Barriers
The Barrier to making significant progress is in how we think. How we, our organisations and society, thinks.
What you see depends upon what you thought before you looked. - Myron Tribus
An explanation of the thinking (or theories) we use at present, and the different thinking we could be utilising in the future is explored in the Theories file.
In brief we list some characteristics of our thinking that creates barriers to our progress.
Our managers have never been taught "theory." We would be horrified if our doctors had no appreciation of the theories behind their medical practice, similarly with our engineers. We would be rightly concerned if an aeroplane designer had no appreciation of the theories that lie behind the concept of an aerofoil and lift. But we readily accept leaders or managers who have no appreciation of the underpinning assumptions that determine their organisational thinking. This has to change.
Management is the application of scientific knowledge gained from research in the social sciences. It is a cop out to say management is an art.
Furthermore without an appreciation of the theories we are using we have no basis from which to challenge that theory. In other words we have no basis for learning and improving
Also with no appreciation of theory we fail to see the underpinning thinking behind innovative projects. We judge these innovative projects from the mindset of the establishment. And therefore miss the crucial point that it is achieving different more beneficial outcomes, by thinking differently.
This is a major problem with a broad range of organisations:
In fact, we can only measure a very small amount of the whole. W Edwards Deming considered:
“3% of problems have figures, 97% of problems do not”
To which he added a deadly disease of “Running a company on visible figures alone (counting the money).”
Senior Executives have a tendency to remain in their "ivory towers" and demand that they be fed data. They then manage the enterprise from the figures that represent only 3% of the whole.
In Johnson and Broms book - "Profit beyond Measure" they recognised that Toyota and Scania, managed by listening to the people and studying the flow of work. They do collect and interpret data, but they keep it in context.
We have a whole range of techniques to motivate people;
Yet when we observe individuals we see that the majority like work, it is a need. They also love learning. Most of us come to work wanting to do a good job. We are self motivated. As Douglas McGregor once said "The answer to the question - How do you motivate people? - is - You don't"
A dangerous strategy is "no change" - just ask the Dodo - The surest way to get left behind is to avoid change
Yet many of our organisations - especially our larger organisations are "risk averse." Is it because of the misconception of accountability? Is it because we make so much more of mistakes that we do of success? Is because organisations - especially in the public sector - look for a "safe pair of hands?" Is it because the media take such delight in bad news stories?
What is certain is that the only way to learn is through disciplined experiments - often referred to as "Scientific Method". We form a hypothesis, conduct experiments and then review our hypothesis in light of the results from our experiments - and so on.
In all areas of our society we will move forward by welcoming disciplined experiments, and all of us being open to the learning that is available from these experiments.
From our reductionist education we break down difficult problems into parts and study the parts. With organisations we break down the enterprise into manageable departments or functions.
But what is now widely recognised today is that organisations are made up of the parts plus the interaction between the parts. It is these complex interrelationships between the parts that required to be managed - the term used is "Whole Systems Thinking"
And on the same theme we have a tendency to manage organisations as if they are simply controllable entities. We identify a part (or function) and control it by setting budgets and targets. In fact we live and work in complex interactive and live systems. There is seldom an answer. Often we require to balance opposites. Somehow we require to manage complexity.
We have the simple perception that we can make an individual accountable. In fact we live and work in complex systems. These systems may have been designed by others or simply evolved over the years. The design of these systems have a major (90%) influence on the outcomes from our efforts
"Hold everybody accountable? - Ridiculous!" - W Edwards Deming
We are uncomfortable with change for many reasons, as the saying goes, we do not mind change but we object to "being" changed. Also most of us have considerable investment in the status quo - we have secured our present position through the paradigms of society's existing culture. Change often asks that we abandon all that investment and start again.
Everything seems to be short term, yet transforming society or even an organisation is a long term challenge. In the research conducted by Porras and Collins and recorded in their book - "Built to Last." - one of the criteria for success was a long term perspective. Change and progress requires long term stability.
We have a tendency to see success and then attempt to emulate success by copying the methods only. In other words without appreciating the underlying thinking behind the success. For example: