Organizational Loss: Searching Behavior

With personal grief, there is a phenomenon known as searching behavior. The aggrieved might imagine sightings of the lost loved one, or even apparitions. Sometimes these experiences can be unsettling — the aggrieved can't put their loved ones out of their minds. They're distracted. They can't think straight.

Something similar happens to organizations.

Just like personal loss, organizational loss can take many forms. A company can suffer dramatic market reversals, lose market dominance, suffer a damaging product recall, endure a series of increasingly severe layoffs, and suffer the death of a dynamic leader, or even its founder.

In organizational grief, searching behavior can take bizarre forms. Here are some of them.

Delusional market opportunities

After the organization loses a market opportunity, market opportunities can actually be hallucinated. The group might identify and vigorously pursue strategies or tactics that hearken back to the lost opportunity.

Today's market opportunities don't necessarily align with yesterday's. To move forward, the organization might have to try something new.

Recovering lost dominance

After the organization loses a dominant market position of long standing, it might "discover" a strategy to restore market dominance even when other healthier firms firmly control the market. Or it might try to restore a position now plainly fragmented by new technologies, new ideas or natural events.

Dominance usually goes to those who provide a solution that's some mixture of "right" and "early." Asking for do-overs rarely pays off.

One lesson of the past
that usually bears
repeating is modesty

The founder's museum

In personal loss, attachment to the personal effects of the loved one is common. The organizational form is similar. Firms that have lost their founder and come on hard times financially might devote precious resources to constructing monuments, museums, or displays. A portrait, a bust or even a statue might be reasonable for most, but museums dedicated to displaying the effects of the founder are much bigger investments.

Displays that emphasize the lessons of the past, in some proportional way, can be inspiring. One lesson of the past that usually bears repeating is modesty.

The memorial prize or medal

Some organizations establish scholarships or prizes in the names of their lost founders or leaders. The resources are expended with little regard for the financial returns, often in the hope that the activity will inspire or motivate employees, or bring honor to the organization.

While maintaining connection to the person lost is certainly a valid goal, especially for those who feel personal loss, keep in mind the effects of award frequency. Annual awards aren't likely to encourage contributions that match the scale of the contributions of the person being memorialized.

These behaviors can be either healthy or not. Two factors distinguish the unhealthy: the proportionality of the effort, and the scale of the investment compared to the possible organizational benefit. Both are difficult to quantify, but if you feel a twinge of embarrassment, consider it an indicator of trouble.  Top    Next Issue

Are your projects always (or almost always) late and over budget? Are your project teams plagued by turnover, burnout, and high defect rates? Turn your culture around. Read 52 Tips for Leaders of Project-Oriented Organizations, filled with tips and techniques for organizational leaders. Order Now!

Your comments are welcome

About Point Lookout

Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful, and that you'll consider recommending it to a friend.

Point Lookout is a free weekly email newsletter. Browse the archive of past issues. Subscribe for free.

Support Point Lookout by joining the Friends of Point Lookout, as an individual or as an organization.

Do you face a complex interpersonal situation? Send it in, anonymously if you like, and I'll give you my two cents.

Related articles

More articles on Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness:

Guidelines for Delegation

Mastering the art of delegation can increase your productivity, and help to develop the skills of the people you lead or manage. And it makes them better delegators, too. Here are some guidelines for delegation.

Ending Sidebars

We say that a sidebar is underway in a meeting when two or more meeting participants converse without having been recognized by the chair. Sidebars can be helpful, but they can also be disruptive. How can we end sidebars quickly and politely?

Holding Back: I

When members of teams or groups hold back their efforts toward achieving group goals, schedule and budget problems can arise, along with frustration and destructive intra-group conflict. What causes this behavior?

The Goal Is Not the Path

Sometimes, when reaching a goal is more difficult than we thought at first, instead of searching for another way to get there, we adjust the goal. There are alternatives.

Performance Mismanagement Systems: I

Some well-intentioned performance management programs do more harm than good, possibly because of mistaken fundamental beliefs. Specifically: the fallacy of composition, the reification error, the myth of identifiable contributions, and the myth of omniscient supervision.

See also Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness and Workplace Politics for more related articles.

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming December 7: Reaching Agreements in Technological Contexts

Reaching consensus in technological contexts presents special challenges. Problems can arise from interactions between the technological elements of the issue at hand, and the social dynamics of the group addressing that issue. Here are three examples. Available here and by RSS on December 7.

And on December 14: Straw Man Variants

The straw man fallacy is a famous rhetorical fallacy. Using it distorts debate and can lead groups to reach faulty conclusions. It's ad readily recognized, but it has some variants that are more difficult to spot. When unnoticed, trouble looms. Available here and by RSS on December 14.

Coaching services

I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrenZLkFdSHmlHvCaSsuner@ChacbnsTPttsdDaRAswloCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.

Get the ebook!

Past issues of Point Lookout are available in six ebooks:

• Get 2001-2 in Geese Don't Land on Twigs (PDF, )
• Get 2003-4 in Why Dogs Wag (PDF, )
• Get 2005-6 in Loopy Things We Do (PDF, )
• Get 2007-8 in Things We Believe That Maybe Aren't So True (PDF, )
• Get 2009-10 in The Questions Not Asked (PDF, )
• Get all of the first twelve years (2001-2012) in The Collected Issues of Point Lookout (PDF, )

Are you a writer, editor or publisher on deadline? Are you looking for an article that will get people talking and get compliments flying your way? You can have 500-1000 words in your inbox in one hour. License any article from this Web site. More info