Shadowside of Organisations

Shadow Side of Organisations

1. What is the shadow side?

The shadow side is a “catchy name” for the informal aspects of an organisation and refers to all those things that substantially affect the productivity, quality and efficiency of an organisation, for better or worse, but which are not found in its strategic plans, job descriptions, policies, management systems, codes of practice or in the discussions that take place in formal meetings.

The shadow side includes all of the informal behaviours that go on to facilitate or subvert the achievement of stated organisation goals as well as the behaviours that are essentially personally motivated but which have the effect of contributing to or undermining organisation objectives.

Both the formal and informal (shadow side) exist in all organisations and both have potential to help deliver positive outcomes and both have the potential to be unhelpful to the organisation.

Rational
Formal (overt) / Non-rational
Informal (covert)

Directives, Mission, Strategic plans

Organisation charts, Job descriptions
Published polices, Codes of practice
Competency models, Training courses
Budgets, Pay structure
Contracts / service level agreements
Scheme of delegation
Data bases, Systems and procedures
Targets, measures, Performance management arrangements
Stated values, management philosophy, credo / Friendships, Cliques
Jealousy, Fear and Insecurity Defensive routines
Power struggles
Bribes and backhanders
Grapevine, Gossip
Custom and practice
Personal rivalries
Turning a blind eye
Restrictive work practices
Mutual back scratching – favours
Informally testing the water
Sexual relationships
Office politics, Empire building
Cutting corners, Mavericks
Bullying

2. Shadow side behaviour directly related to the organisation’s objectives

Some informal behaviour is intended to circumvent what is perceived to be unhelpful behaviours in the formal system. For example, we might use informal channels when we

–experience the frustration being expected to adhere to apparently counterproductive bureaucratic procedures;

–have attended a meeting where there was a failure to address a key issue;

–have been thwarted by a colleague who failed to behave in ways that we think would have enabled progress; or

–have judged the formal decision-making process as having produced a “wrong” decision.

Faced with the choice of conforming to organisation rules and procedures or finding subtle ways to get round them, we differ in our willingness to operate in the shadow side. Nearly everyone does but we do so to a greater or lesser extent and we regard shadow side activities by other people with differing levels of approval or disapproval.

Is he a shrewd political operator, a resister to change or a self-serving subversive? Does she have a knack of getting her own way or is she a maverick? When is your shadow side behaviour expedient; when is it deviant?

3. Shadow side behaviour indirectly related to the organisation’s objectives

Not all of our activities in the workplace are work related. To a greater or lesser extent we spend social time with people we like, or are sexually attracted to, or who share our interests or went to the same school or college. We spend time with them at work and/or out of work – lunch, a chat in the staff room, a game of golf, birthday celebrations, etc.. We build relationships that are not related to getting the job done but might well influence the work agenda.

We all prefer spending time with people we like, respect, with whom we feel we have shared attitudes. We are disposed to be helpful to these people. They are more likely to get our support when it comes to making work-related decisions.

We all tend to regard some people with suspicion. Their values and goals seem to be at odds with ours. We find their style and approach difficult to deal with. They are less likely to get our support when it comes to making work-related decisions.

In all these respects our attitudes and behaviour are not entirely rational but the choices we make affect the functioning of the organisation.

And we differ in our perceptions about the appropriateness of these shadow side liaisons. Do we perceive “old school tie”, “pillow talk”, “ a clique” or “old friends”, “office romance” or “a group of friends”? When is it favouritism, discrimination or nepotism?

We might like to think that it is the case but ,actually, are there ever any entirely rational decisions made about anything in organisations?

To what extent should we deliberately use the shadow side?

3. Conflict in the organisation system

Any complex system contains internal contradictions. The whole organisation can be regarded as one system – with a shadow side and a formal side.

There are always tensions between the formal and informal sides in an organisation. Clearly there are times when action taken in the shadow side is intended to act against actions taken in the formal side. And there may be unintended consequences of action in the shadow side as well, for example when action is misunderstood or misperceived.

Examples of the tension between the systems

Discipline procedures in the formal system to tackle proscribed shadow system behaviours (e.g. bullying)

Restrictive practices to undermine or take advantage of the formal system (e.g. working to rule)

Time sheets to control activity towards the primary task (and discourage employees doing their own thing)

Breaking the rules to get the job done (e.g. letting contracts piece meal to avoid procurement rules)

Criticising a colleague behind her back (to undermine her formal power which is preventing you getting what you want)

Policies and training on diversity to create pressure to change attitudes and beliefs (to reduce favouritism, prejudice, nepotism)

4. Tensions within the shadow side system

There is usually a lot of tension in the shadow side system because the system is self-organising and because behaviour in the shadow side, by its very nature, lends itself to misperception and misunderstanding.

