Why good people amplify noise
Signal Corruption is when good people systematically amplify noise to avoid confronting buried truth. It's the invisible force that turns competent individuals into optimization addicts who mistake activity for agency.
Most business dysfunction isn't caused by bad people or broken systems. It's caused by good people corrupting signal to avoid psychological discomfort.
They know what needs to happen. They know what's broken. They know who's not performing. But surfacing that signal feels dangerous, so they optimize noise instead.
Someone detects buried truth: "This project will fail," "This person isn't performing," "This strategy won't work."
The signal is clear, accurate, and actionable.
The signal carrier feels psychological threat: "What if I'm wrong?" "What if people get upset?" "What if there are consequences?"
Fear overrides function. Comfort becomes more important than truth.
Instead of surfacing signal, they generate noise: "Let's gather more data," "We need stakeholder input," "Let's optimize the process."
Noise feels productive while avoiding the uncomfortable truth.
The noise becomes institutional. "We need to be thorough," "We value process," "We're data-driven."
Signal corruption is now the culture. Truth becomes the enemy.
They mistake comfort for safety. Truth feels threatening to relationships, so they choose noise that keeps everyone comfortable and nothing functional.
If you never surface the signal, you never have to deal with consequences. Noise generation becomes a way to postpone difficult decisions indefinitely.
Generating sophisticated noise (frameworks, analyses, processes) looks like competence. Simple signal amplification looks too easy, too risky.
Organizations reward noise generation (reports, meetings, initiatives) more than signal amplification (direct truth, binary decisions, function delivery).
Signal corruption can only be broken by systematic signal amplification that makes noise generation impossible.
Detect where your organization amplifies noise to avoid truth. Get the intervention that breaks signal corruption cycles.
SURFACE BURIED SIGNALDETECT SIGNAL CORRUPTION