EP 34 - The Dangerous Myth of Harmless Behaviors - how to sabotage High-Performing Organizations

Welcome back, Digital Warriors! ⚔️

In our last battle, we wrapped up the Digital Transformation Mini-Series (26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31) with a grand finale at the #IAD24 conference in Florence. If you missed it, we broke down the top five reasons digital transformations fail and laid out a blueprint for moving beyond transformation to embrace true evolution. Spoiler alert:

it’s not about the tech—it’s about the people.

And as always, the fight for digital excellence marches on! Today, we’re sharpening our swords for a new challenge:

What if I told you that some of the behaviors we tolerate in our teams—the ones we brush off as “just their personality”—are quietly sabotaging everything we’re trying to build?

Lately, we’ve been spotting an unsettling pattern: the acceptance of behaviors that, while seemingly harmless, are eroding the very foundations of high-performance software organizations. Grab your shields 🛡️ fellow digital warriors ⚔️. This one’s going to get real.

Meet the Silent Archetype: A Scenario We All Know Too Well- A Real-Life Scenario to Reflect On

Before we dive deeper into the impact of unnoticed behaviors, let’s step into a scenario you’ll likely recognize. Sometimes, abstract discussions about dysfunction can feel distant, so let’s bring it closer to home—a story that mirrors situations we’ve all faced at work.

This isn’t just an example; it’s a mirror. One you might find uncomfortably familiar.

The Silent Introvert: A Tale as Old as Software Teams

Picture 🖼️ this: You’re in a sprint planning meeting, and the whole team is throwing ideas on the table. Well, almost the whole team. In the corner, quietly observing, sits someone you know all too well. Let’s call him Mike.

Mike rarely speaks up. He's technically competent, maybe even brilliant, but you’d never know it because his contributions are always… well, silent. Retrospectives? He nods politely but offers no feedback. Brainstorming sessions? He takes notes but rarely pitches an idea. Pair programming? It’s more like solo coding with an observer. At first, you shrug 🤷 it off. “That’s just Mike. He's introverted. Let him work the way he's comfortable.” After all, everyone’s got their own style, right?

But then something strange starts happening. The team begins to adapt—subtly, unconsciously. Conversations shrink. Decision-making slows. The loudest voices dominate the room, and critical ideas are left unspoken. All the while, Mike remains silent, and you’re left wondering: Is this just their personality, or is it something deeper?

This is where the real problem begins. Silence, in a high-velocity software team, isn’t neutral. It’s disruptive!

It slows the feedback loop, disrupts collaboration, and chips away at the team’s ability to respond to change effectively. And yet, this behavior often goes unchallenged—worse, it’s tolerated as part of the team dynamic. Sound familiar? If you’ve worked on a software team, chances are you’ve met Mike. 😉

Why Mike’s Behavior is Dysfunctional

Let’s start by defining what we mean by “dysfunctional.” In clinical terms, dysfunction refers to:

“an abnormality or impairment in the function of a system, organ, or process.”

Applied to human behavior, dysfunction arises when someone’s actions—or lack thereof—hinder the collective ability of a group to operate effectively.

Now, let’s zoom in on Mike. His silence might seem harmless, even polite. But in a high-performance software team, where collaboration is the lifeblood, that silence becomes an obstacle. Here’s why, but to understand dysfunction, we need to first recognize what’s functional. Let’s pull from Alistair Cockburn and Jim Highsmith’s classic article, “Agile Software Development: The People Factor (December 2001).” They boil effectiveness in software teams down to two critical principles:

1. Reduce the cost of moving information between people.
2. Reduce the time between making a decision and seeing its consequences.

Simple, right? But here’s the catch: these principles rely on fast, open, and continuous communication. Every moment someone like Mike stays silent, and we accept it, labeling it as introverted, is a moment where information isn’t flowing, where decisions are delayed, and where the team’s ability to adapt is eroded.

Mike’s silence might look like a harmless personality trait, but in the complex social context of software development, it’s a dysfunctional behavior in disguise. Consider these ripple effects:

• Bottlenecked Information: Valuable ideas, insights, or warnings stay locked inside Mike’s head, unavailable to the team.
• Decision Paralysis: Without input from everyone, decisions take longer—or worse, they’re made without critical perspectives.
• Cultural Drift: Mike’s silence sets a precedent, subtly shifting the team culture. Over time, others might start holding back, too, turning silence into the norm.

Morale of the story:

What starts as an accepted individual behavior quietly hijacks the entire team culture, shifting it away from high performance. The takeaway is clear: tolerated dysfunctional behaviors—whatever their form—aren’t just unhelpful; they’re actively disruptive.

Cultural Drift: When Dysfunction Becomes the Norm

Here’s the tricky thing about team culture—it’s not static. It’s an evolving ecosystem shaped by the behaviors, decisions, and interactions of the people within it. At its core, culture can be understood as the average behavior of the team. Think of it like a Gaussian distribution (Bell Curve). In any team, you’ll find a spectrum of behaviors, from highly collaborative to less collaborative, or highly engaged to disengaged. Most people fall somewhere in the middle of the curve—the average.

