"Delirium vs. Organizational Crazy-Making: Moving Beyond Taylorism."
Brian and Kelly, this is a vital diagnostic pivot. The rigid org chart is merely a historical remnant of Taylorism-era management, not an immutable law of business. At best, that chart represents only one-tenth of the true enterprise social order. The other 90% is governed entirely by the informal behavior system.
Kelly uses the word 'delirium' to describe the gap where leaders believe one formal story while their workforce lives a completely different informal reality. In my fieldwork, we call this 'organizational crazy-making'—a state of chronic, systemic cognitive dissonance.
The current enterprise push for agentic AI is shedding a harsh light on these exact misalignments between our dual macro culture-shaping forces. True transformation requires moving past surface-level traits to directly target and realign the hidden disconnects within the live social network.
This isn't work for the faint of heart; it requires serious systems-science practitioners. Traditional OC theory remains trapped in a pre-paradigmatic stage, wholly unable to match the exponential complexity dynamics implied by AI.
This is a must! "Taking real risks in moving away from centralized decision making. Passing decision-making authority down organizations where the culture is rooted in decades of risk avoidance. Telling execs to let go."
This really resonated with me, Brian. Thank you for putting words around something I’ve been thinking about a lot. I couldn’t help but think of the old definition of insanity—doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
The way we work has been at a tipping point for a long time. AI didn’t create the cracks; it’s just shining a very expensive flashlight on them. 🔦
We can’t keep layering new technology onto old structures, outdated processes, unnecessary handoffs and silos and call it transformation. Your point about fundamental, cross-functional redesign of how value gets created really hit home for me. We need to understand how work actually happens today and then reimagine it from the foundation up.
Maybe AI is finally the catalyst that forces us to stop patching the old house and rethink the foundation.
Great article—and thank you for continuing to challenge how we think about this.
"Delirium vs. Organizational Crazy-Making: Moving Beyond Taylorism."
Brian and Kelly, this is a vital diagnostic pivot. The rigid org chart is merely a historical remnant of Taylorism-era management, not an immutable law of business. At best, that chart represents only one-tenth of the true enterprise social order. The other 90% is governed entirely by the informal behavior system.
Kelly uses the word 'delirium' to describe the gap where leaders believe one formal story while their workforce lives a completely different informal reality. In my fieldwork, we call this 'organizational crazy-making'—a state of chronic, systemic cognitive dissonance.
The current enterprise push for agentic AI is shedding a harsh light on these exact misalignments between our dual macro culture-shaping forces. True transformation requires moving past surface-level traits to directly target and realign the hidden disconnects within the live social network.
This isn't work for the faint of heart; it requires serious systems-science practitioners. Traditional OC theory remains trapped in a pre-paradigmatic stage, wholly unable to match the exponential complexity dynamics implied by AI.
This is a must! "Taking real risks in moving away from centralized decision making. Passing decision-making authority down organizations where the culture is rooted in decades of risk avoidance. Telling execs to let go."
This really resonated with me, Brian. Thank you for putting words around something I’ve been thinking about a lot. I couldn’t help but think of the old definition of insanity—doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
The way we work has been at a tipping point for a long time. AI didn’t create the cracks; it’s just shining a very expensive flashlight on them. 🔦
We can’t keep layering new technology onto old structures, outdated processes, unnecessary handoffs and silos and call it transformation. Your point about fundamental, cross-functional redesign of how value gets created really hit home for me. We need to understand how work actually happens today and then reimagine it from the foundation up.
Maybe AI is finally the catalyst that forces us to stop patching the old house and rethink the foundation.
Great article—and thank you for continuing to challenge how we think about this.