This week’s newsletter captures the key insights and reflections from part 2 of my conversation with one of my favorite sociotechnical practitioners, Trond Hjorteland.
The conversation is centered on Trond’s latest book: Organizational Dysfunctions. Grab a copy with the special discount link (towards the end of this post) - exclusive to the subscribers of the Cyb3rSyn Newsletter.
In this episode, we explore how dysfunctional, DP1-style organizations' over-focus on metrics (like DORA) and frameworks (Agile/Scrum, Team Topologies), strips away context, prompting gaming, “everything is fine” reporting, and burnout.
Trond argues these metrics are outputs of deeper conditions and should be owned and re-contextualized by the people doing the work, not imposed from management.
When tools like AI are imposed by leadership, they risk deskilling workers and treating them as replaceable parts rather than purposeful human beings. Conversely, a Design Principle 2 structure empowers those doing the work to control their own coordination, fostering genuine engagement and higher quality output.
Trond qualifies quiet quitting as a rational response to environments that deny workers autonomy and meaningful purpose. A MUST WATCH for technology managers and executives!
“𝗜𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗮𝗯𝘀𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗲𝗹𝘆 𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗮 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗻 𝗱𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴.”
Podcast Video
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 👇🏾
Key Insights and My Reflections
Why do modern engineering teams, despite adopting Agile, Scrum, Team Topologies, DORA metrics, and AI assistants like Copilot and Claude so frequently end up exhausted, misaligned, and burned out?
Leadership introduces these tools with the best intentions to boost throughput and morale, yet the end result is often quiet disengagement, gamed metrics, and severe friction. Trond explains this all in his book, which is rooted in Open Systems Theory (OST).
According to OST, organizations choose between two foundational principles:
Design Principle 1: A structure built on non-autonomous parts where the responsibility for coordination and control is placed above the people doing the work. Individuals are treated as replaceable cogs.
Design Principle 2: A self-managing structure where the responsibility for coordination and control is located within the team doing the work. Individuals possess multi-functional capabilities and collective ownership.
If you are not familiar with OST, you might want to watch the past episode with Trond here. Here are the key takeaways and my reflections from the conversation...
Table of Contents
Prescriptions Are for the Unserious
Quiet Quitting Is a Rational Response
The AI Deskilling Trap
"Watermelon Reporting" and Goodhart's Law
People Don't Resist Change
The Quest for Sustainable Transformation
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