But here’s the catch: the behaviors shown by the “average” are, in fact, the team’s social culture. When we tolerate a dysfunctional behavior to the point that it becomes normalized—such as the persistent silence and disengagement of my mirrored avatar, Mike—we shift that average into dangerous territory. The result?

Unaware cultural drift.

Over time, the entire team begins to drift toward the tolerated behavior, reshaping the culture itself. This phenomenon, known as cultural drift, is subtle but profoundly damaging. And here’s the harsh reality:

dysfunctional behaviors are often more attractive than virtuous ones.

Why? Because our brains are wired for energy efficiency. Dysfunctional behaviors, like passiveness and disengagement, require less effort and energy. They’re the path of least resistance—and as a result, they spread faster than we realize.

Behavioral Conditioning and Adaptation

Humans are social creatures, hardwired to adapt to their environment. In teams, this manifests as behavioral mimicry—the unconscious tendency to align with the norms we observe around us.

Why does this happen? The answer lies in our brains, specifically in the mirror neurons located in our frontal cortex. Discovered by Professor Giacomo Rizzolatti and his team at the University of Parma, mirror neurons fire not only when we perform an action but also when we observe someone else doing it. This process is how humans learn, empathize, and adapt to social environments.

But it’s not just the exposure to behaviors that leads to their adoption—it’s the repetition. Here’s where the concept of atomic habits, popularized by James Clear in his book Atomic Habits, comes into play. Repetition is what transforms a behavior—whether positive or dysfunctional—into a habit, making it automatic and deeply ingrained. Think about smoking 🚬. Many people decide to quit, but their hand still unconsciously reaches into their pocket for a cigarette, even when there’s none there. This happens because repetition has made the action second nature.

Similarly, in teams, the repeated exposure to and toleration of dysfunctional behaviors like silence or disengagement doesn’t just normalize them—it hardwires and fuels them into the team’s culture.

1. Social Learning: Team members unconsciously emulate behaviors they see as acceptable or dominant in the group.
2. Normalization Through Repetition: Over time, the passive repeated exposure to behaviors like silence or disengagement reinforces them. This repetition slowly becomes more active, and it's what makes the behavior “stick,” turning it into an unconscious habit.
3. Cultural Drift: The team’s collective behavior shifts, driven by the ripple effect of mirror neuron-based adaptation and the habit loop created by repetition. Dysfunction becomes second nature, deeply embedded and resistant to change.

This is the subtle, dangerous power of repeated exposure to dysfunction:

it creates habits so deeply wired that they feel almost impossible to undo.

Like a smoker trying to quit, teams that have internalized these dysfunctional behaviors will find themselves reaching for the metaphorical “cigarette” without even realizing it. This is the real danger of tolerating dysfunctional behavior:

once it becomes second nature, undoing it requires a massive effort.

Even the most skilled behavioral designer will face a steep challenge in reversing deeply ingrained habits—and the cost of such a campaign far outweighs the effort of addressing and spotlighting the issue from day one, preventing it from taking root.

A Quick Fix 🔧 - The Power of a Social Contract

To address cultural drift and safeguard against dysfunctional behaviors, one of the most powerful tools a team can adopt is the “social contract.”

A social contract is a living document, collaboratively created by the team, to normalize behaviors that are welcomed and highlight the “dark spots”—the behaviors to watch for and address early. It serves as a shared guide, setting clear expectations for what’s acceptable and what isn’t, creating a culture of accountability and mutual respect.

We’ve known since as early as 2001, thanks to pioneers like Alistair Cockburn, that software is fundamentally about mastering communication. Yet, organizations often focus solely on technical skills, ignoring the environment necessary for tech profiles to thrive. By fostering clarity and transparency through a social contract, teams create the foundations for an ecosystem where collaboration flourishes—regardless of individual ability or neurodiversity.

Clarity and transparency become the foundation of long-lasting efficiency and happiness. When everyone knows the behavioral expectations, the team culture becomes self-repairing. Small fractures in morale or communication are addressed immediately, like in the ancient Japanese art of Kintsugi—where broken pottery is restored with gold, creating something even stronger and more beautiful than before.

Call to Action - Turn Culture Into an Asset

At BriX Consulting , we specialize in behavioral engineering applied to high-performance environments, especially software development. With our groundbreaking Unicorns’ Ecosystem and revolutionary KBI (Key Behavioral Indicators) framework integrated into the SW Craftsmanship Dojo , we can help your organization assess its culture and implement lasting change.

Through organizational psychotherapy, guided by ethical persuasion principles developed by Robert Cialdini and his Cialdini Institute, we tackle cultural drift at its root. The result?

IT departments transformed from a cost center to an invaluable organizational asset.

It’s time to stop observing dysfunction and start evolving your team and organization for true success. Let us help you bridge the gap between technical excellence and cultural resilience. Together, we can build a better, high-performing future.

Ready to evolve? Let’s talk.

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