Too much of a good thing brings out its downside. Ever had too much team time? It makes you long for a solo vacation on a desert island.

One of the best portrayals of “too much of a good thing” was in Black Mirror’s Nose Dive (Season 3). In what initially looks like a utopian culture where everyone is always happy, people use an app to rate each other on the quality of their interactions. The more points you get, the higher your socioeconomic status. But the underside of too much pleasantness is insincerity. After a series of miserable mishaps, a pretty, perky young woman is unable to maintain the facade. It ends with her in prison, having lost all her points, quite happily trading insults and obscenities with another prisoner.

There is an upside and downside for each type of organizational culture. Some people think one type of culture is better than others. But overemphasis brings out the downside of any culture, as Nose Dive demonstrated.

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