Org debt exists whenever you find yourself spending more time navigating a process or set of rules than engaged with the issue itself. The time I spent getting documentation squared away was time I didn’t spend caring for my health or preparing for the surgery itself.
Translate that to a corporate process like performance management, which prioritizes written evaluations, rating scales, and calibration to peers, but makes individual performance worse a third of the time. And what about strategic planning? Annual budgeting? These workflows demand days or weeks of an organization’s energy and begin to decay the moment they’re finished. As the world turns, the utility of a plan is rarely worth the slide or sheet it’s written on.