goals, plans, data, etc).
In practice, these are often seen first by the employees, then by managers, and only last by executives and the CEO.
What are you doing to make sure this doesn’t paralyse your business?
Impulses and questions
Three topics, three experts, three impulses. How can companies manage to tell the truth more often and lie less? How can a trusting collaboration be established with service providers when developing software? And what can a growing company do to avoid getting in its own way?
Question after question. Maybe you have some of your own; great! Then Part 13 of ‘Impulse for Organisations’ has achieved its goal.
Notes:
If you like this article or would like to discuss it, please feel free to share it in your network.
[1] Stephanie Borgert specialises in managing complexity and key aspects such as leadership, management, communication, mindfulness and systemics. Information about Stephanie Borgert can be found in her LinkedIn profile, the impulse can be found here in the original on LinkedIn.
Stephanie Borgert has published two posts on the t2informatik Blog about change resistance in a team and “We need training!”.
[2] Michael Kuesters sees himself as a thought provoker, works as an executive coach for organisational change for Intelygence and blogs under the motto Fail fast, move on. Information about Michael Küsters can be found in his LinkedIn profile, the impulse can be found here in the original on LinkedIn.
[3] Richard Russell is the founder of the Scaleup Leaders Network, an exclusive community for senior leaders in scaleups. Information about Richard Russell can be found in his LinkedIn profile, the impulse can be found here in the original on LinkedIn.
Michael Schenkel has published more impulses in the t2informatik Blog, including
Impulses for organisations – Part 8
Impulses for organisations – Part 10
Impulses for Organisations – Part 12
Michael Schenkel
Head of Marketing, t2informatik GmbH
Michael Schenkel has a heart for marketing - so it is fitting that he is responsible for marketing at t2informatik. He likes to blog, likes a change of perspective and tries to offer useful information - e.g. here in the blog - at a time when there is a lot of talk about people's decreasing attention span. If you feel like it, arrange to meet him for a coffee and a piece of cake; he will certainly look forward to it!