Infighting Is Visible; Internal Friction Is the Organization's Slow Suicide
Infighting is visible and even entertaining to watch; internal friction is invisible and gets mistaken for the system and process itself. What really drags a company down isn't who is fighting whom, but everyone chasing a sense of existence amid redundant resources and a missing direction.
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The argument · tap a timestamp to hear it
Internal friction deserves more vigilance than infighting
Colin separates infighting from internal friction: infighting is visible and actively initiated, and sometimes when the fighting is done appropriately it can even be beneficial; internal friction is an invisible drain on resources, with only downsides and no upsides for the organization. What's worse is that when internal friction happens people are often unaware of it, and even feel that ‘this is just how an organization should run’ and ‘this is the company's system, the company's process’. The result is that it dissipates human resources, capital resources, and strategic time resources — a kind of collective suicide. So he believes internal friction is the organizational topic more worth exploring.
— ColinThe root cause is missing direction plus redundant resources
If he could name only one cause, Colin attributes it to a missing organizational direction and excessive resource redundancy: the organization develops chaotically or expands too fast, people don't know what to do, or they make work for themselves. Because they need to pursue a sense of existence and a sense of survival security within the organization, they find things to do that are unrelated to strategy and operations, and even stir up trouble out of nothing and add lots of unnecessary processes. These behaviors not only waste existing resources but further consume other people's strategic priorities and energy, leaving the whole organization lacking a sense of direction and operating in disorder. It happens more at big companies, but small companies have it too — they've raised a lot of money, the product isn't on the market yet, and several partner shareholders are already discussing how to split the profits.
— ColinThree signals to tell whether an organization has internal friction
First, survey different people in the organization on ‘what is the most important strategy, and what are the three most important things around it’. If the answers are all different, the conditions for internal friction are already in place. Second, the organization becomes bureaucratic and mechanistic, doing process for process's sake and system for system's sake, designing extra unnecessary process systems for a sense of managerial order, and even packaging it as the company's culture and management system. Third, everyone lacks effective measurement of results, working blindly and by inertia, making things extremely complicated, and no one knows what any of it actually means for the company.
— ColinInternal friction worsens in three stages, ending in slow suicide
Stage one: strategic disorientation, operational failure, growth stalls. Stage two: the organization becomes bureaucratic and mechanistic, and everyone complies for psychological safety and even proactively adds processes, because process is a protective umbrella — ‘these things all went through the process, so the process should be responsible for the result, not me’. So the old white rabbits stay, and bad money drives out good. Stage three: sudden accelerated decline, forcing layoffs and business cuts. If you do it well you can cut off a limb to survive, focus on one or two core businesses and come back; if you lack the courage to drastically optimize systems and processes, the company may disappear from the market.
— ColinThe grassroots aren't qualified to fight; the middle layer is the main battleground
Colin breaks it down by level: the grassroots usually aren't qualified or positioned to infight — unless the organization is already rotten, there's always work to do, and putting energy into strengthening your skill set is always more important. At worst you pick the wrong side and you're out; if your abilities are strong, moving to a better organization is actually a good thing. The middle layer is the main battleground for infighting — they've gained some status and want to rise further, and when the institutional direction is unclear and processes are redundant, they fight each other for a sense of existence, for performance, for room to grow, expanding territory, fighting for resources, fighting for span of management. The worst is doing nothing at all and then grabbing the results when they come out. Infighting at the top is smaller in volume but greater in intensity, because top people are mostly shareholders or have considerable say, and their fundamental interests are tied more tightly to the company's development.
— ColinPackaged infighting means the disease is already terminal
The most protracted struggles look very mild on the surface: the company sets a strategic direction every year and hangs it on the wall, has standardized written systems and processes, wraps it all in advanced IT tools and systems, and has good competition and reward systems — but the internal logic is the logic of struggle. When executives meet, on the surface they're perfectly aligned, but in execution they run counter to the meeting's conclusions, doing things according to their own understanding, their own way, or even a packaged version. Everyone becomes self-anesthetized, feeling that there are goals and directions and that everyone is working according to systems and processes, when in fact it's slow suicide. Colin says this is both internal friction and infighting — infighting packaged by internal friction, equivalent to a chronic disease that can't be cured.
