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Eng
It's hard to find a black cat in a dark room, especially if it isn't there.
Confucius
I first heard the phrase “Are we looking for a black cat in a dark room?” during a discussion among several scientists about the rationality of a research hypothesis.
The search for a black cat in a dark room, especially when no cat is there, expresses the idea of futile effort. It symbolizes a pursuit of something that likely does not exist and is ultimately absurd. Although this phrase is attributed to Confucius, it is more of a philosophical concept than a direct quote. Applying this idea to the context of Organizational Behavior creates a powerful metaphor, reflecting the wasteful expenditure of energy and resources in organizational management, leading to inefficiency.
In this article, I will try to answer the following questions:
Why do organizational leaders search for a black cat in a dark room, losing consistency and harming the organization in the process?
Why do intelligent people make elementary and absurd mistakes?
To answer these questions, let's consider several theories.
Fear of Missing Out (FOMO)
Do you remember the anxiety in school while waiting for an invitation to a classmate's party? Or the feeling of missing an important event? These emotions are linked to anxiety and regret, commonly referred to as the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO).
The Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) has been a part of human nature and our daily lives since ancient times. Early humans instinctively understood that missing out on food, shelter, or a suitable mate could jeopardize the survival of their species. Therefore, this fear is universal and present in every person, race, generation, and gender. However, with the advent of technology, particularly social media, FOMO has significantly intensified.
Herman first highlighted FOMO in 2000 (Herman D, 2000), using the term to describe consumer behavior. However, after the COVID-19 pandemic, the term became more generalized, with modern authors using it to explain anxiety. Given this growing trend, people are often referred to in literature not as HOMO Sapiens but as FOMO Sapiens.
In the context of Organizational Behavior, FOMO reflects human anxiety and fear of missing out on an opportunity, innovation, or trend that may be crucial. Here, we talk about a leader who, under the influence of FOMO, is constantly searching for new initiatives and losing consistency.
FOMO can manifest in the following forms:
Copying every new trend that may be less relevant or inappropriate for the business.
Constantly implementing innovations and initiatives when core business processes are not yet established.
Making hasty decisions that are not aligned with the company's long-term strategy.
Taking unjustified risks, such as investing significant resources based on current trends and intuition without prior market analysis.
In today's world, the pursuit of new ideas is essential. However, decisions fueled by FOMO can lead to impulsive and unpredictable leadership, much like searching for a black cat in a dark room—even when it isn’t there.
Fast Thinking (System 1) vs. Slow Thinking (System 2)
According to Daniel Kahneman's book «Thinking, Fast and Slow», people use two different thinking systems when making decisions. When the outcome is easily predictable or when we encounter something familiar, we make fast, intuitive decisions; this type of thinking is called System 1. On the other hand, when faced with a complex task or unfamiliar environment, we start applying more deliberate and slow thinking, activating System 2.
Fast thinking, or System 1, is the brain's automatic mode, which conserves effort and energy. It is formed based on previous experience, decisions, and the environment in which we grew up. Often, System 1 is helpful as it saves energy, helps us navigate our environment, and avoids constantly reconsidering details. For example, in everyday life, we use System 1 more frequently, while System 2, which involves slow thinking, can be tiring and irritating when used often.
However, it's important to note that System 1 has its drawbacks—it is prone to errors, subjective judgments, and biases. System 1 does not account for important details and relies on existing experience.
The choice between fast thinking (System 1) and slow thinking (System 2) is fully conscious; a person chooses which system to rely on when planning. It is also worth noting that System 1 operates automatically, like an autopilot, so in stressful situations or when fatigued, a person is inclined to make decisions with minimal energy expenditure, using System 1.
This is why intelligent people sometimes make very simple mistakes and, based on System 1, may instruct their team to search for a black cat in a dark room, as it worked in the past. In such cases, we encounter a pattern-based approach and a rigid attitude toward the surroundings ("don't miss the important stuff"). As a result, the company may stagnate instead of correctly utilizing and developing new opportunities.
How can this be changed?
Fear of missing out (FOMO) can be a powerful and legitimate motivator for both leaders and teams. However, it's crucial to recognize its potential downsides. Striking a balance between fast, instinctive thinking (System 1) and slow, analytical thinking (System 2) is essential for effective decision-making.
While it's natural to rely on fast thinking for routine tasks, navigating complex situations requires the deliberate approach of slow thinking. It's important to remember that both FOMO and fast, automatic thinking are intrinsic parts of us. They can be managed through self-reflection, continuous development, seeking feedback from your team, and maintaining a healthy work-life balance. These practices help ensure that you don’t overlook critical details due to stress or incomplete information, avoid making decisions driven solely by FOMO or Fast thinking, and most importantly, resist the temptation to chase a black cat in a dark room, especially when it isn’t there.
If the growth of your company is not proportional to the growth of the result, If synergy is not created in the team, they do not talk about their mistakes and do not share their experiences. Then your organization may have an silo mentality and the organization itself is an silo organization.
