Spotting Creative Evasion Death Spiral
Creative evasion. Not what at first you might think the label describes.
When I came across it, my mind raced through perhaps more pinpointing versions; collective delusion, cross-silo denial, departmental deflection, scapegoat projection.
Writer Matthew Syed cites this term as follows;
"I have a small business that diagnoses company culture and you know what’s the surest sign of an impending death spiral? Let’s call it “creative evasion”. Everyone knows the company is in a hole but they blame everyone else (or every other department) except themselves."
He further summarises that all involved know they're "in decline", "colluding in the pretence that the root cause of decline is other people", and lest we're in any doubt, "it is toxic".
I recall a long distant b-school visit of Graham Day. When taking the reins of embattled car manufacturer immediately rebadged Rover, he explained how he first met each department head.
They'd all read the press that there was fifty million of investment coming. When asked what would be their recommended corrective course of action, guess what they each relayed. Yes, they all said their unit alone needed £50m and all would be sorted.
Interestingly, having done an exercise similar myself at that time, whilst not at such grand scale, I too knew that not all ideas from the floor are created equal.
When abrupt turnaround calls, the answer sits beyond a single source.
Which if nothing else alerted the new broom back then to the personal political drive and absent corporate patriotism inherent in his new top tier team.
I suspect that C-suite displayed a flavour of Syed's creative evasion.
Flipping 'not me, guv', to 'pick me, guv'.
I also know the ease with which you can reveal what lies beneath.
'What's our future?'
Being one such obvious velvet gloved iron fist.
Which we should be keen to deploy.
An early question I used when exploring a pitch.
"What's the strategic vision here?"
It worked, too. Especially after I refined it. Board members could recoil at the specific 'jargon' of "strategy". Particularly coming from someone half their age. Simply swap in everyday words, like 'aim', and the floodgates open.
In this latest modern guise, one sales guide is to rise above the pointing spideys of meme.
Go to the top. The person overseeing. The driver of that NYPD van.
Telling them you've seen a case of creative evasion may not be the immediate approach. There is courage in asking if they've noted any 'pointing spidermen' in their midst, what the 'provocative selling' movement might well heartily applaud. We're there though to 'fix the problem, not the blame'. Best we focus first on the hole.