Ian shared some of his reflections on several posts and was concerned
about inferred assumptions concerning the role of managers.
>There may be a role for managers who have had more experience with major
>change in organisations to assist in introducing major change in
>organisation which need this level of change .However I am just a little
>concerned with the theme which appears from time to time which suggests
>that "change managers " are specialized managers with a different role
>from "normal" managers .Likewise there seems to be a theme that manageing
>change is different from normal management.
What I gathered from several references to "change managers" was that when
change is about to take place, e.g., ISO 9000 certification, often a
specific manager is put in charge of implementing change. Now their
responsibility is making change happen and all the organizational
resistances that come with that. I maintain, "change management" IS
different from "normal management," because I've always defined manager as
"keeper of the status quo." Management to me means maintaining the
systems in place.
>In other words management is about managing continual changing situations
>and this is the main management function and is not a specialized role .
In my lexicon, leadership is about dealing with "continual changing
situations" and the necessary evaluation of the impact these changes have
on the organization. Management is there to keep the organization moving
along in the direction the leadership is pointing. Sometimes that means
designing new and therefore changing processes, but then management's task
remains maintain, albeit the new, status quo.
Ian, I appreciate your point. I find the distinctions are a matter of
different responsibilities. Afterall, it depends...
--Ginger Shafer The Leadership Dimension "Bringing Leadership to Life" vshafer@azstarnet.com
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>