Sorry for the delay in replying I've been sort of tied up with work.
Thank you for the warm welcome to the organization. I have gotten several
personal replies and I will respond to each as quickly as I can. Deanna
Berg, you dropped me a line but I don't have an e-mail address to reply
to... help. Now, allow me to detail my "Runner's Wall..." problem a
little more.
This company started as a very small, family owned business. All
operations literally took place in one room with everyone pretty much
handling whatever came up. Then it grew. I think of two mental models
here to explain the state of the company. First, imagine an eight year
old infant. The body has grown, but emotionally and mentally we're still
back there in infancy. The other model I use is the metaphor of the one
room house. When everything happened within one room, everybody was
informed, everyone had input and if you needed to make a decision and got
everyone's opinion in the room, you had all the relevent thoughts. When
we grew, we added rooms to the house. With rooms came walls. Imagine if
you were born and raised in a one room house. You'd have no concept that
people on the other side of the walls don't know what you're doing. And,
if you didn't see them, you didn't involve them because at least
figuratively, they didn't exist. This ties into such real world problems
as managers who relate to each other first as pals rather than business
associates. This leaves the staff feeling unsupported and left out.
Nearly all these same managers are home-grown and most have never managed
at all or have never managed in a larger, multi-site organization. These
managers have never delegated anything and they're afraid to do so. This
leaves the staff feeling handcuffed and frustrated. Finally, there are
the limits placed on us by the family ownership of the business which may
be the critical limit.
How can we usefully change the organization when the managers have no
viable frame of reference to operate from? How can I explain colors to
someone who has been blind since birth?
If nothing else, this should prove a useful experiment. Thanks in advance
for the efforts and the help.
Sincerely,
Andy Z.
AZdanowicz@aol.com
--Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>