Good Morning H-28

🏗️ Hexagram 28 – Great Exceeding | A Moment of Behavioral Strain in Organizations

James Byrd

MBA | Strategic Advisor & Author of The Future: 2027

May 12, 2025

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In Organizational Behavior, stress fractures often appear long before systems fail. Hexagram 28 from the I Ching — known as Great Exceeding — speaks directly to this: the image of a beam under too much pressure. Not all collapse is sudden — some is behavioral, cultural, or structural.

Key OB Insight: When norms, values, or structures are strained beyond their limit, organizations must shift behaviorally — not just procedurally. This is a moment of reckoning and realignment.

📌 Behavioral Signals of Hexagram 28 in Organizations:

• Employees withdrawing or overcompensating under unclear expectations
• Leadership bearing excessive responsibility without delegation
• Culture cracking under legacy systems or outdated narratives
• Silos forming due to lack of adaptive communication

🔁 Actionable OB Principle: Excessive pressure signals a need for structural and behavioral evolution. Effective OB at this stage isn’t just about change management — it’s about recognizing which behaviors are compensating for broken systems and reshaping the environment that produces them.

🧠 Reflection for OB Professionals & Leaders: What behavioral patterns in your organization are signs of underlying stress? What “exceeds” must be addressed — not just endured?

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OB frameworks, such as Lewin's Change Model or Schein's Culture Model, are used to dissect various OB issues as they present themselves in different contexts.

The Lewin's Change Model! It's a simple yet powerful tool for understanding how change happens and how to manage it.

Lewin's Change Model is divided into three stages:

1. Unfreeze: This is the first stage of the process where you prepare for the change. This involves breaking down the existing status quo before you can build up a new way of operating. It's about challenging and overcoming the current beliefs, habits, and attitudes that are resistant to change.
2. Change/Transition: This is the stage where the actual change occurs. It's often a period of confusion and transition. We're aware that the old ways are being challenged but we do not have a clear picture as to what we are replacing them with yet.
3. Refreeze: This is the final stage where the new mindset is crystallizing and one's comfort level is returning to previous levels. This stage is often seen as a return to normal, except that the normal is a new normal.

Remember, while this model gives a good general framework for understanding change, it's not a one-size-fits-all solution. Every situation is unique and may require a different approach.

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Next, there is the Schein's Culture Model! It's a theory about organizational culture, developed by Edgar Schein. It's a bit complex, but I'll break it down into simple terms for you.

Schein's Culture Model is divided into three levels:

1. Artifacts: These are the visible elements in an organization, like the office layout, dress code, or even the company's products. They're easy to spot, but their meaning isn't always clear without deeper understanding.
2. Espoused Values: These are the stated values and rules of behavior in an organization. They're what the company says it believes in. For example, a company might say it values innovation and teamwork.
3. Basic Underlying Assumptions: These are the deeply ingrained, taken-for-granted behaviors that are usually unconscious but guide how people in the organization behave. They're the hardest to change because they're so deeply rooted.

The idea is that to truly understand a company's culture, you need to look at all three levels, not just the surface-level artifacts. It's a bit like an iceberg - what you see on the surface is only a small part of the whole picture.

Remember, this is a simplified explanation. Organizational culture is a complex field with many different theories and models. But I hope this gives you a good starting point!

In conclusion, managing change effectively is not just a necessity, but an art that can be mastered. It's about understanding people, their fears, and their aspirations. It's about communication, patience, and persistence. As we navigate through the stages of unfreezing, changing, and refreezing, we must remember that change is not an event, but a process. And while the process may be challenging, the rewards of successful change management are immense. So, let's embrace change, not fear it. After all, the only constant in life, as well as in business, is change.

#OrganizationalBehavior #IChing #Leadership #ChangeManagement #WorkplaceCulture #BehavioralStrategy #SystemsThinking #Hexagram28