Organizational ADHD

Have you ever worked in an organization that is a typical case of organizational ADHD? Organizations that change their structure all the time - partially or completely - without respecting or even being aware of the laws of change.Once something does not seem to work (or does not fit the taste or ego of a manager), it's changed . Not by refactoring but in many cases by implementing patch after fix after patch. The first organizational "bug" that pops up is enough to go throught the motions again without worrying about the collateral damage that is created. Things never get the time to stabilize. Before people more or less understand what has changed, the organization has changed again.

A first side effects of this continual cascade of organizational changes is the fact that people get into the mode of "wait a bit, it will change anyway".

Another derivative of organizational ADHD is an organizational structure with a complexity that is not in synch with the complexity of the organization's goals set. An hierarchical chrismas tree with loads of managers, all with a very limited span of control and the "right to decide" on a micro piece of the process chain.

Although you find these "bad smells" in all organizations in one way or another, in ADHD organization, you can find them in extreme forms:

• "limited span of control": For every "two men and a horse head" (translation of a Flemish saying) there is a manager. This leads to upside down pyramids with more managers than "workers".
• "hierarchy over process": due to the fact that managers are all over the place, they need to be recognized and respected in one way or another. Due to that, processes suffer, because they are defined in such a way, that managers and departments get the visibility they "deserve". Resulting in havy processes with endless chains of process steps, and checks, stamps and signatures all over the place ('cause noone can be trusted).
• "too many decision makers": for every step in the process, someone else decides on go/no-go
• "hidden agendas": The personal "at-stakes" get priority over the end-to-end process or company "at-stakes".
• "ego over ratio": Although people know the current way is no good, they don't want to change it as it might damage their position, range of influence, ego.