This summary is meant to highlight the salient points and our thinking on the subject. Please feel free to add your own reading and thoughts in the comments section. Enjoy!

In May 2000 seven people died and hundreds were sickened in Walkerton when the water supply of this small Ontario town was contaminated with E. Coli and Campylobacter jejuni bacteria.

This paper was commissioned by the Walkerton Inquiry set up to investigate. Rather than focus on the organizational failings that led to the tragedy itself, the authors discuss modern organizational theory in general.

The questions posed in the paper are reminiscent of those asked by many CEOs and sales leaders:

• What causes a well-intentioned organization to make decisions that lead to disastrous results?
• Why do good people appear to produce bad results?
• Why are some of our most difficult lessons only learned after a disastrous event?
• Why don’t people act to avoid crises when it is obvious they are inevitable?

The authors’ underlying message is that the failings that lead to disasters have more to do with:

• Dysfunctional organization, structure and systems and non-supportive cultures
• Institutionalized values that promote a natural disposition to be self-interested and defensive, especially under adverse circumstances
• Patterns of organizational behavior [described as organizational steering mechanisms] that exacerbate individuals’ negative behaviors and creative avoidance
• In the absence of a supportive and learning environment people default to their human frailties
• Strategy, power, financial, social and political barriers all contribute to “smart organizations doing dumb things.”

In many ways these points can be seen in everyday sales organizations where the hiring process and performance management system is broken.

Although well-intentioned at the outset bad hiring decisions invariably lead to disaster. At the point of no return the default behavior is to point out the failed individuals’ deficiencies while the root of the problem [the hiring process, belief systems and steering mechanisms that supports it] remains unresolved.

In their report the authors conclude that to avoid escalating problems and their attendant cover ups executive leadership must correct the steering mechanisms which exacerbate the problems. This is achieved through heightened awareness, improved accountability and collaboration across three broad areas of organizational development:

• Organizational structure
• Organizational processes, and
• People at work

Download the PDF version here:
Why do People and Organizations Produce the Opposite of What they Intend?