Clyde wrote:
> requires a very open point of view on the part of the planning staff.
I'm not a military historian, so I can't speak to Patton's organization
(although I did enjoy the movie :-). I think we must distinguish between
people open to manager/general/leader _imposed_ change and an organization
open to learning and change, no matter where it comes from.
> The field commanders were operating often out of a sense of fear of Gen
> Patton. But this is not that different from what takes place in many
> successful (learning?) organiztions in modern business. They still
> managed to learn and adapt to the changing situations.
Edgar Schein wrote an article ("Kurt Lewin's Change Theory in the Field
and in the Classroom: Notes Toward a Model of Managed Learning", available
through the MIT Society for Organizational Learning web site) in which he
describes about two kinds of fear: that of being left behind, and that of
being incompetent at something new (I can find the reference, if anyone
cares and doesn't already know it). It sounds like you are proposing that
Patton made staying behind (in the old frame of reference) pretty
dangerous, especially or even in comparison to their fear of moving
forward (attacking on all fronts?). That sounds like effective change
management/encouragement, but it doesn't necessarily imply empowered or
participatory action. That is, it seems to rely on the insights of the
leader as sufficient.
If one wants to create a learning organization, I see that as limiting;
wouldn't it be better to harness the intellectual capability and
experience of _all_ the players, partially by focusing more on reducing
the fear of looking incompetent at trying something new?
> Any thoughts?
That's the way it's worked in my experience, anyway.
Bill
[Host's Note: the MIT web site is http://learning.mit.edu ...Rick]
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