This thread -- and many others -- have caused me to think about many
different aspects of my life. One is my political life (and my political
ambitions). While I want to avoid a political discussion -- who is right,
who is wrong? as that has no pertinence to such an international community
such as this -- I do think there's stuff business can learn from politics,
and stuff politics can learn from business.
In 1992 Bill Clinton won the US Presidency. George Bush went from a huge
approval rating after the Persian Gulf war to losing to a little known
Governor from Arkansas. What happened? In 1992 it was the economy --
people wanted change. . .economic change. In this instance the desire for
change was because people wanted to feel more secure; job security had
become an antiquated word; people turned to the government for security,
and Bill Clinton promised it to them. It got Clinton the Presidency.
In 1996 many people thought Clinton would get booted out of office. Too
many scandals, too many mistakes, too many lies. To the surprise of some
-- how many I don't know -- Clinton won. Why? The 1996 Presidential
Campaign was about the future -- and changing to meet the future head-on
without threatening people's sense of security. The Dole/Kemp Tax Plan
threatened people's sense of security, and said very little about the
future. Clinton promised the people a brighter and safer and more secure
future. And he had a coherent plan of how to get there.
(There are many other reasons why Clinton was both elections, but their
not pertinent to this discussion so I'm going to drop them.)
Clinton was elected President of the US twice -- both times with the
promise of change. This challenges the assumption that people are afraid
of change; people want and desire change; they want to know that what
they're doing today will create a better future tomorrow (by tomorrow I
mean "tomorrow" not five-years from now tomorrow). This desire is
manifested in the political process. . .and in business.
The problem with change in business is that it often threatens peoples
sense of security, instead of enhance it. Cooperation is destroyed, and
people come to resent their leaders (i.e. the managers). It builds
suspicion, making it difficult to "communicate" the reasons for the
change, as Rol encouraged us to do.
Look at how many jobs have been lost in the last seven years in the US.
The word change, in many organizations, is a very bad thing. It strikes
fear in the heart of people -- creating, as we've noted in the Safe
Learning Thread -- an unsafe environment.
Business needs to learn from Bill Clinton: Change is about creating a
better and more secure future. It is not about laying off people. The
emphasis is all wrong. Personally, I'm glad the US had never decided to
deport a certain percentage of people when the economy isn't doing so
well! But business has no compunction about "deporting" its citizens, when
things aren't going well. Is this a way of avoiding responsible
governance? I don't know.
For what it's worth!
-- Ben Compton The Accidental Learning Group Work: (801) 222-6178 Improving Business through Science and Art bcompton@geocities.com http://www.e-ad.com/ben/BEN.HTMLearning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>