Management: „Ich halte die Purpose-Debatte für überhöht“

Judith Jules Muster, an organizational sociologist, argues that companies often blame individual people or their "agility" when a project or transformation process fails. She explains that the issue is usually due to the structures in which those people work. Muster states that many companies look for quick fixes, such as changing the leader or providing expensive coaching, rather than addressing the underlying structures.

This approach, which Muster calls "Structural Protection," is time-consuming and expensive, so the blame is often put on individuals instead. Muster highlights several other common mistakes, such as companies jumping on new methods like "agile" or "Scrum," focusing too much on data and creating new KPIs in other departments, and ranking employees in competition with one another.

While these measures can be helpful, they are not substitutes for a good organizational structure. Muster observes that organizations often set up processes and fail to consider them from end to end, leading to unintended consequences and conflicts. An example of this is a marketing department coordinating with different country teams on a new product launch, without explicitly defining what to do in case of disagreements.

The result is that the team that has the strongest network or negotiation skills often wins, rather than the one with the best solution. Muster also discusses the concept of "practical illegality," where employees create workarounds when formal procedures don't fit their work. This can be functional in the short term but may be incompatible with formal structures in the long run.

Muster argues that organizations should analyze where their formal structures diverge from the actual practices and identify the reasons behind these discrepancies. Addressing these issues can lead to better formal solutions and improve overall organizational performance.