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The behaviours nobody
names are running
your organisation.
Anti-patterns are recurring, observable behaviours that look individually rational and collectively harmless, until you name them, measure their severity, and see what system they're quietly building together.
Not personality.
Observable behaviour.
An anti-pattern is a recurring, observable behaviour that makes sense from the individual's position, but is collectively harmful at team or organisational level. The Hero looks helpful. Overoptimism looks confident. The Tower of Knowledge looks indispensable.
Each is rational for the person doing it. Each is expensive for the system containing it. And critically: each is invisible until it has a name.
"Culture is not built in stated values. It lives in the daily behaviours of individuals, the dynamics of teams, and the structural assumptions of organisations — and those behaviours can be observed, rated, aggregated, and tracked."
The BI Method, SSRN Research Paper
The BI Method shifts the question from "how do people feel?" to "what behaviours are observable, how severe are they, and what would change if they stopped?"
"Engagement scores are low. The team isn't collaborating."
"Tower of Knowledge is active, severity 7.4/10. Several people are the single point of failure. Work piles up because they are the only one who truly understands the system."
"People aren't taking ownership. We need a leadership development programme. Culture surveys."
"Unclear Goals is active across 4 of 6 teams, severity 6.8/10. Teams are filling the strategic vacuum with local priorities. The antidote is specific, shared goal-setting connected to org strategy."
Four domains. 44 named patterns.
One antidote per pattern.
The BI Method organises observable anti-patterns across four behavioural domains, assessed at team, leadership, and organisational level.
How information moves, or doesn't.
This domain covers how information is shared, withheld, distorted, or weaponised across teams and hierarchies. Anti-patterns here are often invisible because the behaviour looks like expertise or discretion rather than dysfunction.
Withholding information to protect influence looks like professional expertise. Avoiding difficult conversations looks like emotional intelligence. Undiscussables persist because raising them feels riskier than absorbing the cost of living with them. The behaviour is individually rational, and collectively corrosive.
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Three levels. Same patterns.
Different interventions.
Anti-patterns active at team level require different responses than the same patterns at leadership or system level. The BI Method assesses all three.
Patterns within a team
The most granular level. Fastest to act on. Anti-patterns measured within a single team using anonymous 360-style peer, manager, and direct-report assessment.
Results surface which patterns are active, their severity score, and priority order for intervention — before they compound into leadership or system-level dysfunction.
Patterns exhibited by those in authority
Leadership-level patterns are assessed by both self and others. The gap between self-perception and observed behaviour is itself diagnostic data — often the most actionable insight the BI Method surfaces.
Overoptimism, unclear goal-setting, and authority concentration are most visible — and most costly — at this level.
Structural patterns embedded in the organisation
System-level patterns persist through personnel changes, embedded in incentive structures, norms, and authority distribution. Aggregated across teams, departments, and layers.
Reveals whether dysfunction is localised or systemic — which determines whether the fix is a team-level intervention or a structural one.
The Anti-Pattern Library
A growing library of named, researched behavioural patterns, each with a targeted antidote. Browse by domain.
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More patterns in the full library
The complete library spans multiple domains — every pattern named, defined, and paired with a concrete antidote. Start your free risk scan to see which ones are active in your team.
Start Free Risk Scan →The BI Cycle: from detection
to measurable change
Five stages. Repeating. Each iteration tightens the picture, and narrows the distance between the behaviours you have and the behaviours that actually serve the work.
Detect
Identify which anti-patterns are present across team, leadership, and system levels. Anonymous 360-style input. Two questions per pattern, presence and severity.
Assess
Score each active pattern on severity and frequency. Surface the gap between self-perception and observed behaviour. Prioritise by impact and intervention readiness.
Potential
Map the gap between current behavioural state and ideal state. Identify which patterns, if resolved, would generate the highest return, and in what order to address them.
Act · Antidote
Apply the antidote mapped to each anti-pattern. Every named pattern in the BI Method library has a corresponding intervention — not a generic culture programme.
Iterate
Re-run the assessment. Measure what changed. Track severity scores over time. The BI Cycle doesn't end — it compounds, building an evidence base of what works in your specific context.
Which anti-patterns are
active in your organisation?
Run a free risk scan to surface your highest-priority patterns, or go deeper with a full 360 assessment across team, leadership, and system levels.
Named anti-patterns across 4 behavioural domains. Research grounded: Latané et al. (1979), Buehler et al. (1994), Locke & Latham (1990), Flyvbjerg (2008). Full methodology: The BI Method, SSRN Working Paper.