The Pa Organization

www.hbr.org

The Passive-Aggressive

Organization

by Gary L. Neilson, Bruce A. Pasternack,

and Karen E. Van Nuys

It's a place where more energy

is put into thwarting things

than starting them, but in the

nicest way. A startling

percentage of companies,

especially large, established

ones, display the symptoms.

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This article is made available to you with compliments of Booz Allen Hamilton. Further posting, copying, or distributing is

copyright infringement. To order more copies go to www.hbr.org or call 800-988-0886

The Passive-Aggressive

Organization

by Gary L. Neilson, Bruce A. Pasternack,

and Karen E. Van Nuys

harvard business review * october 2005 page 1

COPYRIGHT © 2005 HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL PUBLISHING CORPORATION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

It's a place where more energy is put into thwarting things than

starting them, but in the nicest way. A startling percentage of

companies, especially large, established ones, display the symptoms.

Healthy companies are hard to mistake. Their

managers have access to good, timely information,

the authority to make informed decisions,

and the incentives to make them on behalf of

the organization, which promptly and capably

carries them out. A good term for the healthiest

of such organizations is "resilient," since they

can react nimbly to challenges and recover

quickly from those they cannot dodge. Unfortunately,

most companies are not resilient. In fact,

fewer than one in five of the approximately

30,000 individuals who responded to a global

online survey Booz Allen Hamilton conducted

describe their organizations that way.

1

The largest

number--over one-quarter--say they suffer

from the cluster of pathologies we place under

the label "passive-aggressive.'' The category

takes its name from the organization's quiet but

tenacious resistance, in every way but openly,

to corporate directives.

In passive-aggressive organizations, people

pay those directives lip service, putting in only

enough effort to appear compliant. Employees

feel free to do as they see fit because there are

hardly ever unpleasant consequences, and the

directives themselves are often misguided and

thus seem worthy of defiance. Making matters

worse, senior management has left unclear

where accountability actually lies, in effect absolving

managers of final responsibility for

anything they do. Those with initiative must

wait interminably for a go-ahead, and their actions

when finally taken are accompanied by a

chorus of second-guessing, a poor but understandable

substitute for the satisfaction of accomplishing

the task at hand. (See the exhibit

"What Kind of Company Is Yours?")

When employees' healthy impulses--to

learn, to share, to achieve--are not encouraged,

other harmful but adaptive conduct

gradually takes over. It is no wonder that action

of any kind becomes scarce and that

erstwhile doers find safety in resisting unpromising

efforts. The absence of confrontation

at such places is only a disguise for

intransigence.

As a general rule, companies that are not

healthy suffer from either too much control at

This article is made available to you with compliments of Booz Allen Hamilton. Further posting, copying, or distributing is

copyright infringement. To order more copies go to www.hbr.org or call 800-988-0886

The Passive-Aggressive Organization

harvard business review * october 2005 page 2

Gary L. Neilson

(neilson_gary@bah

.com) is a senior vice president in the

Chicago office of Booz Allen Hamilton,

a management consulting firm. Formerly

a Booz Allen senior vice president,

Bruce A. Pasternack

(bpasternack@

specialolympics.org) is now serving as

president