When the imbalance sets in, the expression that comes to mind is “appearances are often misleading”. In appearance, everything looks good. For people in-house, the situation is perceived as temporary. As it hovers a refusal to believe that these conditions will last, the projected image is positive and faithful to the past. On the other hand, for individuals who join the organization, integration is difficult and they have the impression of having embarked on the wrong boat.
The prevailing climate is difficult to define. Employees appear both motivated and worried. The messages conveyed by most of the company’s staff differ from reality. There is a certain disconnect between what is said and the experience of front-line managers and employees. When external people, who are working in consultation or in new positions internally, bring the subject, they are faced with a wall of protection. The reception is negative and sometimes generates conflicts. Regardless of the facts, the tone and the approach, the staff in place feels judged, attacked and becomes defensive. All have at heart this moral person forged by their toil. They are proud of the work done by the team and identify with what has been achieved to date. At the beginning, outsiders are perceived as negative, culturally incompatible and even incompetent. Then, following some similar experiences with collaborators coming from outside, a malaise settles. This ambiguous contradiction leads the firm involuntarily to a disempowerment. The impression then is that all seem aware, but avoid too much lingering. Nobody wants to raise the problem or take care of it. It is not carelessness, but rather denial.
Suddenly, everything seems more complicated: the initiatives hang, the speed of moderate execution and the quality deteriorates. The loss of synergy is quietly surface. This is not perceived as alarming because the financial impacts are not yet visible. The tendency is to attribute this phenomenon to the increasing number of employees and the time needed to stabilize the teams or at the cruising speed. Organizational motivation, while still present, is eroding to the detriment of maintaining a good personal reputation. Having the right time or getting the exact portrait becomes arduous and lengthy. There are more and more unsaid and omissions. Subtly, the behavior of some people is changing. The political sense, then takes a rise, causing upheavals in terms of internal politics. Among the components of political meaning, the balanced combination of authority and power, with the ability to influence or persuade, becomes more difficult to maintain.
It is implausible that these symptoms do not awaken the organizational consciousness on the imbalance in place. They should sound the alarm, trigger a reaction, create a movement of solidarity to find harmony. Since many companies are overriding these early symptoms, one question should arise: “What are the reasons for inaction or what is the motivation behind the action? “
Would you like to know more? Get “Défi d’entreprise : croître en équilibre” (available in French only) on soniaperroncte.com
