Over time, companies begin to simulate manageability. Formal processes appear. Initiatives for external optics. "Maturity" rituals. Internal PR campaigns. Safe topics like "webinars for beginners."
This is the transitional moment when missionaries get replaced by administrators. Focus shifts from results to procedures, from reality to facade.
Working in such an environment becomes hard — not because there's more work, but because there's less meaning.
The Symptoms
Meetings about meetings. Documentation for documentation's sake. The question "did we follow the process?" replaces "did we achieve the goal?"
Internal PR campaigns. "Safe" initiatives. Polished decks that describe reality as it should be, not as it is. The gap between narrative and truth grows.
People who built the company leave or get sidelined. Those who manage the appearance of order rise. Energy shifts from creation to preservation.
The Antidote
Stay connected to reality. Look not at how things appear, but at what actually works.
Remember: you're not part of the performance. You're someone who understands where it starts and why it was staged in the first place.
The role of an operator in this context is to hold the line on reality. To be the one who asks: "But what actually happened?"
It's measured in outcomes that still matter.