A toxic dynamic at work in organizational crisis: entrapped power, poorly supported change, implicit leaderships

 

MIDORI INSIGHT

A toxic dynamic at work in organizational crisis: entrapped power, poorly supported change, implicit leaderships

Matthieu Poirot

Psychologist and PhD in Management, expert in organizational psychology

www.midori-consulting.eu

Our interventions during organizational crises reveal a particularly toxic systemic dynamic, structured around three interdependent phenomena: the progressive entrapment of formal power, inadequate support for transformations, and the compensatory emergence of implicit leaderships. None of these three phenomena is sufficient on its own to explain the crisis; it is their mutual reinforcement that locks the organization into a state of permanent latent conflict. This Insight describes this mechanism, the systemic psychological debts it generates, and the three-level regulation approach that makes it possible to break out of it.

Une dynamique toxique à l'œuvre dans les crises organisationnelles : pouvoir enfermé, changement mal accompagné, leaderships implicites

 

MIDORI INSIGHT

Une dynamique toxique à l'œuvre dans les crises organisationnelles : pouvoir enfermé, changement mal accompagné, leaderships implicites

Matthieu Poirot

Psychologue et Docteur en Gestion, expert en psychologie des organisations

www.midori-consulting.eu

Nos interventions en situation de crise organisationnelle révèlent une dynamique systémique particulièrement toxique, structurée autour de trois phénomènes interdépendants : l'enfermement progressif du pouvoir formel, l'accompagnement défaillant des transformations, et l'émergence compensatoire de leaderships implicites. Aucun de ces trois phénomènes ne suffit à lui seul à expliquer la crise ; c'est leur renforcement mutuel qui enferme l'organisation dans un conflit latent permanent. Cet Insight décrit cette mécanique, les dettes psychologiques systémiques qu'elle génère, et le dispositif de régulation à trois niveaux qui permet d'en sortir.

The Collective Unconscious in the Organization An existential, contextual and symbolic reading

 

MIDORI INSIGHTS

The Collective Unconscious in the Organization

An existential, contextual and symbolic reading

By Matthieu Poirot, social psychologist, Doctor in Management Sciences

We still too often picture the organization as a rational mechanism in which decisions would obey calculation alone. Field experience tells another story. Beneath the surface of organization charts and processes flows a collective psychic life that quietly shapes behaviors, loyalties and conflicts, all the more so in times of transformation. I propose to call this life the collective unconscious of the organization, and to take it seriously not as a convenient metaphor but as an object of work. We must first agree on what it is. In my view, it is neither a reservoir of free-floating archetypes nor merely the theater of archaic anxieties. It is a relational, narrative and symbolic fabric whose primary function is to protect us from existential insecurity.

Disengagement as a Rational Response

 

M I D O R I   I N S I G H T S

Disengagement as a Rational Response

Why Generation Z is not rejecting work, but a psychological contract it has watched go unhonored

 

1. The wrong indictment

The dominant discourse on Generation Z fits in one sentence: they no longer want to work. They stand accused of laziness, of fragility, of a dilettante relationship to effort. The case has been built for the prosecution, and it has been built on the wrong charge. Because what we observe in the field, in organizations as in the available surveys, is not a motivational deficit. It is a far more interesting behavior: an audit.

A long essay published in July 2026 in The New York Times by the journalist Emi Nietfeld, a former Google engineer and a figure of American meritocracy, offers striking material. She set out to interview young graduates across the United States and came back with a finding that reaches well beyond the American context: these young people no longer believe that work, in the traditional sense, leads to a reliable return. They are entering what she describes as a casino economy, where gains arrive as windfalls and vanish just as suddenly, and where preparing for tomorrow seems to have lost its meaning.

One of the graduates she interviewed puts it with remarkable lucidity:

“Our generation recognizes a bad deal when they see it.” (quoted by E. Nietfeld, The New York Times, July 2026)

This sentence deserves to be taken seriously. It does not say “I do not want to work.” It says: I have examined the terms of the contract, I have watched how it was honored for those who came before me, and I am drawing the consequences. This is exactly the reasoning of a creditor who refuses to lend again to a debtor in default. Let us name things as they are: this generation’s disengagement is not a pathology of the will. It is a rational response to an unhonored psychological debt.

Qu'est-ce qu'une crise psychosociale complexe ? Comprendre, reconnaître et agir face aux crises qui dépassent les mécanismes habituels de régulation

 

Il y a des situations, dans les organisations, qui ne portent pas de nom. Des situations que l'on décrit par périphrases – « c'est compliqué », « on ne s'en sort plus », « ça dérive depuis longtemps » – sans jamais oser qualifier ce qui se joue réellement. Pourtant, derrière ces formules embarrassées se cache souvent une réalité précise, identifiable et surtout compréhensible : une crise psychosociale complexe.

Après plus de vingt ans d'interventions dans des contextes que les approches standard ne parviennent pas à résoudre – post-suicides, enquêtes harcèlement transnationales, transformations traumatiques, conflits sociaux paralysants –, je suis convaincu que la première chose à faire face à ces situations est de les nommer. Non pas pour dramatiser, mais pour rendre possible l'action. Ce qui n'est pas nommé ne peut pas être traité.

Cet article propose de définir rigoureusement ce qu'est une crise psychosociale complexe, d'en identifier les signaux caractéristiques, puis de décrire une méthodologie d'intervention articulée autour des quatre phases de la crise. L'objectif est clair : donner aux dirigeants, DRH et acteurs de la prévention les repères nécessaires pour agir avec lucidité, sans panique et sans déni.