Editorial
When the Org Implodes
Heavy are the heads that wear the crowns.
There comes a time in every big tech corporation when it has grown its headcount to such a mass that it begins to feed upon itself. It starts to implode.
The first sign appears in the management layer, when the balance between political operatives and technical visionaries slowly shifts towards the former. Technical passion loses out to skilful process manipulation and sycophancy. A cannibalistic culture of yes-people becomes the norm.
The result is an unsustainable imbalance, as those without the technical capability consume the output of the diminishing few who still have it.
The overhead part of the organism grows exponentially and the organisation becomes increasingly sluggish and stale. Decisions are either deferred or made based on personal short-term gain, political expediency and nepotism rather than a common vision.
At that point, the corporation does not die. It becomes something more akin to an undead vampire, neither alive nor dead, fully dependent on consuming rather than creating.
The undead corporation is incapable of creative thought or genuine innovation. Its only remaining option is to consume the creations of the living and rebrand them as the latest, greatest product of the undead.
In corporate language, this is known as mergers and acquisitions.
Hostile takeovers, driven by the constant need to feed.
And so arises a culture of corporate cannibalism, in which the organization survives by consuming everything that once made it alive.
Originally published on Inkwulf.
Reading notes
The organizational distinction in this essay is between supporting productive work and consuming it. Management, coordination and review can all contribute to a useful result. The criticism concerns what happens when those functions expand without being asked to demonstrate that contribution. The vampire metaphor gives that imbalance a memorable form: the institution can preserve its size and public identity while losing the capability that originally made it valuable. Acquiring another company's output then becomes a substitute for repairing its own conditions for creation.