Keith Cowan, responding to
>... And in fact we conspire to avoid senior management even knowing what is
>truely going on. Thus the Conspiritorial LO team theory.
>Archie Kregear - kregear@lims.lockheed.com
Said in LO7214 that
>Great story, Archie. Your account is frightening yet realistic. This is
>one of the major contributors to many change activites failing. The senior
>managers plot the course without knowing what is really going on.
My experience says it is a two-way street. In Lost Dutchman, one of the
most common experiences is that, "Nobody ever asks the Expedition Leader
for Advice." Even though the this person knows the game and teaches
others how it works, controls the resources and follows two rules:
Rule One: Expedition Leaders are always right.
Rule Two: Should an Expedition Leader be wrong, please re-read Rule One.
You know, this is Real World Stuff!
Recently, I got a call on my 800 (toll-free) number and she asked, "Can
you help us mine gold?" This came from a team playing the game at that
moment and she found the number on the bottom of the map. **She would
rather call an unknown person on an 800 number than ask the Expedition
Leader for assistance in the activlty!**
When this is combined with the reality, Nobody Ecer Washes a Rental Car,"
we have leaders who are (intentionally / factually) isolated from the
actual activities ("A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the
world") and who, because of the isolation, don't have any ownership of the
process or activities.
Yet we will blame them for not supporting us when push comes to shove.
In a past life, I was senior VP of a 126-store chain of retail stores -- I
had operations AND HRD responsibilities and could offer whatever
assistance was desired. How many times do you think store managers called
and asked for help in improving operations?
Right.
Business success and leadership is a partnership and a collaboration. But
we tend to compete and thus suboptimize results with My Team, My Team, My
Team kinds of behaviors against "Them."
"Just because you aren't paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you"
seems to be a common organizational belief that I'm trying to impact,
For the Fun of It!
--Scott Simmerman Performance Management Company, 3 Old Oak Drive, Taylors SC USA 29687-6624 74170.1061@compuserve.com
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>