This is part 2 of a series focusing on organizational ‘operating systems.’
Premise “Error handling is the process of anticipating, detecting, and responding to software failures in a controlled way to maintain application reliability.” (Gemini, 2026) In a business context, errors are managed as risks or issues, situations requiring escalation, and incidents to be addressed.
Signals While some errors are easy to spot, others may be harder to detect. For example:
- Organizational issues are repeatedly escalated without clear resolution or ownership.
- Project failures are never analyzed or learned from
- Employee “pulse” surveys were stopped or not acted upon
- Leadership ambiguity is tolerated, leading to downstream ambiguity.
When too many failure modes are activated, the organization cannot self-correct, leading to increased long-term pain.
Example In late 2023, I led a business modernization effort which entailed understanding and documenting key business processes, identifying pain points, and sharing corresponding business & operational recommendations. A separate team focused their attention on the underlying technology.
Unfortunately, many of the technical recommendations shared didn’t always address the identified business challenges, resulting in a somewhat fragmented set.
Given the project’s monetary value and probability for operational reusability, this project would have been a perfect candidate for a retrospective, yet one was never held.
The ideal state The goal is self-governance. An organization that is self-governing is one that:
- employs the use of short, periodic pulse surveys to measure its health
- is aware of the challenges facing it and surfaces them
- encourages its employees and teams to self-reflect and make improvements
- requires leaders to support and codify shared recommendations
How to improve In an environment where error handling isn’t well managed, it’s best to introduce 1-2 small system-level interventions to boost its maturity. For example:
- deploying a team-level pulse survey to rapidly identify challenges vs. attempting to deploy a similar version across the enterprise.
- distill leadership ambiguity through project charters and decision logs.
- Conduct project or proposal retrospectives to discuss and document lessons learned.
If colleagues respond well to these early interventions, it can suggest they are also aware of the identified challenges and desire to take action. Early wins, communicated broadly, can build momentum, and over the long term, you can expect the error rate to fall in areas where corrections are being made.
Errors within an organization are not always easy to identify, but their presence can cause significant damage if not managed effectively. Document the signals and patterns you see, introduce select adjustments, and measure the outcomes.