1. introduction: Organizations between performance and excessive demands
As a consultant for psychological risk assessment in companies, I regularly observe a paradoxical constellation: although organizations are formally geared towards efficiency, goal achievement and resource conservation, they systematically expose their employees to conditions under which role expectations can only be fulfilled through overtime, self-optimization or even self-exploitation.
This situation is neither an exceptional situation nor an individual problem, but an expression of structural logic. Organizations create performance demands that are often incompatible with the resources provided. This becomes particularly clear when two indicators of psychological risk assessment are considered: the extent of organizational learning – i.e. the ability to process procedural feedback in a timely and structural manner – and conflicts of objectives in the performance of tasks, which show the extent to which employees are torn between contradictory expectations. Both are reliable markers for a structure-induced logic of excessive demands.
2 Theoretical framework
Niklas Luhmann describes organizations as autopoietic (self-sustaining) social systems that operate through decisions . Their stability arises from the reproduction of forms of communication whose conditions of possibility result from decision-making premises: Goals, strategies, key figures, role assignments, processes, tools. Communication formats such as jour fixes, status reports or reporting lines are often ritualized without actually gaining knowledge – they stabilize the existing system of expectations and conceal structural deficits.
Organizational filters arise particularly in middle management: this level is not directly exposed to operational pressure, but has a career motive to protect itself at the top. Problems are trivialized or concealed instead of being openly named. In this way, the system remains stable even though it is actually overloaded.
Niklas Luhmann’s Organization and Decision (2000) describes organizations as self-referential social systems that reproduce themselves exclusively through decisions – not through people, goals or hierarchies. Decision premises such as structures, roles, processes and communication channels stabilize the system by determining what the next possible decision is. The book thus explains why organizations keep structural problems so stubbornly invisible: Rituals and communication formats ensure connectivity – not truth. Anyone who understands this mechanism also understands why structure-induced excessive demands are not a failure of individuals, but an internal system logic that can only be broken through architectural decisions – not appeals.
3. forms of structural overload
3.1 The resource-expectation paradox
Targets are formulated without ensuring that the means to achieve them are realistically provided. A small team is given more ambitious targets every year – more customer contacts, fewer escalations – but without additional human resources or more efficient or better production equipment. To achieve these targets, employees regularly work unpaid overtime. The system only works as long as they are prepared to permanently overstretch themselves. The result is an “invisible” increase in workload that is not reflected in the personnel structure and key figures.
3.2 Incorrectly calibrated incentive systems
Performance-based remuneration systems can reinforce structural overload if they incentivize individual top performance without simultaneously ensuring functional processes or tools. Sales sells functions that are not yet fully developed; the development team suffers from a lack of time and cuts back on testing and documentation, which in turn has a negative effect on support. The resulting support effort increases enormously, is allocated to development as a cost center, but is assessed as “unproductive”. Such a classic loop is self-generated suffering.
3.3 Technical and system debt
Outdated IT systems, error-prone processes and redundant interfaces generate continuous friction losses. The individual, not the organization, becomes the repair store for system deficiencies. Workarounds become the standard, process errors are not rectified, heroic work is commonplace. And because of the high demands placed on their work, top performers in particular silently support these shortcomings for far too long.
4. why structural overload remains invisible
Organizations are dependent on generating follow-up communication. Those who address structural deficits risk the connectivity of their communication. Criticism is perceived as a disturbance instead of an impulse.
Added to this is the lack of systematic enterprise architecture management (EAM). Without an overarching structuring logic that holistically integrates processes, IT systems, roles and strategic goals, small-scale optimizations arise that are not compatible with each other. The result is a complex but incoherent system that becomes increasingly uncontrollable for its users.
Between the efficiency myth and exhaustion: the structure-induced logic of excessive demands
Why do committed employees become exhausted even though nobody wants them to? In this article, Thomas Artmann shows that excessive demands in organizations rarely arise individually – but are produced structurally: through contradictory target systems, miscalibrated incentive systems, filter mechanisms in middle management and growing technical debt. The article identifies the patterns, explains their systemic logic and describes specific interventions that do not end with resilience training.
Format: PDF, 5 pages
Author: Thomas Artmann (2025)
Citation: Artmann, T. (2025). Between efficiency myth and exhaustion: The structure-induced logic of excessive demands. Eudemos Beratungsgesellschaft GmbH. https://www.eudemos.dk/2026/04/11/strukturelle-ueberforderungslogik/
5 Psychophysical consequences: Loss of control as a stressor
The simultaneous presence of conflicting demands with limited options for action creates a loss of control stressor, which is a particularly stressful form of psychological pressure. Loss of control is one of the strongest known stressors(Karasek & Theorell, 1990; Siegrist, 1996). If people are repeatedly exposed to situations in which they bear responsibility but cannot exert any influence, a form of learned helplessness arises.
Neuroscientifically, such constellations activate typical trauma response patterns – described in the polyvagal theory (Porges, 2011) and the work of van der Kolk (2015). In the long term, they can lead to overstimulation of the autonomic nervous system and exhaustion.
The organizational consequence: creativity, initiative and productivity give way to cautious, avoidant action. Employees develop protective strategies such as hedging communication and withdrawing from responsibility – a culture of organizational survival.
6. strategies for overcoming – architecture instead of appeals
Structure-induced excessive demands do not end with motivational workshops or resilience training. It ends when leadership does three things at the same time: protecting truth, enforcing learning and coupling degrees of freedom with responsibility. These three principles are not slogans, but architectural decisions.
