| Guiding
Ideas |
| Most efforts to change organizations fail. The sources of
these failures cannot be remedied by more expert advice, better consultants,
or more committed managers. The sources lie in our most basic ways of thinking.
All growth in nature arises out of an interplay between reinforcing growth
processes and limiting processes. As Humberto Maturana says, "there is no
growth without inhibition." The same is true for human endeavors, including
our efforts to innovate and design. The constant push-and-pull between growth
and inhibition is the "dance" of change. |
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| Profound limits to growth are embedded in our prevailing
system of management. These include the of hoarding of power; the commitment
of managers to change as long as it doesn't affect them; the "undiscussable"
topics that people feel are risky to talk about; and the management "silo"
structure, which produces powerful incentives to fix problems in local functional
areas, but not to address the interactions among silos, where real problems
are generated. We can learn to deal with these limits only by building our
collective learning capabilities: the ability to reflect on and clarify
personal aspirations; to build shared aspirations; to talk openly about
complex, conflictive issues without invoking defensiveness; and to think
cogently about systems and act effectively on systemic issues. |
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| Idealizing "great leaders" and "heroic figures" is a surefire
way to create and maintain change-averse organizations. The alternative
is to focus on leadership COMMUNITIES, such as the interplay between executive
leaders, line leaders, and network leaders. There is much more leverage
when these three types of leaders act together, than when any "hero" acts
alone. |
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| By now, there are fifteen years of experience to draw upon
from organizations that have explicitly sought to enhance their capacity
to learn. While the gains from downsizing, reengineering, and "slash and
burn" retrenchments often fail to sustain themselves, the gains from enhancing
learning capacity have proven to be sustainable, cumulative, and self-reinforcing.
All of the challenges of profound change are predictable. They arise as
natural counterpressures to generating change, just as friction arises as
a natural counterpressure to physical movement. There are high-leverage
strategies that can help teams and individuals deal with each challenge
separately. But the greatest leverage comes from understanding them as an
ensemble of forces. |
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