Hi Andrew,
You pose an interesting question, the answer to which is
not clear to me.
>There are some people who can move from organization to
organization and still assimilate well into each organization. For
example, in countries where organizations hire and promote based on
personal merit, there are some immigrants from other countries who
are able to reach a high level of personal achievement within
organizations in these countries. I'm just wondering how they do this. I
guess since I can't change my beliefs, it's impossible for me to change
organizations and get high results in each. Oh well.<
I have been astounded at what people can get away with in
organizations and still get ahead. Two separate cases in the past in
which I was involved concerned people lying to protect themselves
from being blamed for an error (in neither case did these errors of
omission do anything more than delay an engineering project). In each
case, the manager found out the lying occurred and responded with
"different strokes for different folks. Since no one got hurt, no big
deal." And, shortly after each of these occurrences, each person was
promoted into management.
Andrew, I was not saying you cannot get away with assuming or pretending
to have values and beliefs which align with those of an organization. I do
believe that management can be fooled if they like form over
function/politicking over sincerity/promise of long-term results versus
actual delivery of long-term results. And, I also believe that management
may not have strong values themselves and (to them) it really doesn't
matter. Getting results (or talking about getting results) is all that
matters.
My comment:
>>>>Two of the chameleons I know today are really struggling to lead
their operations in today's competitive environment.<<<<<<<
Andrew asks:
>Just for clarification, what did it do for these people to act like
chameleons?>
The payoff was to stay in management and get the "bigger bucks" (they
think). For their companies, blind loyalty to these two people has caused
severe problems in their businesses. Both men have track records of moving
to an operation, talking a good game, pointing out what IS GOING TO GET
BETTER (it never does), have one success early in their career, and keep
referring to that past success in an analogous way for years when talking
about new projects. No other success occurs through later years, but
management never seems to catch on. They are both good at talking around
the truth with veiled suggestions that "it will be better in the very near
future".
My comment:
>>>This is what many of our executives in our floundering
companies are finding out today. They are having a very hard time
changing themselves so they hire consultants to change things for
them.<<<
>Andrew replies:
The impression I got from Senge's book was that companies like Innovation
Associates do a lot of work with organizations on identification of their
current reality (beliefs) and design of a desired reality (building shared
vision) rather than changing the organization's reality or beliefs. I'm
probably wrong about this. <
I can't speak for IA. I believe any company which teaches/coaches a form
of double-loop learning for examination of systemic values stands a better
chance for success. By inference (Senge's association with people like
Chris Argyris, Bill O'Brien), IA is probably helping organizations
understand that values and system change need only occur together. When I
was talking about consultants, it was about the "one tune" Charlie
approach. "Here, use this tool. It will make you feel better in the
morning". One massive reference is all of the talk about BPR. What did the
press say about it in the beginning? Which companies changed their system
level values? Which ones have had success? Did anyone ever question if
management changed THEIR actions/values/beliefs in tune with BPR?
Gotta go! Am off for three days to Leadership and Mastery. Have a
great week!
-- Dave Buffenbarger Organizational Improvement Coach Dow Chemical Company (517) 638-7080 dwbuff@aol.com