Why organizations reject actual delivery
Function Allergy is the organizational immune response against delivering actual outcomes. It's the systemic rejection of functionality in favor of process, planning, and performance theater.
Organizations develop Function Allergy when actual delivery threatens their comfortable dysfunction.
Like a biological allergy, the organization perceives function as a threat and mobilizes its immune system (bureaucracy, process, committees) to reject it.
Warning: Function Allergy is often disguised as "quality control," "risk management," or "proper process." The organization doesn't recognize it's rejecting what it claims to want.
Fast function delivery exposes dysfunction. When something ships quickly, it reveals how much time is wasted on non-functional activities.
Allergic Response: "This is moving too fast," "We need to slow down," "What about process?"
Simple functional solutions threaten complex organizational structures. If problems are simple, why do we need so many layers?
Allergic Response: "It can't be that simple," "We need to consider all factors," "This is too basic."
Function delivery requires someone to own outcomes. This threatens systems built on shared responsibility and plausible deniability.
Allergic Response: "We need team consensus," "Everyone should be involved," "Shared ownership."
Functional delivery produces measurable results. This threatens roles justified by activity rather than outcomes.
Allergic Response: "Success is hard to measure," "We need qualitative metrics," "It's about journey."
When function threatens to emerge, the organization produces more process to contain it. "We need approval workflows," "This requires review stages," "Let's add checkpoints."
Function killer: Process becomes more important than outcome.
Simple functional solutions get infected with artificial complexity. "We need to consider edge cases," "What about scalability?" "This lacks sophistication."
Function killer: Solution becomes too complex to implement.
Fast function delivery gets delayed by artificial timelines. "We need time to do this right," "Rush jobs create problems," "Patience is wisdom."
Function killer: Delivery delayed until momentum dies.
Clear ownership gets diluted with additional stakeholders. "We need input from everyone," "Who else should be involved?" "What about alignment?"
Function killer: Too many voices, no clear decisions.
Functional solutions perpetually need "more work" before deployment
Every functional decision requires analysis of infinite edge cases
Function delivery delayed until ideal process is designed
More people keep getting added who need to approve function
Simple function gets infected with additional requirements
Function held hostage by ever-increasing quality standards
Function Allergy requires systematic exposure therapy and immune system override.
Most organizations are allergic to function because function reveals dysfunction.
When you ship working solutions quickly, it becomes obvious how much organizational activity contributes nothing to outcomes. Function is the enemy of bureaucracy.
Organizations that cure Function Allergy become unstoppable. Organizations that don't become irrelevant.
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