(I'm buttin in all over the place today.)
On 5 Apr 99 at 8:57, Bill Harris wrote:
> It seems to me that this is an open question. I've heard Senge make
> the comment that commitment by upper management hasn't made the
> difference in his studies (e.g., the AutoCo learning history). I've
> also heard the quote attributed to Margaret Mead that all great
> things in the world _were_ created by a small group of dedicated
> people. The examples have always been people like Ghandi, Martin
> Luther King, Jr., and others who were (at the outset) relatively
> powerless.
My guess is that change (like many other things) can occur successfully
via a number of paths, which is why I get tired of the constant repetition
that there is but one way.
Partly it depends on context, I suspect.
I agree with Mead, but at the level of social change it gets real
interesting. My theory is that social change occurs as a result of a
variety of vectors that are sometimes on the surface, contradictory in
nature.
For example, I believe that King would NOT have succeeded as far as he did
without the existence and involvement of the militant groups at the time
and the violence. A bit of a paradox.
I suspect thought that change in organizations is also a vector (force
field type) thing and occurs via a confluence of forces that happen to
come together at the right time, both internal and external.
Robert Bacal, author of PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT,(McGraw-Hill). Details at
http://members.xoom.com/perform and http://members.xoom.com/cooperate.
"Performance management - about people and creating success"=
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