Winfried writes:
>Now I have some predictions which I like to ask the consultants among you
>to check, especially those, who guide a company through the necessary
>changes to become a learning organisation....You help with the one or the
>other facett or aspect of growing close to equilibrium. You have some
>expertise, your niche of activity. Entropy production is not a major
>concern for you, you probably stop reading as soon as these two words
>appear in a mail on the list.
Now, this last part confused me, Winfried. When you write "you" are you
referring to the consultant? Because if so my experience is precisely the
opposite of your prediction.
I am in the entropy creation business!!! That is what I do most. I
create chaos and confusion -- because only in the midst of such can a
bifurcation occur, and because only when the organization is "unfrozen"
(shaken out of its traditional ways of thinking and doing) can it even
contemplate truly making a change. As you imply, change will not occur
(or it will be extremely short-lived) if the organization is allowed to
continue in its traditional ways. The existing culture will kill all
attempts at change, and is very powerful and good at doing so.
So, as a change consultant, one of my first tasks is to help the
organization "produce entropy" -- question itself and its traditions and
its goals, stop doing things it always did, break cultural norms [if you
are accustomed to averting your eyes when you meet someone is the
hallways, start making eye contact and say, "Hello"], get lots of small
groups of people to start working on experiments in doing things new ways,
etc.
--"John Gunkler" <jgunkler@sprintmail.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>