The real hidden barrier: Good people in bad loops (How to turn vicious into virtuous cycles)
- Bas Kemme
- 21 hours ago
- 3 min read
I love rediscovering forgotten concepts that explain what is really holding companies back.
This one, like a tool from a well-crafted toolbox, might help you out:
Charles Hampden-Turner’s 1981 book Corporate Culture shows that organizations are not only made up of structures and processes, but also of loops of behavior that quietly determine your company's business performance.
The key idea is that culture operates through self-reinforcing feedback loops. Some loops are vicious circles that trap companies in dysfunction. Others are virtuous circles that release energy, trust, and performance.
The difference lies in how it handles the tension between opposite values such as control vs. freedom, efficiency vs. empathy, or discipline vs. creativity.
When one side dominates, the other is suppressed and eventually retaliates in destructive ways. When both are reconciled, they begin to strengthen each other. Once they start, they tend to reinforce themselves, either destructively or constructively.
The Vicious Circle
Structure
Begins with one value or practice dominating, for example control or efficiency.
Provokes unintended consequences such as rigidity, disempowerment
Reinforces the initial dysfunction, closing the loop and locking the organization in.
Example: British Airways before its turnaround
A strong techno-military tradition emphasized hierarchy and command.
This created a cold, specialized bureaucracy.
Ranks and roles drove top-down orders, disempowering cabin staff.
Staff passed on to passengers the same lack of warmth they experienced internally.
Feedback about customer needs was blocked, reinforcing the cold bureaucracy.
Result: an airline efficient in command but emotionally sterile and blind to its customers.
The Virtuous Circle
Structure
Starts with reconciling the opposing values and turning conflict into complementarity.
Each side begins to strengthen the other rather than suppress it.
The loop amplifies capability, motivation, and learning across the system.
Example: British Airways after its turnaround
Staff were newly empowered to use discretion and judgment.
Supervisors modeled warmth and support toward their teams.
Feedback from passengers started to flow upward.
Management decisions became better informed and more professional.
BA’s technical expertise became more effective because it now served people, not procedure.
Result: structure and empathy reinforcing each other, control through trust rather than command.
The Shift from Vicious to Virtuous
Transformations do not start with a new strategy. They start when leaders reframe the underlying dilemma. The question changes from “Which side do we choose?” to “How can we get more of X through Y, and vice versa?”
Applying This to Modern Cases
The same dynamic plays out across industries today. Take a global fashion brand that had lost its spark. Operational control and cost discipline had crowded out creativity. The company prized efficiency and predictability, but its collections had become lifeless and its designers disengaged.
The vicious loop looked like this:
Creative teams constrained by approvals and KPIs → timid designs
Weak brand energy → declining sales
Tighter control → even less creative risk
Leadership reframed how to think. Not creativity vs. control, but creative discipline.
The virtuous loop emerged:
Empowered designers → stronger, more distinctive collections
Brand heat and sales momentum → greater investment confidence
Financial discipline → sustained the creative process rather than strangling it
Once the opposing forces were reconciled, energy and speed returned, almost overnight.
How to Use the Model
When analyzing or guiding a turnaround:
Identify the dominant value driving the vicious loop.
Trace the reinforcing consequences that make it self-defeating.
Name the repressed opposite value.
Define the reconciliation principle: “How can we get more of X through Y?”
Depict the new virtuous loop showing how both sides now strengthen each other.
Every transformation, at its heart, is a cultural reconciliation. It is not about replacing one value with another, but about combining them so both become stronger.
That is how companies shift from either/or to both/and—from vicious to virtuous.
What's next
Capturing these insights we develop the Adaptability Audit™ to uncover the hidden barriers that hold organizations back from real culture change. It helps leadership teams see what’s actually blocking adaptability and speed and what to do about it, before launching another program that treats symptoms instead of causes.
Similar loops might occur in your organization, self-defeating to self-reinforcing. Should any of this content sparked a comment or question, please do leave your comments or DM me.
Bas Kemme, Founder IntotheNXT
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