The Domino Effect: How One Mistake Leads to Another

Lars Nielsen (00:01.272) Hello and welcome back to... CULTURES FROM HELL! I am your host Lars. In today's episode, we are diving deep into something I think we are all witnessed or even experienced, the domino effects. We are talking about how a seemingly small mistake or oversight in an organization doesn't just stay small. It can trigger a chain reaction, a cascade of problems that ripple through teams, departments, and ultimately the entire company culture. Think about it, a missed communication, a leadership misstep, a lack of transparency. How often do these initial errors lead to a whole host of bigger, more complex issues? And to help us unpack this critical topic, I am thrilled to have our very own co-host and resident company culture expert, Pauline from the Culture Code Foundation. Pauline, welcome. Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (01:14.715) Thank you, Lars. As always, it's great to be here and especially today talking about this issue because it is a huge phenomenon that is actually at the heart of super many cultural challenges. Lars Nielsen (01:29.886) Exactly. And I would also say before we just go deep, deep or dive into the deep end here, as so many of the topics we are talking about, when I saw this topic for today and I prepared for it, there's so many of the things that we talk about that also apply to your personal life. And I think we've all been there in terms of like these small things that happen in your personal life. Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (01:52.049) Mm-hmm. Lars Nielsen (01:58.52) that could just have a domino effect if you don't face it right away, right? Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (02:03.097) Absolutely. I mean, at the end of the day, you work with people or you live with people or you interact with people. so it is about human relations and human connections, whatever you do, because that's what at the core of us, human beings are. We have people of relation and, therefore the rules that apply in the workplace also applied in the personal space. And that's also why I'm so convinced. And that's the core of the work that we do at the culture co-foundation. If you experience great, strong, nourishing relations in work or at work, then that is something that will come into your personal life stronger as well, because maybe you haven't had the privilege to learn how to approach conflict in a good way. Maybe you haven't had the privilege to encounter. how it feels like when you're getting supported. And if you experience that in the workplace for the first time, then this can help you adjust how you act with people or the relations that you have with people outside of the workplace as well. I am completely convinced that you're not one person at work and another person at home. You're the same person. with the same personality traits. Maybe some of the traits come out more strongly at work or at home. I know that for myself, for example, but at the end of the day, what you experience at work will influence your private life and vice versa. In a good way or... Lars Nielsen (03:44.843) Exactly. Or in a bad way. Okay, Paulina, let's start at the beginning. When we talk about a domino effect in organizational culture, what exactly are we referring to? Could you paint kind of a picture for us? Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (03:55.163) Yes. Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (04:04.923) Sure. I mean, I guess the domino effect itself is pretty clear. So you topple over one stone in a row of stones and then that will knock over the next one and that the next one and so on and so forth. Right. So when it comes to culture, what we understand under the domino effect is that one cultural mistake or oversight can topple over other cultural stones or basics within the company and then lead to ripple effect that affects actually the entire organization. And I want to be very clear here. Not every mistake or oversight has the potential to automatically lead to such a domino effect, right? I don't want to make anyone believe that you're not allowed to make any mistakes. We've been over this mistakes are human mistakes are great learning opportunities, but there are some things that just can create bigger issues. And so the privilege of becoming the first domino is also reserved to those big issues. So for example, you as a CEO hire the wrong person for a critical and powerful role. And that person is wrong because they don't align with the company's values. Now they will keep hiring people. that align with their own values, but not necessarily the company's values. And all of a sudden you have three to four key positions filled with people that erode your culture from inside. And you might see negative effects, like complaints about leadership behavior, people quitting because they don't want to work with those people anymore. But since you trust the person that you originally hired and They in turn trust and protect the people that they hired. Transparency completely goes down the drain and the, yeah, it won't even get back to you why the people are quitting and why performance is straightening. So the transparency, the communication goes down, goes down the drain and you will almost automatically come to the wrong conclusion about the root cause. Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (06:29.689) of the issues that you're seeing. So you see the effects, but you don't see the root cause. And then you will make the wrong decision for trying to fix the problem because you're trying to, because you're fixing the problem you think you have and not the problem that you were actually having. Lars Nielsen (06:52.02) Very good point. And for me, that makes a lot of sense. You mentioned interdependencies between leadership, communication and transparency. How do these elements typically play a role as the first domino in accelerating the cascade? Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (07:16.929) so I would say usually leadership decisions are the first domino. I'm really sorry to be harping on about this, but at the end of the day, the leaders A have more impact in a business and the higher up in the hierarchy, the higher the impact they are having obviously. And B every leader is always responsible at the end of the day, even for the decisions their people make, take. Right? I mean. in an ideal scenario, at least. So even if the original mistake might have been by an individual contributor, it would be their leader's responsibility to make sure that that mistake doesn't create a ripple effect and doesn't turn into a domino. So it's not necessarily the leader itself being the domino, but their decision how to handle a mistake can decide if it's turning into a domino or not. And again, this is true for every hierarchical level. So meaning the head of is responsible for their team leads. The director is responsible for the head-offs. The executives are responsible for the directors and the CEO is responsible for the executives. So unfortunately, no matter how much you trust your people and you know me, I always advocate for you trusting your people, but you can never ever, if you are in a leadership position, stop assessing the risks and the potential for damage the decisions of your people might have. So you have to watch out for it. Lars Nielsen (08:56.396) And can you give an example of how a leadership decision, even a well-intentioned one, could unintentionally start a negative domino effect if communication or transparency is lacking? Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (09:06.641) Hmm. Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (09:11.555) Absolutely. let me maybe pick up my example from the beginning. So we had the wrong executive hire that brought interests of people from their past that eroded the culture from within. By the way, this is a real life story from personal experience. And I've seen this exact same story unfolding in three different companies. So in all three cases, the cronies cronies in quotation marks hired. by the executives created unclear priorities as well as a culture of fear. Because they were not aligned with the values, right? So the values in all three companies was transparency or empowerment or accountability or anything, but they created a culture of fear. Usually by using our best friend, micromanagement. Lars Nielsen (10:06.819) no, not him. I hate him. Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (10:08.785) Just in case anybody didn't, did not hear the stark sarcasm in my voice, I'm joking. I'm joking about it being a friend, not joking about the leaders using micromanagement. Anyway, so in all three situations, the workload rose because the unclear priorities led to double work. And at the same time, the culture of fear led to less psychological safety. And this combo led to rapidly rising burnout rate and rising turnover rate, while at the same time seeing a huge drop in performance. So, and now the mid-level hires obviously wanted to protect themselves and the executive who brought them into the company, they need to save face. Like in the terms of, can't acknowledge that they are causing problems because that will shed a bad light on my own abilities to hire the right people. So everyone is in a, I need to protect my... Reputation? Lars Nielsen (11:27.95) You can't say it on a podcast, Paulina. We are getting too much. We get a band everywhere because you're swearing too much. Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (11:34.405) Too politically correct? Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (11:39.121) So they were trying to save their reputation. So they would jot this combination of high burnout rate versus low performance down to, the ICs are just simply not cut out for this highly competitive environment. We have to replace them because they just, they can't deliver on our expectations. And then people got fired. But at the end of the day, the root cause was never fixed because the people that created that culture where the performance plummeted and psychological safety plummeted and the burnout rates skyrocketed, they were still in the company, obviously. Right. And then if you're at this point, you will typically see one of two scenarios. Either new people get hired that in turn aligned with the values of the leader again, not the values of the company. And this obviously accelerates the erosion of the company culture. Or you will see that the cycle of underperformance will continue. And that harms the effectiveness of the overall organization. And then it will come to the decision that this entire team or this entire market or this entire Whatnot is just not working and it's not worth keeping to pursue it. So I've seen full departments getting closed down due to this kind of situation. So in any case, if you do not fix the root cause, which in my example is the wrong executive hire, you will have no chance to stop the domino effect. It will just continue to roll on until... Lars Nielsen (13:32.29) Alright. Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (13:35.781) The entire department is killed. Killed in terms of replaced or closed down. Lars Nielsen (13:40.622) you Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (13:48.367) Jesus, being politically correct is hard for me. But you get what I mean, right? So you don't stop the domino effect by itself or it will stop because it comes to a natural end because there are no more dominoes left. Lars Nielsen (13:51.788) It is so hard for us to do this. Yes, I do. Lars Nielsen (14:10.05) And I think that's a very powerful point. One thing that just comes to my mind when we're talking about this, I think that's one thing for me at least that is important to mention is the start of a domino effect could also be doing nothing. For me, I've seen that so much that when leadership does nothing, that actually starts a domino effect. Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (14:28.037) Absolutely. Lars Nielsen (14:38.19) especially in terms of or in cases of uncertainty. If there's like a rumor going out that people have to hire or sorry, have to fire, not hire, fire or maybe we're not making enough money or we're not, yeah, whatever. And then if leadership don't do anything, that can start a domino effect. So it doesn't really have to be triggered by an action. It can actually also be the lack of action, right? Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (14:48.443) Mm. Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (15:06.831) Absolutely. And I mean, in my case, it was the lack of firing the right people, that created the ripple effect. And what you're referring to is if you don't address gossip or rumor that can potentially harm a company that is also not acting. And you're absolutely right. That can lead to huge ripple effects because that such a rumor can lead to people not working, as engaged anymore. It can lead to people leaving because they are afraid that they might get fired. It can lead to people just engaging into more and more gossip. And yeah, you're absolutely right. It's just not doing something can be just as harmful as doing something. Lars Nielsen (15:58.612) Exactly. Pauline, many of our listeners are in organizations right now. What are some common, perhaps less obvious examples of domino effects you've seen in company cultures? Where do these chains often begin? Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (16:04.529) Mm-hmm. Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (16:16.845) Mm-hmm. So what I've seen, in, in customer examples, for example, is an erosion of trust because you have inconsistent policies or you break promises. So for example, you say, okay, we're gonna promote you at the end of the year, and then you don't do it because there has been a change in, in budget for, for this kind of role, or you say, yeah, I have a personal experience of that as well. I was promised a promotion with a huge pay rise and actually the contract was already sitting on my desk. And then I got a new manager and they basically shredded the contract and they were like, yeah, you can still have the promotion, but we don't have the money to give you a raise. And I was like, mm-mm, sorry, I'm not doing that. I'm not getting. I'm not doing more, I'm not taking over more responsibility for people, for more people, for more revenue. If I don't get compensated for that accordingly. And then the new leader was like, now you're breaking the promise that you made to the business. I'm like, sorry, sorry, sorry, guys. Don't turn this around on me. You made the decision to change the rules. You made the decision to be inconsistent and break your promise. So I don't feel. Lars Nielsen (17:26.382) Of course. Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (17:45.956) a lot. Yeah. aligned to my promise anymore. And, then I didn't take the promotion. And, so, so yeah, inconsistent policies, broken promises, huge topic of it. then again, not managing toxic employees, especially if it's just a single one in a team who has like, believes that the rules don't apply to them. And if you, if you don't act on that, you will definitely affect your morale and productivity because everyone will be like, what the actual F is going on here. Why doesn't he have to comply to the same rules? concrete example from sales, for example, you have a high performer who just hates to do admin stuff and you just, you don't, you're just allowing him to slack off on filling in. the CRM system, et cetera, because they can just focus on bringing in more business, but at the same time, you enforce the rules for everyone else. That's just not going to go down well with anyone. And a last topic that happens quite a lot is ignoring small process inefficiencies that can lead to major operational breakdowns. And here again, I have a real life example that I've seen in multiple companies and Lars, you being from sales as well, you've probably seen that as well. then when the rules about your administration side of things take over hand and you're just, you're working so much on, you're not just filling in the CRM system, but then there is also this forecasting sheet and then there is, this additional Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (19:43.665) document that you have to fill with the same bloody information, obviously all the time, the same information that needs to be put into different sources. And then you have not just one forecast call with your team lead, but then you also have a forecast call with the head of sales. And then you have another forecast call, uh, with the director of sales because the, it, the numbers aren't just where they, where they are supposed to be. And all of a sudden you spend 40, 50, 60 % of your time on. admin stuff and not on focusing on the customer. And everybody is surprised that you don't sell more and that the productivity of the team goes down while at the same time, they have implemented the rules that made that possible in the first place. Lars Nielsen (20:33.762) I think those examples are very insightful and I'm pretty sure that many of our listeners can relate. And let me just give an example of the last thing you mentioned, Paulina. Not so, or I would say so... Sometimes I f up the English here. Recently, I did some consulting for a company and I saw like there was a manager that couldn't figure out how to use their HubSpot system. And they've spent so much money and time and effort in setting that HubSpot up. So everything was like automated and so on. But because he could not figure it out and he didn't want to because he was the manager. Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (20:58.769) Hmm? Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (21:14.117) Mm. Lars Nielsen (21:19.918) All the salespeople actually had to, like, even though everything was registered in HubSpot, like meetings, phone calls, emails and everything, they actually had to put into a spreadsheet every call they made and what was the outcome and so on. So they spent at least an hour, maybe even two hours every single day, putting everything into a spreadsheet that was already in HubSpot. It was like, was like, Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (21:34.033) Jesus. Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (21:45.702) Jesus. Lars Nielsen (21:50.136) What the F is going on here? Yeah. But you know, we need to come up with a podcast where we can just swear for an hour because we need to get that off our chest. Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (21:52.943) Yep. Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (21:59.921) But I mean, this is such a brilliant example Lars, right? Because, so there is one person who is not able to do something and they are relaying their incompetence on an entire team and forcing them to do double work. That just blows my mind. And it would be this leader's manager's responsibility to say, what the actual F are you doing here? Lars Nielsen (22:21.592) So stupid. Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (22:28.261) Why exactly are you reducing the productivity of the team unnecessarily just because so you can say face in front of me, just so you can deliver the numbers so that you can just do your F job, right? And I guess that manager didn't do that. So both managers didn't do their jobs. the ICs will be getting, will be the ones getting into trouble because they are not selling enough. Yeah. I love that. Lars Nielsen (22:58.014) Exactly. Pauline, let's get back on track. If a company finds itself in the middle of a cascade where mistakes are clearly breathed, more mistakes, what's the first step to even try and halt it? Is it ever too late? Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (23:01.809) You Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (23:18.053) Well, I think I mentioned before that I think there are parts where it becomes too late. And the most important step for sure is to effectively identify the root cause of the problem. And this requires asking the right questions, having a high level of self-reflection again, even at the very top or especially at the very top. And ideally always staying in touch with all levels of the organization. and showing true curiosity as to the things that they tell you or they complain about. They usually is far more to the stories that they tell that your employees tell than meets the eye at first glance. And once you have identified the root cause act swiftly, consistently, and transparently that is super, super critical. So ideally. If you take a toxic leader out of the organization, like we're getting back into an example here. if you take a toxic leader out of the organization after multiple people, complained about their behavior, try to afford the corporate, the typical corporate BS bingo that they left for new adventures somewhere else. Instead, make it pretty clear that you as the CEO listened to these complaints. And that the complaints have actually led to you taking an important personnel decision. Of course, you cannot slander or bad mouth the person that is leaving. I fully get that. But if you show to everyone who's staying that behaving this way has consequences and that speaking up about bad situations will have an impact for the better. sends such a strong signal into the organization that can actually repair such a domino effect and the erosion of culture or trust that has been created before. Lars Nielsen (25:26.616) So it's about like hitting the pause button and assessing, not looking at the other side's prevention. Okay, so what are the three crucial preventive strategies? Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (25:45.509) preventative. Lars Nielsen (25:48.876) I need more coffee. What are the three crucial preventative strategies organizations can implement to stop these domino effects before they even start or kind of at least to ensure that the dominoes are much harder to topple? Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (25:50.181) Hahaha. Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (25:58.737) Mm-hmm. Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (26:06.233) Yeah, brilliant question. And it will come back down to things that we've discussed before. So the first step for preventative action is fostering psychological safety. When you create an environment where people will feel safe to admit mistakes that they've made themselves without fear of retribution, or where they feel safe to speak up about things that are going into the wrong direction. you will have the ability to react quickly and course correct. And the second part is robust feedback and communication loops. So you should be ensuring information flow up, flow down and across the organization as effectively and transparently as possible. So for example, upward feedback, skip level feedback, regular check-ins, open door policies, just walk as a CEO, just walking the halls, talking to random people, opening forums like Q &A sessions in town halls, et cetera. And honestly, the most effective from my perspective are upward feedback. And if the CEO actually talks to random people and shows real interest in them and asks them the right questions. That is, and then obviously takes action out of the things he hears. That is probably one of the best preventative methods that you have. And that brings me to the third point, proactive leadership and clear accountability. So as I mentioned at the very beginning, every manager is responsible for the level below them. I don't like the picture of the hierarchy with the below, you know what I mean? I think it's the most, it makes my point very clear. And