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[[File:Whos Next.png|450px|thumb|center|Meet the new boss.]] | [[File:Whos Next.png|450px|thumb|center|Meet the new boss.]] | ||
}}{{smallcaps|If we take it}} that, like any other intellectual proposition,<ref>I speak of none other than the [[Duhem-Quine thesis]] as to the theory-dependence of observation: that it is impossible to test a scientific hypothesis in isolation, because any test presupposes one or more background assumptions and auxiliary hypotheses.</ref> every management initiative must be driven by some ''theory'' or other — that is, it must be designed to prove out a hypothesis that ''already exists in someone’s mind''. Seeing as that the minds whose hypotheses get tested tend to belong to those at or near the summit of their organisations — we see the [[paradox]]ical nature of ''mandated organisational change'': the mandate for change must come from those who have lived their best lives within, because of, and thanks to, the status quo: things as they are ''before'' change. Those, that is to say, ''who have most to lose'' from change. | }}{{smallcaps|If we take it}} that, like any other intellectual proposition,<ref>I speak of none other than the [[Duhem-Quine thesis]] as to the theory-dependence of observation: that it is impossible to test a scientific hypothesis in isolation, because any test presupposes one or more background assumptions and auxiliary hypotheses.</ref> every management initiative must be driven by some ''theory'' or other — that is, it must be designed to prove out a hypothesis that ''already exists in someone’s mind''. Seeing as that the minds whose hypotheses get tested tend to belong to those at or near the summit of their organisations — we see the [[paradox]]ical nature of ''mandated organisational change'': the mandate for change must come from those who have lived their best lives within, because of, and thanks to, the status quo: things as they are ''before'' change. Those, that is to say, ''who have most to lose'' ''from change''. | ||
The argument runs like this: a “will to change” derives from a conviction that one’s current configuration is, somehow, ''wrong'': that the organisation is sub-optimal, dysfunctional, elliptical or just ''broken''. | The argument runs like this: a “will to change” derives from a conviction that one’s current configuration is, somehow, ''wrong'': that the organisation is sub-optimal, dysfunctional, elliptical or just ''broken''. | ||
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To ''want'' change is to believe ''things are currently out of whack''. | To ''want'' change is to believe ''things are currently out of whack''. | ||
To ''bring'' change, someone with the wherewithal | To ''bring'' change, someone with the necessary wherewithal must hold that belief. | ||
Those with | Those with that wherewithal are usually thriving as they are. | ||
Those who are presently thriving tend not to feel things are enormously out of whack. | Those who are presently thriving tend not to feel things are enormously out of whack and don’t ''really'' want to bring change. | ||
===A digression on the paradoxical nature of firms in a free market=== | ===A digression on the paradoxical nature of firms in a free market=== | ||
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===The making of leaders=== | ===The making of leaders=== | ||
So, how do leaders get to lead? Well, an organisation is a ''[[system]]'': a pulmonary lattice of stocks, flows and feedback loops, sending information, consuming resources, generating artefacts and, over time ''building'' — not just widgets for sale, but ''itself'': speed up the frame-rate and you will see the organisation grow: whole new subsystems spawn and fiefdoms mushroom, while others wither and | So, how do leaders get to lead? Well, an organisation is a ''[[system]]'': a pulmonary lattice of stocks, flows and feedback loops, sending information, consuming resources, generating artefacts and, over time ''building'' — not just widgets for sale, but ''itself'': speed up the frame-rate and you will see the organisation grow: whole new subsystems spawn and fiefdoms mushroom, while others wither and desiccate. The firm is alive; an organism: ''it makes itself''. In a [[I am a Strange Loop|strangely loopy]] way, the firm [[emerges]] from its own recursive [[systemantics|systems]]. | ||
By the fact of its operation, a firm ''self-generates''. | By the fact of its operation, a firm ''self-generates''. | ||
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Hence, the conceptual problem with [[change from the top]]. | Hence, the conceptual problem with [[change from the top]]. | ||
===On the difficulty of changing from the top=== | ===On the difficulty of changing from the top=== | ||
So the idea of current management changing the very machine that has contrived to put them where they have the power to change presents a variation of the [[time traveller’s paradox]]: By changing something, do I kick away the very ladder I climbed to reach the cockpit? If I throw off the rope, do I leave myself [[Hinterstoisser Traverse|stranded should the weather change]]? If I fiddle in this way with the geometry of corporate | So the idea of current management changing the very machine that has contrived to put them where they have the power to change presents a variation of the [[time traveller’s paradox]]: By changing something, do I kick away the very ladder I climbed to reach the cockpit? If I throw off the rope, do I leave myself [[Hinterstoisser Traverse|stranded, should the weather change]]? If I fiddle in this way with the geometry of [[Space-tedium continuum|corporate spacetime]], might I not disprove my very being? Will I dissolve before my own disbelieving eyes? | ||
Yet we live in a time of change. We must change or die. We select our leaders to drive change. | |||
Thus, management has derived some kind of prime directive: “I must change. For it is what leaders do. But whatever change I make, I must make it, without —” well, er — it is difficult to put this any way other than bluntly, readers — “... whatever change I make, I must make it without ''changing'' anything”. | Thus, management has derived some kind of prime directive: “I must change. For it is what leaders do. But whatever change I make, I must make it, without —” well, er — it is difficult to put this any way other than bluntly, readers — “... whatever change I make, I must make it without ''changing'' anything”. | ||
And so it comes to pass: no | And so it comes to pass: no [[Outsourcing|outsourcing program]], no employee survey, no cost challenge, no well-being outreach, no human resources initiative in history has been designed to prove out that, for example, the executive are a bunch of useless, glad-handing dilettantes, nor that the echelons of upper management, though in place for decades, have not once made an ounce of difference; that the problem with our stars is not the cost of front-line staff but of the sediment of management pressing down upon them, hindering their reactions to the changing needs and desires of their local markets. | ||
We dare say it would be rather fun if someone were to try to launch an initiative on such a hypothesis, but we feel it would be a work of science fiction indeed. | |||
''Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas.'' Only the staff | ''Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas.'' Only the staff would do that, if anyone asked it, so no-one asks it. | ||
=== How change happens === | === How change happens === |