People who feel attacked will get institutionalized defenses

If people feel that they are being attacked, they will eventually band together and formalize their defenses. They have lots of ways to accomplish this structural defensiveness.

The key is to identify the issues, work on what can be done differently, and make different choices. Once things get “institutionalized,” they are difficult to deal with and it takes a great deal of effort to pull down the structures. And the next step may include sabotage. See this blog post on some common issues around sabotage in the workplace. Choose to build teamwork and involve and engage people with simple facilitation and communications — here is a simple toolkit for that.