Many thanks to all those who responded to my recent post on speed, change,
and time. Without question it has caused me to reflect about my
relationship with the other managers, and how those relationships could be
improved.
Honestly I haven't slept well since the break-out session where I espoused
the idea that corporations don't exist to make a profit. As I mentioned I
talked to one manager in private, who provided some valuable feedback.
Some of suggested that perhaps I misinterepreted his feedback.
I've spoken privately with each manager in the break out group, and
expressed my feelings to them. I inquired into the reasoning behind their
reaction. These meetings have been very helpful. One thing that I got from
them was some of the managers are afraid of rocking the boat, despite the
fact that Novell is a transformation company. They're afraid they'll only
make things worse, and thus lose their job. When I rocked the boat a
little bit, a few of the managers literally went into a state of panic.
I thought the idea of a transformation company was to learn to do things
differently. What got us here, ain't going to get us there. . .
Honestly, this has been the source of so much emotional pain for me I'd
rather just see the whole thing go away. Some of the managers have used
the breakout session to take some fairly cutting jabs at me personally.
While I may have had honest disagreements with the other managers, I've
never assualted them personally. That they would do this to me has caused
significant pain.
Over the last couple of months I've had several head hunters call me. I've
been very tempted to jump ship, and say goodbye to it all. However, I'm so
dedicated to Novell, that I can't comfortably leave at such a critical
time.
I've just launched a learning initiative within my own department, and am
working to extend it throught the entire division. I enjoy the work so
much, and the opportunity to learn and grow is so great, that I feel it
would be disadvantageous to leave now. I'll take the pain, swallow my
pride, try to learn from the experience, and move on.
Again, many thanks for the thoughtful notes. . .and the many private notes
that have caused me to chuckle at a time when I didn't feel like
chuckling.
--Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>