Post #3528693

2026-06-08 06:06 UTC

Organisational Dysfunction of the Day The AI we cannot talk about Context: The organisation has adopted AI. There are productivity metrics, usage dashboards, and a strategy document that references "responsible AI." The head of sustainability has a slide about carbon neutrality by 2035. At a recent industry panel on AI, none of the participants would answer questions about the environmental cost of their deployments when the topic came up from the audience. Not because they did not know. Because their agreements with technology vendors included non-disclosure clauses that prevented them from saying. The audience noticed. Nobody said anything about that either. OST explains: Data centre electricity demand is growing faster than any other sector. AI-focused facilities are the primary driver. The scale is documented, the trends are public, and in many organisations the internal numbers are known. The NDA is not a knowledge problem. It is a structural choice to prevent knowledge from circulating in the field. Active adaptation requires organisations to act on the field they operate in, not just absorb signals from it. At its fullest, that means contributing to conditions under which the whole system, including the broader environment, can develop sustainably. Fred Emery identified shared values as the only viable coordination mechanism for a field in motion. An industry that signs away its ability to speak about the environmental cost of its own technology has not just failed to share values. It has actively prevented the field from forming them. The oil industry spent decades funding doubt about climate science while its own engineers documented the damage. The pattern is the same: internal knowledge, external silence, and a field that cannot self-correct because the people with the relevant information have contracted out of saying it. This is not a communication problem. It is a field that has chosen not to adapt, at the cost of everyone in it. #OpenSystemsTheory #SocioTechnical #OrgDesign #ai #climate

Replies (1)

@trondhjort@hachyderm.io 2026-06-09 06:02

Organisational Dysfunction of the Day Change agents of the status quo Context: The organisation is struggling with its agile transformation. Teams are frustrated, delivery is slow, and the gap between the agile principles on the wall and the daily reality is hard to ignore. Leadership responds by bringing in agile coaches. Sometimes it is an external consultant. Sometimes it is a team lead who rebrands as a servant leader or agile enabler, sensing that the old role needs a new name to survive. The coaches run workshops, facilitate retros, introduce new ceremonies, and work hard to make things better. The teams appreciate the attention. Things improve slightly at the edges. The fundamental structure does not change. A year later, the same problems are present in slightly different forms. New coaches are brought in. OST explains: Agile coaches are hired by management, which means the coaches who survive in the role are those comfortable operating within DP1. Those who challenge the structure too directly lose the engagement. Over time, the role selects for people skilled at making DP1 more bearable, not at replacing it. The coach becomes a buffer: absorbing frustration from the teams, translating it into something leadership can accept, and returning something that resembles a response. The energy that might have driven structural change is consumed in the process. For team leads and managers who sense that DP2 threatens their position, coaching offers a way to remain relevant, embracing the language of empowerment and self-management while preserving the hierarchy that sustains their career. When they cannot do it themselves, they hire consultants who can do it for them. The result in both cases is the same: a DP1 organisation with a DP2 vocabulary, which is laissez-faire. The coaches are not the villains here. They are the rational product of a system that needs the appearance of change more than it needs change itself. As Gerald Weinberg observed, organisations are perfectly designed to get the results they get. #OpenSystemsTheory #SocioTechnical #OrgDesign #agile

Open ##3528691