(s)Mothered By the Immune System

If you read the original Exponential Organizations, you may recall we talked about corporate “immune systems.” Salim first heard this framing from Jeff Kowalski, then the CTO of Autodesk. Here’s how they work: the mother company, sensing Exponential change—too much money devoted to or too many of the organization’s top talents working toward a new initiative, a potentially disruptive shift in focus, or the creation of a wholly new market—initiates an autoimmune response. That is, it releases antibodies to attack and kill the startup from within. Corporate immune systems act as key retrograde forces to organizational change and innovation. You will hear comments like: “That is an unproven strategy, and we can’t afford to waste capital and employee time pursuing that approach.” Or declarations such as, “None of our competitions is pursuing that market. It’s clearly a waste of time and resources.” The ultimate killing phrases include: “That is just risking too much and could destroy the company” and “That will be too hard to even try.”

Riaz Shah, the Global Head of Learning at Ernst and Young, trains 100,000 new hires annually. The following image from Riaz is his take on the immune system:

Too many people who have worked for a business—especially a large enterprise—are familiar with corporate immune systems. The unlucky among them know what it’s like to fall victim to their antibodies. Especially vulnerable to corporate immune systems are startup acquisitions whose dynamic culture (the reason they were acquired) is almost always quashed during integration, squandering much of the value.

This immune response can take many forms, from the passive-aggressive and anonymous blocking of approvals and necessary resources to direct, career-ending attacks. It renders big organizations extremely vulnerable to today’s relentless Exponential disruption.