The Pendulum Effect – The Organizational Impact - LinkedIn

Agree & Join LinkedIn

By clicking Continue to join or sign in, you agree to LinkedIn’s User Agreement, Privacy Policy, and Cookie Policy.

Sign in to view more content

Create your free account or sign in to continue your search

Sign in

Welcome back

Email or phone Password Show Forgot password? Sign in

or

By clicking Continue to join or sign in, you agree to LinkedIn’s User Agreement, Privacy Policy, and Cookie Policy.

New to LinkedIn? Join now

or

New to LinkedIn? Join now

By clicking Continue to join or sign in, you agree to LinkedIn’s User Agreement, Privacy Policy, and Cookie Policy.

Skip to main content 2 min read

We can describe Pendulum (taken from Wikipedia) as:

A pendulum is a weight suspended from a pivot so that it can swing freely. When a pendulum is displaced sideways from its resting, equilibrium position, it is subject to a restoring force due to gravity that will accelerate it back toward the equilibrium position. When released, the restoring force acting on the pendulum's mass causes it to oscillate about the equilibrium position, swinging back and forth.

How are a pendulum and working organization related?

Imagine an organizational chart; on the top you have the CEO\President\GM, then the Executive team\VP’s, then the Department Managers and continuing along the way till we’ve reached the production\shift employees level.

Let’s locate the organizational team on the pendulum. On the pivot point you have the CEO\President, on the mass-less rod you have the executive team and on the bob you have the production team.

The organizational pendulum will look like:

In a regular organization there’s a movement of actions, work plans, targets, goals and initiatives that starts from the top and moves along the organizational chart. It’s important that the CEO\Executive teams keep their messages, demands, plans and actions, focused and lean. If not, they’ll shake and stir their organizational to a greater extend, similar to what’s happening to the Bob at the bottom of the pendulum.

As much as the CEO\Executive team messages are stronger, deeper and harder – the messages will carry over the organizational with more distraction, stronger, louder and deeper volume – Same as the bob movement in the pendulum.

Let’s give a simple example: the CEO sets a goal of 5% cost saving. The Executive team wants to meet this goal so they’ll push their manager teams to have more than 5% cost saving (just to be on the safe side). The manager team will set a 7% cost saving in order to ensure they meet the goal and so on and down the pendulum. The whole plan will go out completely off track and may achieve different results. I describe this as the “Organizational Pendulum Effect”.

Imagine an organization that is dealing with negative sales trend or negative financial results – such messages and initiative can stir and shake organizations to a dangerous and unnecessary situation just because of the “Organizational Pendulum effect”.

It’s not only the content of the message and goal measurement target – it’s also important to be mindful of the approach and behavior of the top organizational leaders in delivering those messages.

By looking on the Pendulum it’s simple to understand this aspect of organizational behavior and its lesson on “what NOT to do” as organizational leader!

Like Like Celebrate Support Love Insightful Funny Comment

• Copy
• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• X

Share 29 6 Comments Eli Markovetski 2y

• Report this comment

Hi Amon, It's very interesting! I will be happy to connect.

Like Reply 1 Reaction Ofer Haimovich 🎗️ 5y

• Report this comment

In my mind CEOs should sets long term strategic goals rather than objectives like 5% cost reduction. The managers level are the ones to set measurable objectives/targets which allow monitoring progress towards the destination. And the 5% cost reduction goal also reminds me of a well known phenomena : “We reduce costs no matter how much it costs us “ :-)

Like Reply 1 Reaction Oded Wertheim 5y

• Report this comment

בתי היציקה בקצה החבל ...

Like Reply 1 Reaction Alex Bukin 5y

• Report this comment

Awesome article. I think I know what you are describing here and not from others’ stories😁👍

Like Reply 1 Reaction 2 Reactions See more comments

To view or add a comment, sign in

More articles by Amon Wirthiem

• An Unofficial and Free AI Advisory Perspective May 9, 2025

  An Unofficial and Free AI Advisory Perspective

  AI Strategy for Mid-Sized Manufacturing Companies An Unofficial and Free Advisory Perspective 1. Fundamental Question:…

  83 2 Comments
• Marathon runner vs. CEO May 2, 2024

  Marathon runner vs. CEO

  This month, I am celebrating an important career milestone. Serving 20 years as a President\CEO\GM\MD in various…

  157 41 Comments
• Fond memory Apr 25, 2023

  Fond memory

  Yesterday, a friend of mine, shared this photo with me. About, twenty years ago we took this photo of Ortal Die Casting…

  31 2 Comments
• Go Team Eddie (#5) Jul 6, 2018

  Go Team Eddie (#5)

  Palram Americas Inside Sales Manager, Kelly Knauss is participating in Rally North America “US 50 Rally West” - Sunday…

  27
• The Ugly Sweater Tale Dec 4, 2017

  The Ugly Sweater Tale

  From time to time I’ve been asked about the difference between working and managing in the American workplace versus…

  31 10 Comments

Show more See all articles

Others also viewed

• The Transformation Trap: Why Doing Everything Right Is Burning Out Your Best People

  AJ Kulatunga 2mo

• Two Futures: Reinvention or Evolution

  Dave Clare 2mo

• Large scale change is not small scale change repeated many times. Small wins repeated are lots of small wins.

  Dr Leandro Herrero 2y

• The Science of Change: Why People Resist Transformation

  João Pereira 9mo

• The Curious Nature of Sinking Ships

  Mic De Fazio M.A., CPCU, AAI, CRIS 8y

• Down the Rabbit Hole (Part 2): What Alice in Wonderland Teaches Us About Business Transformation

  Gauri Bahal 5mo

• Are vision statements an absolute waste of time?

  Buki O. 1y

• The Power of Planned Abandonment: Why Letting Go Creates Space for Growth

  Janet Tumulty 3mo

• Are you ready to enable Transformational Growth?

  Kevin McKeand 1y

• The Times Are a Changin'

  Paul Boyles, SPHR, SHRM-SCP 10mo

Show more Show less

Explore content categories

• Career
• Productivity
• Finance
• Soft Skills & Emotional Intelligence
• Project Management
• Education
• Technology
• Leadership
• Ecommerce
• User Experience
• Recruitment & HR
• Customer Experience
• Real Estate
• Marketing
• Sales
• Retail & Merchandising
• Science
• Supply Chain Management
• Future Of Work
• Consulting
• Writing
• Economics
• Artificial Intelligence
• Employee Experience
• Workplace Trends
• Fundraising
• Networking
• Corporate Social Responsibility
• Negotiation
• Communication
• Engineering
• Hospitality & Tourism
• Business Strategy
• Change Management
• Organizational Culture
• Design
• Innovation
• Event Planning
• Training & Development

Show more Show less