It is self-organising in the sense that people are trying to influence, seeking allies, trying to create coalitions with respect to their own agenda (and if my personal agenda is different to yours I will be suspicious of your behind the scenes activities). More often than not actors in the shadow side are well-intentioned in their interventions. Often they are trying to bring about a change that they believe is in the best interest of others (staff, patients, clients, communities) but are using the informal system because, for now, the formal system is working from different assumptions, beliefs or values. It is in this sense that we can acknowledge that breakthrough thinking often has its origins in the shadow side.

Action in the shadow side can be misunderstood or misinterpreted because it is often obscure. The actors may or may not be trying to hide their interventions but will raise suspicions just because they are bypassing formal mechanisms. But conflict can still arise even if interventions are overt because people do “play politics” against each other in pursuit of what they want / what they think is right.

We might also recognise that the shadow side supports people in being who they are rather than just how “the organisation” wants them to be. People usually blossom when they can find a way to bring more of who they are to work. That might be about taking an initiative unrelated to the formal goals of the organisation. Such initiatives can include setting up a club, organising a works outing, being the central figure in a lunch-time group who share a good laugh or bringing in pot plants to cheer up the office.

5. Tensions within the formal organisation

The formal organisation is maintained by those in authority. Often it will be the product of years of continuous improvement. It is not static but is stable because the formal system will ensure ongoing improvements congruent with its core mission, goals, strategies, polices and objectives.

People usually conform because they largely agree with the organisation’s aims and culture and because they are rewarded for compliance (pay, positive feedback) and punished for deviance (grievances, disciplinary procedures).

Nevertheless, insofar as the formal organisation is a complex system (such as health service organisations) there will be tensions which become apparent in such things as negotiating for resources, applying differing interpretations of policy and malicious compliance in contributing to the unintended consequences of targets.

Commonly there are tensions because any member of an organisation is never a perfect fit with the expectations of their role. Any professional job is bigger than the time available to undertake it in every respect and we make choices about priorities based on how we perceive our strengths and what we prefer doing. We each have preferences about who we work with and how we work.

My choice about what I don’t have time to do is different to hers. I spend a lot of time out and about chatting to people, getting a sense of what their interests and views are. I do that at the expense of planning, data collection, analysis and report writing. She hates meetings but really enjoys working with facts and figures. She is an introvert and she prefers writing emails rather than meeting people.

These choices about how we choose to discharge the requirements of our role create tensions when others expect something different. A boss or staff member or colleague who expects more of what she does than what I do will value her contribution more.

6. Tensions within our own thinking as a system

Our own thinking is a complex system and as such always includes contradictions. We find that when we work with the U process and discover our defensive routines or unhelpful mental models.

I like to think I am a man of integrity but in so many ways I espouse X but do Y. My aim is to be honest and open in my dealings with others but I also understand why I avoid difficult conversations, tell lies and behave in underhand ways. I say I put the client first, except when it serves me better not to do so. I believe that nature vastly outweighs nurture but my work is about enabling people to change their thinking. I say all people are well-intentioned, except him who I think betrayed me and her who hurt me deeply.

7. Managing the shadow side

The initiative taking process assumes our breakthrough initiatives have their roots in the shadow side. The Orientation and Exploration phases are shadow side activities.

Orientation is about gathering data, including the attitudes and feelings of other people, about what is actually going on with regard to the thing we want to change. We have the sense that the current (formal) arrangements are not serving people well and we set about testing out that sense that there is a need for change. We find others who share our frustration or disappointment.

Exploration is about gathering support in advance of taking action (on a small scale). We approach friends, team members and colleagues in the organisation to discover how much they will support an initiative for change. We extend our range of enquiry and ask people who we know less well but who might choose to be supporters.

Taking initiative When we think we have enough support we then put an experiment in place (and protect it from the inhibiting influence of the formal system). If the experiment goes well we scale it up. Eventually, if our initiative has real value, we will have enough evidence to confront the formal system.

Changing the formal system. Our initiative can truly be called breakthrough at the point that it is rolled out across the organisation. It then becomes part of the formal system (and presumably we will work to protect our innovation from future initiatives in the informal system that are intended to reverse of change what we think is best).

A similar process describes how any individual comes to fundamentally change his or her mind. Faced with the growing appreciation of the inappropriateness of some aspect of my thinking, I can eventually come to quite a different view. I might become a convert. I might let go of early indoctrination. I might come to see that my assumptions about how best to work with my clients is less appropriate now that circumstances have changed.

This is also part of our work together in Creating Breakthrough. We can each find ways in which our own thinking is part of the problem and if the potential payoffs for us and others are great enough, choose to act out of a different attitude assumption or belief.