leaders modeling transparency and taking responsibility, not just for their own actions, but also for the actions of their, of their team. And by taking responsibility, I mean Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (28:25.551) I love this use the term we, when it comes to miss, we, when it comes to success and the term I, when it comes to mistakes. So as a leader, you would say, okay, I have managed to prevent this mistake. This, this is on me. And I have worked with the employee on how to prevent it for the future. And so taking responsibility, ensuring clear roles and responsibilities. And that will avoid ambiguity. And the ambiguity is actually one of the things that lead to errors in the first place. Lars Nielsen (29:04.734) A stark warning there. Paulina, this has been incredibly enlightening as always. Before we summarize, what's one popular myth about sm, and I'm doing this in quotation marks, small mistakes in organizations that you have liked to debunk right now. Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (29:21.649) Hmm. Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (29:27.191) Mm. I would say the myth that what people don't know won't hurt them when it comes to small errors or changes. Exactly. Exactly. And because in reality, a lack of information very, very often will lead to speculation and mistrust. And those are powerful first dominoes for much larger problems. So it's not an excuse not to know things. Lars Nielsen (29:34.7) And we do that in quotation marks as well. Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (29:56.535) It is your job to know things. Lars Nielsen (30:00.0) It is your F job to do no things. Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (30:02.224) Thank you! Yes, that's what I wanted to say, but... Lars Nielsen (30:08.632) Paulina, thank you so, so much. This has been a really practical look at how one mistake can indeed lead to others, to another, and more importantly, what can we do about it? So to quickly recap for our listeners, the domino effect is real in company cultures, where initial errors in areas like leadership, communication, Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (30:22.5) Mm-hmm. Lars Nielsen (30:35.296) or transparency can trigger a cascade of negative consequences. You have told us some telling examples, some real life examples from your own experience from, would say, I would say again, what we do most in sales because this is where we have our, yeah, our experience and so on. Right. So for everybody out there, remember Paulina's, okay, we're going to do this over again because there's a lot of shit in here. Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (30:56.133) life experience. Lars Nielsen (31:13.174) I'm actually just going to cut out a lot of things here. Okay, I'll just put in a marker. Lars Nielsen (31:22.991) There we go. Paulina, thank you so, so much. This has been a real practical look at how one mistake can indeed lead to another. And more importantly, what can we do about it? So just to quickly recap for our listeners, the domino effect is real in company cultures where initial errors in areas like leadership, communication or transparency can trigger a cascade. Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (31:37.265) Hmm. Lars Nielsen (31:51.648) of negative consequences. Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (31:54.916) Absolutely. Lars Nielsen (31:56.268) Before we go, Paulina, as always, please share with our listeners, where can they reach out to you, find you and hook up if they want to continue talks or have questions about the culture. Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (32:10.117) Thank you, Lars. Yes. So you can find me on Instagram. You can find me on LinkedIn. Lars will put, or we will put, all of our social handles in the show notes. And you can also find my company at culturecodingfoundation.com or also we also have a page on LinkedIn, obviously. And as always, I would love to just shout out to you guys. If you have a personal story to tell, can DM either Lars or me. We are super happy to include your story, either by retelling us ourselves or by having you as our guest in the show live and telling your own story. Lars Nielsen (32:57.314) 100%. And like you said, Paulina will make sure to put any links in the show notes. So just go in in the show notes and click if you want to hook up with any of us or you want to reach out. A huge thank you again, Paulina, for sharing your experience. And thank you to our listeners for tuning into Cultures from Hell. Join us next time as we continue to explore the... What is that word? Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (33:27.289) I'm sorry. Lars Nielsen (33:27.444) Intrigue? my god, I can't even. Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (33:32.335) I don't know, I'm not... Intricacies. Lars Nielsen (33:34.164) Intricate... intricacies. What is another word for that because I can't say that. Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (33:40.998) the details. That's so much easier, right? Lars Nielsen (33:43.392) Yeah, okay. Okay, gotta put in another vodka there. Perfect. And like you said, Paulina, we will make sure to put all the links into the show notes. So just click and hook up if you want to reach out and have any questions or you want to share anything. A huge thank you again, Paulina, for sharing your experience. And thank you to our listeners for tuning in to Culture from Hell. Join us next time as we continue to explore the details of workplace culture. Don't forget to subscribe. like and so on. The algorithms love it. Until next time, strive for a culture that isn't from hell. Paulina von Mirbach-Benz (34:32.997) And thank you Lars for always asking such amazing questions and to all of our listeners out there. Thank you for sharing the stories that we get to tell here and for listening to us dissecting those. Until next time.