A silo organization refers to a situationally small organization, divided into small, mechanical groups, where employees create a subculture adapted to them and, in some cases, develop terminology, a colloquial language characteristic of the subculture.
A subculture can be formed by departments, organizational ranks, and/or even a few individuals within a department. The steps, changes and sentiments made in such subcultures are unknown to the other group.
The formation of mechanical subcultures, the same silo subculture, is a hindrance to the organization because it separates it from the overall purpose or mission of the organization. At the same time, they operate with their own micro-interests in mind, reducing efficiency and synergy at the organizational or departmental level.
Silo organization - formed by the style of silo thinking, originating from the archaic past, tribal principles.
People still retain the impulses of tribal organization and tend to form a small subculture, have a sense of belonging to this subculture and enter into competition with another subculture, “resist” it, these impulses dictate interaction in small subcultures and other subcultures. - Competition with cultures[1].
When an organization lacks the opportunity for communication and quality connections at a cultural or system level, when the organizational culture is not based on respectful relationships, and when senior management rewards only results-oriented and competitive behavior, it reinforces the silo mentality. For example, the principle of competition between departments increases disunity and kills the desire to cooperate. Tolerance of such an environment by management causes significant damage to the culture of the organization and leads to increased silo thinking/mentality.
Interestingly, silo thinking/mentality can form unintentionally when one team, a department, tries to quickly improve efficiency but fails to consider the processes and activities of other teams.
Silo thinking has a major impact on organizational performance and can take several forms:
Low employee motivation and high staff turnover
Most of the team that leaves a job within a year of starting feels isolated, lacking the ability to collaborate and lacking a sense of unity with the team or leader.
Inefficiency, increasing number of unsuccessful projects
Teams with a silo mentality often fail due to a lack of communication and reluctance to share expertise, and their project completion rate is low and/or slow.
Missed opportunity
Silo mentality perceives the environment from a narrow perspective. Such teams are less likely to accept and share the experiences and perspectives of a new team member. In such an organization, there may be a feeling of missed opportunities, which can be expressed in words and/or actions, for example: “I already tried this method and it didn’t work,” “I tried talking many times, but it didn’t work,” etc.
Lack of alternative way to solve the problem.
Due to lack of communication and silo mentality, companies and teams miss out on alternative ways to solve problems and achieve goals. They lose the opportunity to creatively analyze the current situation.
There are several ways to change silo mentality, all of which involve improving collaboration and communication.
Let's look at some possible steps to help you change your silo organization:
Understanding the mission and vision of the organization by the team
An important way to overcome silo mentality is to define a clear, vibrant, authentic mission and vision. An equally important step in defining the mission and vision is to involve senior management in the development process and explain the importance of the mission and vision to each team member, showing their role in achieving the larger goal.
Leader's role
Silo mentality can be changed through an engaged and engaged leader who encourages employees. Ask questions and create appropriate platforms for them.
To change silo mentality, it is important for a leader to be a role model, empathetic and open to employees' ideas and initiatives.
Changing components of organizational culture
Changing silo mentality is very difficult without rethinking and changing the organizational culture and values in the organization. The main principle is to discover values that are organic to the organization and at the same time define success, emphasize it and take into account it in every process or standard of the organization.
In building culture, it is important to replace negative or neutral connection (causing silos) with high quality connection (HQC) in the organization. Also informal leaders in the organization, the so-called Involvement of cultural intermediaries and their support in changing the thinking of subcultures. Emphasizing the importance of cultural intermediaries in shaping organizational systems and making them a core component of the system.
Mobile organizational structure
It is an organizational structure that facilitates the organization and ability of departments to work together. The best example of such an organizational structure is the flexible structure.
When reviewing the structure and changing it, it is important to identify challenges in the organization, successful and unsuccessful examples of communication and collaboration, and establish an inclusive framework that will help:
• Establishing clearly defined roles and responsibilities;
• creating collaboration platforms and simple processes to get work done quickly;
• clearly define the responsibilities and powers of the organization's middle managers and strengthen them;
• clearly establishing the management style in the organization and uniting people around a common goal.
Cross-functional teams (also called tiger teams)
This arrangement of teams is fully consistent with modern business standards and involves bringing together people from different departments, functions, skills and knowledge to implement one common project and/or goal. The composition of cross-functional teams can vary depending on the goals and objectives. There are two types of cross-functional teams (“tiger teams”). In one case, the team meets once when a big problem arises. An example of this is the principle of teamwork in crisis management. In the second case, the team is more permanent in nature - for example, where a person on the team has a role parallel to his day-to-day responsibilities in the organization, for example, in an organization, the person may be a financial manager and at the same time be a member of a cross-functional team formed to share experience, whose task is development of organizational development and exchange systems. In both cases, periodic rotation of team members is desirable.
Information flow
To avoid organizational silos, it is very effective to use a common management platform that will share news/information across the organization and reflect the status of completed and/or ongoing projects. It is also important to have a communications scheme in the organization, which will detail the principle of managing information flows, as well as the type and frequency of information dissemination within the company.
[1] The book "Cultural Puzzle" by Mario Mos, Derek Newberry and Greg Urban.