Comments from Internet on Sick Organizations

Comments from Internet on Sick Organizations


 Acknowledgements:
The questions came from several people (including an ex, various friends, etc.) scattered around the country, including my father, and their many jobs (experiences) over many years (over 60) and organizations, a speech given years ago by a higher education official (statements turned into questions), various ideas derived from the internet, and me (who has been at various organizations over several states). I tried to generalize the questions so they would apply to any and ALL organizations.

In order to better illustrate sick organizations, which are everywhere, I have added comments to post from the internet.
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http://inbadcompanyinc.wordpress.com/bad-company-inc/

From above:
BCI = Bad Company Incorporated

BCI is a fictitious name of a non-fictitious company I worked for. Other words have been used in business literature like sick organizations, poor leadership, unhealthy organizations, bad managers, etc. The amount of names to describe a sick organization is plentiful. There is a difference between not liking some of your co-workers / managers and to working for a sick organization. I can not concretely say what the threshold is for being a sick organization. There are a lot of factors to determine that the entire organization is sick and it may be so obvious because people are yelling at each other…but what does a company look like when the organization is sick but it is subtle.

BCI is in fact an organization that does not have people yelling, throwing things, screaming, etc. Instead they operate at the subtle level. Meaning they are sick without the general opinion of them being so. And you may question my opinion about this company being sick if there are no obvious signs of its sickness. What would be the fun in that…nothing ever intriguing is obvious. Everything cruel is in fact subtle.

http://www.execupundit.com/2007/02/sick-organizations.html

From Above:

Some organizations are sick. Upper management routinely sends messages that inadvertently - or perhaps not so inadvertently in some cases - tell employees that they are easily replaced, their co-workers are rivals, management distrusts them, customers are adversaries, and that there is a big gap between what is proclaimed and what is practiced.

In many cases, the illness is so severe that the patient is delusional. Various "problem employees" are identified, but the organization's problem is not noticed. (It reminds me of the old Jackie Mason line that his mother didn't know how much he drank until one day he came home sober.) The leadership of the organization is so steeped in poor practices that the executives think treating people shabbily is normal, wise, and "all part of the game."

http://www.organizedchange.com/assess.htm

Some taken from above:
Assessing and Improving Your Organization:
Symptoms, Diagnosis and Cures
David Chaudron, PhD

Almost all of us belonged to some sick organization or another and at times all of us feel frustrated with them. Unfortunately, many of us are untrained in diagnosing what is going wrong in an organization. All we know is that it isn't working well.

That sick feeling is from the Stewed Tomato Surprise you had last night, or that disastrous meeting this morning.

To properly diagnose what is happening in an organization, we start like a doctor - with symptoms. Once we can describe what is going wrong, we look for causes, and recommend a prescription for what ails us.

Summary of steps
The process has four steps as described below: 1) get started; 2) assess; 3) choose treatments and use them; and 4) periodically evaluate.

See more at website.

 http://www.organizedchange.com/assess.htm

From above:
Symptoms across most of your organization. If illness is prevalent in your company, it implies that organizational systems are a primary cause of the symptoms. Organizational systems such as the organizational structure, compensation, management style, performance appraisal, employee selection process, authority/communication patterns, as well as organizational mission, vision and goals are the major(but often overlooked) causes of organizational ill health. A rule of thumb is that the more widespread the organizational sickness, the more likely that these systems are causing it.

http://work911.com/articles/toxicorgs.htm

See this site for a good discussion of sick organizations, "Toxic leader," other signs of a sick organization, and more.

http://www.continuitycentral.com/news05907.html

From Above:

Dr Tehrani has found four fundamental causes that create sick organizations: organizations born out of trauma and established by individuals or groups of individuals who have experienced or have been touched by a traumatic event; internally damaged organizations - businesses that become traumatised through the activities of one or more employees (rogue traders, failure to adhere to safety standards or other corporate scandals); externally attacked organizations – those caught up in terrorist bombings, fire, floods, hostile take-overs or overbearing monitoring and regulation; and secondary traumatised organizations – emergency services or others interfacing with distressed people, which would cause them to be serially affected by trauma that is indirect, insidious, gradual or hidden.

"Organizations may not even be aware they are (or potentially could be) sick or dysfunctional. It is often only when something goes badly wrong and they think it is the event itself that has caused the bad reaction when actually, they have been dysfunctional all along. All the recent event or trauma has done is bring their dark side to the fore," observes Tehrani.

Tell-tale signs of dysfunctional organizations (which could also be apparent at a departmental rather than organizational level) are: high rate of staff turnover, high absenteeism, high incidences of employee or ex-employee litigation, either no or little sign of business growth, low productivity, high cost per employee.

"Employees expect their organization to behave in ways that are compassionate, supportive and responsive to their needs but what if the organization itself is traumatised and in need of help? It isn’t helpful to berate it for its failings. We need to focus on providing environments in which employees, leaders and the organization can work together to recognise and deal with the symptoms of extreme stress." Tehrani concludes.