These are just some symptoms of an unhealthy organizational culture:
- Lots of red tape and bureaucracy theatre
- Low collaboration and innovation
- Too many meetings
- Poor team performance
- Low productivity
- High stress, anxiety, and burnout
- Disengagement
- Micromanagement
- Unproductive conflict
- Lots of office politics
- Elephants in the room
- Ineffective decision-making
- Lack of transparency, alignment, ownership, and accountability
- Siloized functions and teams
- Difficulty attracting and retaining diverse top talent
There are plenty more.
These are symptoms of an unhealthy organizational culture, not problems.
What is often perceived as the problem in organizations is really a symptom of a complex system. If you treat only the symptom, it might resolve temporarily, but the underlying problem will get worse and you may very well create more problems—and more symptoms…which lead to more headaches, frustrations, and costs.
If you want to address any of these symptoms, then do the work needed to understand the root cause so you can tackle the underlying problem.
(Hint: All the symptoms listed above point to a lack of trust in some form.)
