Replying to Brock Vodden
>From my experience, I can only conclude that the manager's who resist
>change are in the majority. Those who embrace change are a very small
>minority. If this is an accurate assessment, we need to look at the
>underlying cause rather than simply looking at individual behaviours. In
>Canada, at least, there are systemic factors in the way managers are
>selected, promoted, and developed into their respective roles.
Brock
A great posting. I very much agree that we should look at the
systemic factors influencing management behaviour.
Leaders are human beings, just like everyone else in the
organisation, and they they will be influenced by the sytem's
pressures and expectations just like every one else.
I also agree that the education and development of people during
their careers is a significant influence.
Some other systemic factors that have an influence which occur to me
are:
the organisation's culture around leadership - most people (not just
managers) in organisations expect leaders to be - all knowing, to
act as a 'ruling class'(with bigger offices, secretaries, chauffers
etc.), to avoid displaying normal human reactions of insecurity
and fear, to make no mistakes, etc.
the reward systems - performance bonuses, annual one to one
appraisal around performance targets will make it more difficult
and risky to change.
internal competitiveness - competing with other internal
leaders instead of team working and sharing responsibilty.
no real common purpose in the organisation - in this case people
including leaders will follow their own agendas
blaming (and firing or penalising) individuals instead of looking
for systemic reasons for poor performance.
'short termism' - not allowing careful preparation , introduction
and evaulation of change (Deming's PDSA cycle).
I am sure there must be lots more.
Martin
--Martin Raff VISTA Consulting - for a better future martin@vistaraff.win-uk.net phone and fax: +44-1789 840418
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>