Shipulski On Design

Alignment is all the rage. The thinking goes: If we’re all pulling in the same direction, we’ll get their faster. There’s truth to that – the boat does go faster with more oars and more backs pulling on them. And as long as the boat’s heading in the right direction, alignment holds water. But here’s the dark side – while we’re all pulling on our own oar, we’re all sitting in the same boat. And when the boat is scuttled by a fast moving storm, we all go down together – in alignment.

Alignment, overdone, is not resilient. One longboat lost at sea doesn’t spell the end of for the clan, unless there’s only one boat. With the remaining boats, the Jarl can continue with trading neighboring clans while the shipwrights turn oaks into a beautiful replacement. Certainly a setback, but the Vikings survived. But more than survival, it’s also an opportunity for the shipwrights to try a new technology and make the new longboat faster than the old one.

Consensus isn’t the same as alignment, it but it too is in fashion and it too has a dark underbelly. Yes, it creates convergence on a go-forward plan, and, yes, everyone knows the plan and is good with it. But consensus dulls to the lowest common denominator and creates middle-of-the-of-the-road plans devoid of edge, sizzle, and excitement. Consensus reduces diversity of thinking, and, therefore, reduces resilience.

Consensus, unbridled, reduces thinking to a single strain which can be completely wiped out by an unforeseen antibiotic of change. But with consensus in check, many strains of thinking swim about the organization and no one environmental factor can wipe them out. When protected from consensus, diversity of thinking spawns parallel competing mindsets which improve corporate survivability.

Businesses are too complex to predict all possible bacterial and viral attacks. And even if you could, there are just too many too many of them. It’s far too costly for an organization to be robust to all possibilities.

It’s time to acknowledge knowable threats will find you at unpredictable times. And it’s time to evolve into a resilient organization.