In support (rather than reply to) of Michael McMaster's reply to
"Jan" about "white lies"(this is my first day out on this mailing
list, so forgive me Jan but I don't know what your original comment
was). I agree with him in that many people want to change, but
don't have the tool box to change.
After one of those "ah hah" experiences last year with a rather
senior manager in our organisation, I have come to more firmly
believe in the "time being right" for somethings.
SM, our second in organisational command, is one of those very dry,
tough, keep the railroad running at all costs managers. While
supporting many of the changes in our organisation honestly and
loyally, he was often our worst enermy. For example, in an
environment where we were trying to support risk taking and open
communication, one angry decension on the poor unsuspecting enginees
who had finally hung themselves with the great lenghts of rope he
had provided them with would usually set us back six months in
moving the engineering teams toward self management and fearless
communication.
Yet, last year I chose him a course at the General Managers request
and between the two of us we got him there (first time in 5 years).
Afterwards he admitted to finally seeing that the direction in
managing our people that the GM had been setting us for three years
was way ahead of the pack, rather than a pipe dream, and actually
modified some of his behaviour and has continued to learn and
change.
What's the outcome of my learning? Preparing the ground - for some
of us the themes of the change, the words and their meanings need to
be repeated often and woven through everything before they take
seed, and in some cases we need to step outside ourselves and take
stock (nothing new in this I know). Sometimes only outsiders can
place us in the right context.
--Kelly Pearce <kellyp@ozemail.com.au>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>