Ron Dickson wrote:
> In discussing which metaphors are best suited to communicating with general
> managers, jzavacki@epix.net wrote:
>
> snip...
> Albeit complexity and chaos theory are beyond the perceived needs of most
> of my clients, it is still necessary to use "their" language to describe
> "my" ideas in order to make them think they thought them up and
> consequently get their support for work important to change in the domain
> of relevance.
> ...snip
>
> I hope never to be in a position of working for a general manager with
> such an overweening need to conscript the ideas of other. Having entered
> the cycle of using words to manipulate others into thinking a certain, it
> is very hard to back out of it again. And if the change is to be
> sustained within the organization, the change in thinking must be genuine,
> not based on the consultant's verbal finesse. Otherwise, the burden of
> organizational manipulation is merely transferred from the manager to the
> consultant.
As an executive for an Intel supplier for five years, I can understand
Ron's reaction. Most Intel GM's belong to an enlightened culture. Many
(read "most") of my clients are in the less than 50 million range. Some
are family businesses, some are guts ventures. In many, there are one or
two college grads and one to four hundred who may or may not have
graduated high school. These are the factories where I formed my need to
be a change agent.
Most are looking to buy boxes: ISO9000, TQM, CAD training, MRP. They are
not on the cutting edge of managment technology. It is often necessary to
evangelize in a way that appears conversational. "Have you read....", "I
put an article in your mail box....", etc. I do a lot of pro bono before I
even get to the real work or organizational systems, information systems,
cultural change. Their factories and organizations are usually weird
devolutionary monsters with no idea anywhere in the group of why things
are done the way they are.
"The cycle of using words to manipulate others into thinking a certain"
(way) is something like teaching.
"an overweening need to conscript the ideas of other" is something like
learning.
-- jzavacki@epix.net John Zavacki The Wolff Group 900 James Avenue Scranton, PA 18510 Phone: 717-346-1218 Fax: 717-346-1388