It is the Organizational Shadow that makes transformations fail

“Madness is the exception in individuals, but the rule in groups”

- Nietzche

Group dynamics have always fascinated me. What makes teams tick? Why do people behave differently in groups, changing their entire individual persona? What are those group dynamics that trigger responses completely divergent to one’s normal individual behavioral patterns or beliefs? Eminent psychologists like Kurt Lewin and Elton Mayo were the pioneers of social and organizational psychology. Mayo’s work formed the building blocks for the human relations movement; researchers in this discipline studied the behavior of people in groups — often at the workplace — and sowed the seeds for what is today the field of Human Resource Management. 

Every organization has a formal organizational structure that is evident in the form of levels, hierarchy, designations, physical setting, etc. Organizations often talk about their values and great working environment as their strengths. Analyzing an organization basis these aspects only, however, is akin to missing the proverbial forest for the trees. In every organization, there exists an entirely invisible shadow, like an invisible iceberg beneath the waters. The interesting fact is that very often it is this shadow that determines the organizations that survive and thrive and those that burn out and fade into history. 

This organizational shadow that I talk about pertains to the inner negative dynamics of people that come together in the workgroup to drive the organization’s agenda, their feelings of jealousy, anger, greed, lust, competition etc.

In my experience, this organizational shadow plays a pivotal role in causing transformations to fail, leaving everybody concerned confused and trying to find the reasons for this failure. It is not unusual for organizations to come up with answers such as lack of innovation, technological failure etc. as the reasons for the failure.

What organizations fail to realize is that it is the negative hidden feelings and emotions of the people that caused the failure.   

On the other hand, when there are positive feelings and emotions at the organization level – the silver lining it would contribute to the success of the organizational transformation despite the lack of innovation, technology etc. should not be ignored. The ability of an organization to acknowledge, recognize, monitor, discriminate between, and attend to its members’ emotions, determines its success. During times of strategic transformational change, the impact of the collective invisible negative emotions is often ignored to the organization’s detriment. In their drive for operational efficiency and financial effectiveness, organizations have created an emotional vacuum where only logic and numbers survive ¹. While this approach of focusing only on operational efficiency and financial effectiveness may work for organizations that simply exist and making do with minimal innovation or change, skillful emotion management is necessary to create organizational contexts that foster innovation and rapid change ².

Take the example of Polaroid. Founded in 1937, the company dominated the polarized sunglasses market but they were more famous for instant cameras, outselling any other brand of instant cameras ever produced. On October 11, 2001, however, after the bombing of their new technology Polavision in the market, Polaroid filed for bankruptcy protection. So what went wrong? A common reply is that their R&D was majorly flawed and that their marketing strategy was virtually non-existent.

But there was a deeper, underlying contributor that cannot be ignored — negative management dynamics and inter-personal tensions in the upper echelons of the company that rendered healthy debate and logical reasoning useless. 

Not long after, Polaroid’s competitor Eastman Kodak took over the market only to be ousted by Fuji in 1991. In Kodak’s case, internal tensions were high as management realized that they had invested in a technology that was becoming obsolete in front of their eyes. The company was plagued with passive resistance from its workforce — a certain death knoll in the face of any transformation. Poor internal communication mixed with mistrust for the new innovations proved to be disastrous for the company.  

History is replete with such instances — take British Airways, for instance. It was a time of great transformation for them from a sluggish, loss-making enterprise to a lean, highly regarded profit-churner. Collective mistrust, larger than life egos and interpersonal politics came together to cause the airline to nose-dive from a situation where they were enjoying record-breaking profits and high employee morale to a situation rife with unionization and mistrust. Robert Ayling, the CEO, once a hero to all stakeholders became the most distrusted and disliked man in the organization. The decline in employee morale was followed by a precipitous decline in customer service as the staff was reported being too angry or too tired to look after customers adequately. This came to a head when the company’s stock price reached a record-breaking low of €3.23. Three weeks later in 2000, Robert was asked to step down by the board. 

As practitioners of Human Resource Management, the onus of internal organization harmony lies with us. Achieving this necessitates that members of the organization, especially at the senior levels are emotionally capable and can recognize the triggers in their individual behaviors that cause negative behaviors across the organization. 

One thing that any leader in the organization can start doing is to pass on the appreciation and praise to the lowest levels when something worthwhile is achieved. In other words, when the leaders stop taking credit for things that went well and give the recognition, through both words and deeds, to others in the organization, the probability that ongoing transformations would be successful increases tenfold. Needless to say, when things go south, the leaders should take the responsibility, ring-fencing their teams from any adverse fallout. For self-reflection, consider this. In your organization, do you have a shadow as dark as a monsoon cloud or a silver lining that shines after the summer showers?  I’ll bet that in most organizations, the shadow prevails. 

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1    Weber, 1947

2    Huy, 2015