Accord Advisory Group

In my last post, I wrote about a disturbingly corrosive organizational trend in which decisions with strong impact upon organizational clients are treated as “business as usual”. While these clients are not always an organization’s end use customers, but rather potential partners in service delivery, the aura of unreflective action may strongly shape negative perception among those closest to the organization.

Piecing together several such occurrences in different organizations, it appears that the decisions have each remained consistent with the respective missions of the organizations, while violating their values. How?

Herbert Simon wrote convincingly about the act of “satisficing” within decision making. This is the balancing of several imperatives facing the organization within a single action. In the present case, it appears that mission and “follow the money” allowed corrosion of organizational values.

One case foundered on a “bait and switch” wherein an applicant for one position was congratulated on his success by the organization while being appointed to a different, less desirable post that had gone unfilled.

The other, equally pragmatic for a different organization, concerned the courtship of a strategic partner for a pro bono collaborative enterprise that might extend the junior partner’s client list. At the last moment, the organization, which had been losing funding benefactors, introduced the condition of a monetary fee as a condition. What the organization understood as sponsorship, its potential partner understood as anticipatory kickback.

In neither case did the termination of the deal by the potential strategic partner appear to signal the organization of its corrosive practices. Instead, the refusal of the deals were accepted as if business proceeded as usual, rather than corrosively influenced by monetary anxiety.

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