This Morning's Epiphany

In classes that I teach for corporate clients, we cover the practice of problem management, which involves the identification of underlying causes of errors and figuring out how best to deal with them. All organizations have imperfections that cause incidents. Organizations that have not yet advanced on their learning curve are often so busy with just getting along that they do whatever is necessary to alleviate their errors without seeking to understand them. Becoming aware that there can be value in figuring out why some bad things happen and what we might be able to do about it is one measure of organizational maturity.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu expressed this very well when he said: “There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.” He expressed it from a spiritual context, but I find this idea readily applicable to the technical context of problem management.

Problems that have been investigated and understood are called “known errors.” This implies that before being studied and understood, we could think of them as “unknown errors.” In both cases, the problems exist, but the difference lies in our level of perception.

As known errors are documented, an organization better understands its technical burdens. This collection of known errors is called the organization’s technical debt. Using the term debt enables us to consider that there may be some conceptual interest rate associated with this collection of errors. Holding more technical debt for a more extended period is likely to be associated with higher levels of risk and cost. The degree to which an organization understands its technical debt and acts to mitigate the associated risks and costs is another measure of organizational maturity.

We also discuss the values and behaviors that contribute to an organization’s unique social and psychological environment. This is known as organizational culture. Challenges in these areas can result from disregarding cultural considerations and instead allocating our time, attention, and resources to other areas such as growth or innovation. These cultural errors can result in a level of cultural debt. Dharmesh Shaw, the founder and CTO of HubSpot, states, “The effective interest rate on cultural debt is usually higher than on technical debt.”

The realization that the figurative interest rate on cultural debt is relatively higher than that of technical debt can drive new levels of introspection and maturity within organizations. I have seen the reaction of organizational leaders when presented with this idea and the benefits that resulted when those leaders took action to deal with cultural and technical debt.

My understanding and acceptance of these concepts have been limited to the corporate realm. My focus has been outward, and my efforts aimed at helping others to understand the potential positive impact this can have on them. My morning epiphany today was that I need to turn my focus inward to take this to the next level. To better help others, I need to put more time, effort, and resources into understanding and mitigating my own cultural (psychological) and technical (physical) shortcomings.