The Four Horsemen of the Work Culture Apocalypse
Calling out the common enemy we're fighting.
We have a common enemy we're all fighting.
They are the four horsemen of the work culture apocalypse.
The four most destructive team dysfunctions are:
Constant Fire-Fighting
Defensiveness
The Blame Game
Disconnect Between Learning and Working
Let's unpack each of these a little more.
Constant Fire-Fighting
The time available for people to think and reflect is scarce.
Constant fire-fighting undermines continuous learning.
Instead of deliberate practice, people are buried in an avalanche of emails, Slack messages, and the Chinese water torture of urgent, but not important tasks.
The result: no learning, because no time.
Defensiveness
Defensiveness is protection against being vulnerable.
With fires all around us, we need to appear in control and infinitely capable of putting them out.
So we pretend we're something that we're not.
The result: no learning, because I know it all already.
The Blame Game
Have you ever filled out those employee surveys?
It's a great opportunity to let management know what you think. I've really let it rip in those in the past.
But then I archived the email and moved on.
I never took responsibility for the change I so passionately argue for.
These surveys feed an impulse we all have, to find blame in someone or something else.
The result: no learning, because it's not my fault.
Disconnect Between Learning and Working
Fire-fighting, defensiveness, and the blame game all come to a head in seeing learning and working as two separate things.
Without time to think and reflect, without a lifelong approach to learning, and without responsibility, leadership is investing shockingly few resources in studying what has succeeded and failed in the past.
Instead, they more or less make it up as they go along.
The result: no learning, ever.
But Have You Heard the Good News?
The good news is this:
we each have a superpower that can help overcome this
we know the common enemy
we're in this together
In my next post, we’ll explore the foundation we’ll build on as we construct our solution: a system for cultivating a learning culture.
Hit reply and let me know what you think we need to overcome this.