Diagnosing (and Curing) Organizational Stiffness

Khaled is a dedicated Program Manager holding a PhD Degree in Business Management and a Master’s Degree in Business Administration, demonstrating more than 12 years of expertise in program management, research and monitoring, and policy/operational analysis.

  Agile   Change Management   Organizational Project Management   Strategy  

In my first article, 5 Symptoms of Poor Organizational Team Health, I talked about how organizations can have the same problems that people do. I looked at the comfort trap in my follow-up; and then the cycle of burnout, turnover and disengagement in the third installment of my series on organizational team health.

In this fourth article, I will talk about another silent but harmful condition: organizational stiffness. This is like having stiff joints, tight muscles, and limited mobility in a business. Just like a lack of flexibility makes it hard for the body to work at its best, a lack of flexibility in an organization stops creativity, slows down decision-making, and makes it harder for the team to adapt to change.

People who think in an agile way often say, "Stiffness kills flow." In fitness. In motion. And for sure, in businesses.

Diagnosing Organizational Stiffness: The Silent Symptoms

Organizations, like the human body, show early signs of being less flexible long before big problems arise. Stiffness doesn't start with a crisis; it starts with small mobility problems that leaders often ignore:

1. Siloed muscles when groups don't work together: When departments work like separate muscle groups, it becomes harder for information to flow and new ideas to come up. Procter & Gamble's decision to set up "Connect + Develop" …

Please log in or sign up below to read the rest of the article.