6.1 Protect the truth: Convert rituals, devalue filters
As long as a career follows connectivity, excessive demands remain invisible. Those who name structural gaps are considered “difficult”. Those who dampen them are promoted. Three mechanisms break this logic:
The unfiltered window – 20 minutes of reality per week. A weekly, protected format in which operational reality penetrates unfiltered to the management. No presentations, no justifications – just three questions: What’s broken? Where is the fire? What can we learn from this? Two to three people from different levels rotate on a weekly basis. The management listens, protects visibly and records in three columns: Problem (fact) – Hypothesis (why?) – Next step. After a few weeks, the expectation changes: “I can say what’s going on here.”
Meeting redesign: increase decision density, abolish status rounds. Meetings are expensive. Their price becomes apparent when you ask a simple question: How many decisions were made per hour of meeting? In most organizations, the answer is shockingly low – because meetings are primarily used to synchronize status, not to make decisions. The redesign principle is radically simple: no meeting without a decision. Meetings are not for communicating status asynchronously – as a dashboard, report, minutes. Anyone who has not read in advance does not participate. Participation is not a status sign, but a function: Who is needed to make this decision? Everyone else is not invited. Every recurring meeting is reviewed every six weeks: keep it, halve it or abolish it.
Truth dividend: Career follows clarity. Explicitly include the following in target agreements, performance appraisals and promotion criteria: “Identified structural problems early and constructively.” In promotion rounds, ask: “Who has made a structural problem visible in the last 12 months that would otherwise have remained hidden?” As long as promotion follows connectivity, any other intervention is ineffective.
6.2 Forcing learning: The FiP procedure – errors in process in 14 days
Organizations do not learn because they make mistakes, but because they turn mistakes into rules. Without a procedure in place, every deviation becomes a story about people instead of a hypothesis about structures.
The FiP process (error-in-process) is a standardized 14-day process:
The result: a visible change log – “What mistakes have we turned into rules?” – that creates transparency and prevents the organization from repeating the same mistakes.
6.3 Coupling degrees of freedom with responsibility: participation and automation thinking
Performance arises when responsibility coincides with the ability to act – and when people have tools that carry them.
A committee of 6-8 people from critical interfaces and operational areas advises the management directly on a monthly basis. Topics include bottlenecks, quick wins, risks and the evaluation of strategic initiatives from an operational perspective. The members are not appointed, but elected by peers. They have a justified right of veto on detailed decisions that would have a massive impact on the reality of their work.
Fast Lane for small improvements (< 10 person days) A lean process without committees: Employees submit suggestions for improvement, a designated fast lane owner reviews them within 48 hours and implements them immediately if feasible. A monthly budget is reserved. The lead time from idea to implementation is measured publicly.
The automation funnel: Eliminate – Standardize – Automate – AI. Automation without prior structuring only automates chaos. The funnel forces you to follow the correct sequence: first check whether a process step is necessary at all (often 30-40% are superfluous). Then standardize. Then automate – through workflows, RPA or system integration. Only then use AI where variance and intelligent decisions are required that go beyond simple rules. Principle: Human-in-the-loop – AI supports, but does not decide alone.
6.4 Governance without bureaucracy: five lightweights
Governance has a bad reputation – because it usually promises too much and costs too much. Committees, approval processes, documentation requirements: The effort often exceeds the benefits. It doesn’t have to be that way. Effective governance does not require thick manuals, but rather a few procedures that are consistently adhered to.
Five instruments are enough if they are actually used.
These five tools do not work because they are particularly original. They work because they make decisions comprehensible, clearly assign responsibility and do not leave the organization’s memory to chance.
It is not people who fail because of organizations – but organizations because of their blindness to the real conditions of their own decision-making premises. Only when small, consistent rule changes with clear telemetry are introduced does heroic work disappear – and performance becomes possible again without self-exploitation.
Further reading
- Luhmann, N. (2000): Organization and Decision. Westdeutscher Verlag.
- Karasek, R. & Theorell, T. (1990): Healthy Work: Stress, Productivity, and the Reconstruction of Working Life. Basic Books. PubMed
- Siegrist, J. (1996): Adverse health effects of high-effort/low-reward conditions. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 1(1), 27-41. PubMed
- van der Kolk, B. (2015): The Body Keeps the Score. Viking.
- Porges, S. (2011): The Polyvagal Theory. W. W. Norton.
- Boddy, C. R. (2011): Corporate Psychopathy. Palgrave Macmillan.
- Beck, D. et al (2019): Consideration of psychosocial factors in workplace risk assessments. International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health. PubMed
- Lincke, H.-J. et al. (2021): COPSOQ III in Germany. Journal of Occupational Medicine and Toxicology. PubMed
About the author
Thomas Artmann is a qualified psychologist, trained systemic expert and founder of Eudemos Beratungsgesellschaft GmbH. Since 2009, he has been supporting organizations in the implementation of psychological risk assessments and their consistent use for organizational development. He is the author of the Haufe reference book Betriebliches Gesundheitsmanagement (2nd edition, 2024) and a lecturer at the Haufe Akademie for the certified course “Geprüfte:r Betriebliche:r Gesundheitsmanager:in”.
Contact: th.artmann@eudemos.de – +49 30 346496-800
