Abiguity and Action LO6753

Keith Cowan (72212.51@CompuServe.COM)
17 Apr 96 11:08:19 EDT

[Subject line shortenen by your host. Was: Abiguity and Action: How to
make it happen]

The issue of dealing with ambiguity must be a very big problem for
organizations. No one likes to hear the answer "It depends". Yet many of
the issues we are dealing with do not have simple answers.

It would appear to me that the successes in making change relate to the
ability to decompose the problem into manageable chunks and gain
commitment to move on them in a timely fashion by enlisting the braodest
support and commitment possible from the stakeholders.

This inevitably involves selling by convincing those stakeholders that the
pain of doing nothing will be more than the pain of acting. I am
constantly amazed when I assert that the goals of a business are to make
profit, and generate acceptable ROI and Cashflows and that everything else
is detail that will confuse the objective. Very few accept that it is this
simple. Of course it isn't but by addressing these "root" goals as an
underlying framework, many of the other actions can be brought back to
reality by the test "How will action XXX affect these three goals in the
short or long term?" If the consensus is that it will be positive, then
which action(s) will have the greatest impact?

This is simply removing ambiguity at the risk of oversimpifying but it
does help to be a catalyst for action. So we can all ask the question of
our activities in the corporate world including being an active
participant on this list...

-- 

Keith Cowan <72212.51@CompuServe.COM>

Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>