Catch-11

Eleven catches that confound modern businesses and how to resolve them

In 1961, Jospeh Heller introduced the world to Catch-22, a seminal critique of bureaucracy and reasoning, in which a self-contradictory rule prevented anyone from avoiding combat missions.  If you were mad, you could go home, but if you said you were mad then you clearly weren’t, so you couldn’t.

Many modern businesses have engineered themselves into a similar dead end. The book’s main character Yossarian worked out that Catch-22 did not actually exist, but because the powers that be claimed it did, and everyone else believed it, it had a potent effect. Even worse, because it did not technically exist, the rule could not be repealed, undone, overthrown, or denounced.

Circular logic has no place in business. The eleven catches in Catch-11 cannot be ignored and can all be resolved. Kevin Duncan explains how.