The Crooked Tangle—How Personal Greed Can Strangle Organizations
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Today’s Wall Street Journal headline story outlines the case of Illinois Governor Rod. R. Blagojovich . The chief executive of the state of Illinois was arrested today for attempting to sell President-elect Obama’s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama Illinois Senate seat. He was also charged with conspiring to bribe others and committing mail and wire fraud. Federal authorities also allege that the governor attempted to bribe the head of Children’s Memorial Hospital in exchange for state funding. Further, the FBI alleges that the governor wanted Chicago Tribune reporters who were critical of him to be removed in exchange for a speedier sale of Wrigley Field.
I define an organization tangleTM as the convergence of strong egos, protected turf, and the propensity to blame others in the midst of complex challenges. In this case, Governor Blagojovich presides over a state government, not a corporation. However, I believe that his case represents the extreme of behavior possible within any organization and illustrates the definition of a Crooked Tangle. A Crooked Tangle occurs when a leader’s personal agenda overshadows the common good.
What is interesting in this Crooked Tangle is that Governor Blagojovich campaigned as a reformer promising to turn around the corruption practices in a previous administration. This leads me to believe that this is as much a systemic tangle as a personal one. In other words, my guess is that the norms within the Chicago government condone behavior that clearly are unethical. And this raises the question of accountability.
We have seen Crooked Tangles on Wall Street. Clearly the heads of any number of financial firms turned their backs on unethical practices. And their Boards also turned a blind eye. A Crooked Tangle cannot exist within a corporation if there is a strong Board of Directors who holds executive leaders responsible for ethical and responsible behavior.
This Crooked Tangle serves as a nasty reminder that sheer hubris and greed, if left unchecked, can strangle an organization. In this case, we have yet to see the broad effects within the state of Illinois.
Tweet This Post 
Plurk This Post 
Buzz This Post 
Delicious 
Digg This Post 
Ping This Post 
Reddit 
Stumble This Post
« Building Trust during Merger Integrations | Home | More Crooked Tangles—Who Can We Trust? »
Leadership Tangles Categories
- Assessment
- Business
- Business ethics
- Change
- Change Leadership
- Collaboration
- Complexity
- Crisis
- crisis leadership
- Decision Making
- Emotional intelligence
- Fear
- Leadership
- Leadership and Coaching
- Leadership Development
- Leadership Skills
- Leadership Wisdom
- Merger integration
- Organization Structure
- Positive psychology
- Strategy
- Team Development
- Uncategorized
- VUCA
-
Leadership Tangles Recent Posts
- When Leaders have Each Other’s Backs, Teams Have Less Tangles
- Shaun White, Olympic Gold Medalist, and VUCA Leadership
- You Can’t Hurry Trust . . . You Just Have to Wait
- Why Exceptional Leaders Provide Air Cover . . . And Prevent Tangles
- Leaders: What Avatar Reveals about Respecting Differences and Organizational TanglesTM
- Last Minute Holiday Shopping? Give the Development Gift Pack
- Night of the Living Dead, VUCA, and Strangling Tangles
- Warning Signs that you have a Jangle TangleTM—Compliments of Brothers and Sisters
- How to Build a Culture of Fear in 3 Easy Steps
- Beware: The Shadow of the Leader Can Become the Shadow of the Gang
- 5 Reasons it’s So Hard to Give Tough Performance Feedback
- What Leaders Can Learn from Michael Jackson
- What Leaders Can Learn from Twitter, Facebook, and #Iran Election?
- Ignore Warning Signs at Our Mutual Peril
- What’s Divorce Got to Do with It?
Follow me
Comments
Marcia;
I ask this not from a political viewpoint, but from an accountability standpoint.
Would you also say there is a crooked tangle within the auto industry, labor unions, Congress and the White House? I understand, I think, the public reasons for their bailout, and the unions stance, and Congress’s. I have issue with believing that accountability will be held.
Bart
Bart, this is a great question. I landed on the concept of tangles while attempting to understand the complexity of challenges facing today’s organizations. These situations are tangles because of intertwined human, organizational, and business dimensions. The situation with the auto industry, labor unions, Congress, and White House is bigger than a Crooked Tangle. Based on what I have read, I am not sure if the auto industry and labor unions are intentionally attempting to get something that doesn’t belong to them. As you noted, they each are taking a position based on their own self-interests. The auto industry wants to survive, labor unions want to maintain their lucrative contracts. Congress doesn’t want to be blamed for handing out a blank check.
This is more like a Wicked Tangle, named after Horst Rittel’s notion of wicked problems(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_problem). Wicked Tangles are characterized by a set of interlocking human and organizational challenges that cannot be solved by linear thinking. It’s wicked because once you solve one problem, you likely create another one.
Your question about accountability goes to the heart of the matter. Who is really accountable for fixing this mess? And can we trust them? Based on what I know about this crisis and my own experience, I believe that each key stakeholder must have some skin in the game. They all win together, or all lose together. That is probably the only way that any solution will work. What do you think?
Leave a Comment