Organizational Dysfunctions: Trond Hjorteland (Part 1)

This week’s newsletter captures the key insights and reflections from my conversation with one of my favorite sociotechnical practitioners, Trond Hjorteland, who explores why modern organizations remain plagued by dysfunction despite decades of research and what the data shows. Trond explains OST's (Open Systems Theory) key design question — whether coordination and control sits above the work (DP1) or with the people doing the work (DP2) — and argues the two can’t be mixed without creating confusion that can be worse than classic bureaucracy.

The conversation is centered on Trond’s latest book: Organizational Dysfunctions. Grab a copy with the exclusive discount link (towards the end of this post) for Cyb3rSyn Newsletter subscribers.

He goes on to explain that attempting to mix these styles creates a "frozen middle layer" of management that fosters confusion and lowers employee morale. He critiques the "agile" industry for often being a disguised version of bureaucracy where teams lack genuine autonomy.

By revisiting the Tavistock coal mine studies, he illustrates how technology often disrupts vital social bonds, leading to a loss of meaningfulness and support.

The discussion emphasizes that true effectiveness requires placing the authority with the people doing the work rather than imposing top-down command and control..

Members of the Cyb3rSyn Community can watch/discuss the podcast episode on the www.cyb3rsynlabs.com portal or the mobile app (iOS and Android). The video is also on YouTube here 👇🏾

In the high-pressure corridors of modern technology organizations, we are witnessing a recurring linguistic white flag: the plea for a "grown-up in the room."

It is a visceral cry for help that surfaces when teams, theoretically "empowered" by Agile or DevOps, find themselves drowning in chaos. This longing for external authority isn't a failure of talent; it is the inevitable byproduct of a design flaw.

It was awesome to sit down (for the second time) with Trond to diagnose this malaise. This episode begins by paying tribute to Merrelyn Emery, a giant of Open Systems Theory (OST) who passed away recently. Merrelyn was famously wary of the "Americanized" management consulting jargon that has saturated our industry — words like "team" or "culture" that have been used so often they’ve lost their marrow. She viewed organizational dysfunction as an enemy "conquered but alive and well," and her research provides the surgical tools we need to understand why our modern "transformations" so often stall.

The sobering truth? Most of your problems aren't "culture issues." They are the ghosts of 1940s industrial design, haunting your digital infrastructure. If you are not familiar with OST, you might want to watch the previous episode with Trond here.

Here are the key takeaways and my reflections from the conversation...