— ColinInfighting only becomes natural when the industry declines
When the industry is growing fast, even with weaker management and a less clear strategy, as long as the organization is growing everyone can get a bigger slice of the pie, so there's no need to infight. When the industry declines, even a good organization's slice may not grow, and a less clear, less healthy organization's slice will shrink further — the precondition for infighting is established. Add the wrong people chosen, the wrong values orientation, and redundant systems, and infighting becomes natural. The essence is that everyone can't see a bigger hope or room for the organization to develop, so they're struggling to survive on a limited or even shrinking territory, using infighting to grab more of a shrinking pie — whether what they're fighting for is status, authority, or just room to survive.
— ColinThe CEO is either slow to notice or deliberately indulgent
From healthy competition to infighting to internal friction, the CEO often doesn't notice in stage one, because most of what he gets is secondhand information. It's lonely at the top, the people who can pass information through to him are limited, and his judgment depends heavily on those around him. Usually he only notices when infighting is severe or has an impact on the business — possibly months or even a year late. The other, more dangerous kind: the CEO's own understanding is incorrect. The company's rapid growth has masked the harms of infighting, and he even believes that infighting is what guarantees his power stability and control over the organization, so he tacitly allows it to exist and feels it must exist. The first kind may still be able to fix things when the problem is found; the second kind has a very big problem when the industry declines, and may ultimately lead to the company's failure.
— ColinIn their own words · checked verbatim
If the infighting is sometimes done appropriately, we think it may still have some benefit, but internal friction is basically a complete drain on the organization — only downsides, no upsides.
内斗如果说有时候斗的这个恰当 我们觉得可能它还有一定的益处 但内耗基本上就完全是对组织来讲是一种通耗 只有币没有利
Colin4:08
Internal friction is, in fact, the worst outcome — an organization's slow suicide, then rapid decline.
内耗就是 其实是 最差的结果 就是一个组织的 慢性自杀 然后急速的衰亡
Colin11:12
Because process is sometimes a protective umbrella — because everyone is afraid to be responsible for results, I can only rely on the process and say, the process, we put all these things through the process, so the process should be responsible for the result, not me.
因为流程有时候是一个保护伞 因为大家不敢对结果负责 我只能靠流程说 流程 我们这些事情都经过流程了 所以应该流程对结果负责 不是我对结果负责
Colin12:12
When all the executives meet, on the surface they're perfectly aligned, but in execution they all run counter to the meeting's conclusions, or do things according to their own understanding, their own way, even a packaged way — this is a hidden, advanced form of infighting.
所有高管开会的时候表面的时候都非常吻合 但在执行的时候都是跟开会的结果背道而驰 或者按照自己的理解或者按照自己的方式 甚至按照自己就是包装过的方式来做事的时候 这是一种隐藏起来的高级的内斗
Colin42:29
In Japanese companies, the real discussions happen over drinks at night; during the day the Japanese do everything according to systems and processes, so everyone is very amiable, and you can't tell who belongs to whom — you can only guess.
日本企业里面真正谈事情都是晚上喝酒的时候谈出来的 白天的时候日本人都是按照制度流程办事的 所以大家都很和气 谁是谁的人你根本看不出来都是猜的
Colin53:31
The first kind of CEO, when he discovers the problem, may still change it, and may change it well; the second kind of CEO tacitly allows it to exist, even feels it must exist — then the problem is actually quite big.
第一种CEO当发现问题的时候 他可能还会去改 也有可能会改好 第二种CEO他默认他存在 甚至觉得必须要存在的时候 其实问题就比较大了
Colin1:02:37
The longer you stay on a sinking ship, the more it dissipates you.
在一个沉默的船上待得越久 实际上对自己的耗散越大
Colin1:04:38
Glossary
- Silo
- Each department is a vertical chimney with no cross-connection, each putting its own departmental interests first and not taking responsibility for results.
- OGSM
- Objectives, Goals, Strategies, Measures — P&G's annual mechanism for aligning goals, strategies and measurement from top to bottom.
- integrity
- The value most emphasized in P&G's culture; no matter how good your performance, violating it means you can't survive in the company.
- organizational awareness
- The ability to understand the organization's real cultural values, decision-making mechanisms and interest landscape, and thereby find your own path of development.
- resourceful
- When you hit a problem you can't solve yourself, being able to find colleagues, superiors or your own brain trust to discuss and solve it together.
How to listen
Mid-level people at big companies who are struggling and agonizing over whether to pick a side, and startup managers who are starting to feel the organization slow down and the processes get heavy.
After 1:04:13 it's generic advice for office workers, already covered earlier — you can skip it.