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Believe it or not, many organizations are like alcoholists. Let me elaborate this point.
In my point of view, alcoholism is a learned behaviour disorder. I have recently pointed out that organizations have similar learned behaviour disorders. These are manifested in various rituals organizations have towards their operation. Some of these might not make any sense, but everyone is following because that’s how things have always been.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder is a behaviour disorder. OCD is manifested in a variety of forms, but it is most commonly characterized by a subject’s obsessive thoughts and related compulsions (tasks or rituals) which attempt to neutralize the obsessions. A good example is repeated washing of hands several times a day or counting things in groups of three. Repeating the rituals lets the individual calm down and feel secure. Following the rules and structures gives one security and a peace of mind, while wondering to unknown waters will produce anxiety and insecurity. This is exactly the same kind of behaviour many organizations manifest in many business processes that have become de facto standards and unlike to be questioned.
I bet your organization has such obscure belief systems, too. This could be a certain way of doing something (process), that you may find as a key driver to get things done, often described as best practices. These processes are hardly questioned and they are repeated over and over again, until we loose the ability to imagine any other alternatives unless we estrange ourselves from the fact.
Alcohol as a substance causes the release of endorphines. These are particularly shaped molecules that like to bind to opioid receptors in the brain, causing them to fire and form new connections. It’s like a key that goes into a lock. As you consume alcohol, you are constantly forming new connections by opening new doors. The more you drink the more your receptors will fire. Your connections will grow stronger and the whole biochemical network becomes addicted to alcohol. You are effectively hardwiring your system to drink.
It’s the exactly same condition as organizations experience when they repeat business processes over and over again without any serious variations or changes. This means learning is not inherent in the process itself but rather a condition that occurs only if the network weakens and starts to compete with other networks. Weakening the network by inducing alternatives through learning might be a solution, that’s at least what I have figured out about the successful treatment of alcoholism. If you try to treat alcoholism by removing the substance - alcohol - you get serious side effects caused by abrupt firing of neurons and you are unlikely to cure the cause: binding of endorphines.
Some drugs try to counter this biochemical network with opioid blockers that are same shape as endorphines but will utilize the rest-principle of neurons: if neurons do not fire they will die out, if they fire too often they will also die out. One of such drugs is Naltrexone, a competitive antagonist for opioid receptors. By blocking the ability of certain receptors to fire, there will be no reward for alcohol consumption. After several months the network has weakened and starts to compete with other networks, effectively removing the need to drink.
An article in Fast Company entitled “Change or Die” well describes why changing people is so hard by inducing shock, for example threatening with loss of life in case of taking any additional cigarette or drink. Many theories or change management emphasize the role of shock in promoting change, while sometimes you really need to remove the benefit or doing things in a certain way or bringing up more lucrative benefits of doing things differently. Rather than making organizational changes that instabilizes the business, you might as well re-structure the business processes (ways of working) and include reflection, learning and change as an inherent component in every important task. If you compare organizations to water, ice is the OCD organizations that are unable to change their rituals, steam is chaos where you don’t want to be and fluid is where waves and new shapes will constantly form. It’s the fluidity and flow of doing where you want your organization to be.
According to John Lilly all human beings, all persons who reach adulthood in the world today are programmed biocomputers. What it means is that everything influences your biochemical network and will affect the way you will be different from others. We all have diverse biochemical stabilities, genes and DNA and will react differently to certain external inputs, be it love, hate, caffeine, air, or alcohol. This metaprogramming happens all the time as you breath and act: for the very same reason every organization is different from other and certain networked structures that work in one setting are not necessarily providing the same results in another.
Having interesting conversations releases dopamines. As we know, dopamine acts as the biochemical reward system for your body. Release of these chemicals will encourage us to repeat behaviors that lead to unexpected rewards. Interestingly, that’s also the key to behavioural change and learning, not only in individuals but also in organizations. As networks of people start to explore new frontiers and learn new things in the process, this will cause self-organization on the higher-level of networks as well (teams, organizations, markets and society). It’s the small variations that might count as new benefits elsewhere in the complex system. When a tree grows, the cells are acting based on the interaction with their neighbouring cells. Suddenly there will be branches, trunks and fruits, emergent behaviour we can’t predict from the individual cells alone.
So, what can organizations learn from alcoholism? The fact that rituals do exist and embracing them might lead to behavioral disorders that might not be optimal for the current situation as well as they might have in the past. Alcoholism also gives us insight that changing strong network structures through force might not be the optimal solution. Other options include the removal of rewards and introducing new rewards for different kind of activity. By understanding our own complex human systems better we can start looking for small useful variations that lead to emergence. Business processes that have embedded-learning capabilities have an advantage over static and defined ones. Best way to weaken existing networks is conversations that explore alternatives and study our current as-is and to-be states. Jay Cross onces said to me that the best learning technology ever invented is conversation, the second being beer. He might have been right.
Thanks to Richard Stanley and Chris Evatt for conversations around this topic, which this blog post is based on.
