Change paradox: Difference between revisions

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{{Image|Whos Next|png|Meet the new boss.}}
{{Image|Whos Next|png|Meet the new boss.}}
}}{{Quote|We are here to develop “The Great Narrative”: a story for the future ... In order to shape the future you have first to imagine the future, you have to design the future and then you have to execute.<ref>Well spotted Gillian McKeith https://twitter.com/GillianMcKeith/status/1463977014583566349</ref>
}}{{Quote|We are here to develop “The Great Narrative”: a story for the future ... In order to shape the future you have first to imagine the future, you have to design the future and then you have to execute.<ref>Well spotted Gillian McKeith https://twitter.com/GillianMcKeith/status/1463977014583566349</ref>
:—Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum}}{{smallcaps|We take it that}}, like any other intellectual proposition,<ref>We 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''.  
:—Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum}}{{drop|W|e take it}} that, like any other intellectual proposition,<ref>We 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''.  


Now, however much they might present to the outside world as embodiments of all that is ''laissez-faire'',  remember: within their walls, large commercial organisations are dictatorships.<ref>We are not (just) being provocative here: the analogy is eerily precise: there is a tight command-and-control structure, no meaningful democracy; the centralised dissemination of information that is filtered, framed and sometimes rewritten to make the administration look good, and all is ably supported by a [[human resources|clandestine internal agency]] with unlimited power whose job is to keep the ranks in a state of fear and mistrust of each other and the powers that be. </ref> Only those at the top, or in human resources, have any kind of wherewithal, other than ''to keep quiet and do what they are told''.   
Now, however much they might present to the outside world as embodiments of all that is ''laissez-faire'',  remember: within their walls, large commercial organisations are dictatorships.<ref>We are not (just) being provocative here: the analogy is eerily precise: there is a tight command-and-control structure, no meaningful democracy; the centralised dissemination of information that is filtered, framed and sometimes rewritten to make the administration look good, and all is ably supported by a [[human resources|clandestine internal agency]] with unlimited power whose job is to keep the ranks in a state of fear and mistrust of each other and the powers that be. </ref> Only those at the top, or in human resources, have any kind of wherewithal, other than ''to keep quiet and do what they are told''.   
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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'' ''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]].  
{{drop|S|o, 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'' ''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]].  


Besides products, [[Externality|externalities]], fiefdoms and its stock-in-trade, another thing a firm self-generates is ''its own leaders''. In an odd way, the organisation ''makes'' its own personnel: it selects, fashions and moulds them; it weeds out those who are misaligned, promotes those who are fittest and, where home-growns are not yet match-fit, brings in and enculturates external candidates.  
Besides products, [[Externality|externalities]], fiefdoms and its stock-in-trade, another thing a firm self-generates is ''its own leaders''. In an odd way, the organisation ''makes'' its own personnel: it selects, fashions and moulds them; it weeds out those who are misaligned, promotes those who are fittest and, where home-growns are not yet match-fit, brings in and enculturates external candidates.  
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Only the most successful of these personnel — the most paradigmatically ''of'' the organisation; who most perfectly resemble its essence — ever make it to the executive suite.<ref>Cry bitter tears, my friends: almost certainly, you are not so destined. The sooner you realise this, the easier becomes your burden.</ref> The selection process by which one ascends that greasy pole is relentless, unending and brutal. It fashions people, the way a river fashions stone.<ref>Now you may notice ''another'' [[paradox]] here: however singly directed from on high it seems, the very illusion of command-and-control ''[[emergence|emerges]] from the subconscious machinations of the beast''.</ref>
Only the most successful of these personnel — the most paradigmatically ''of'' the organisation; who most perfectly resemble its essence — ever make it to the executive suite.<ref>Cry bitter tears, my friends: almost certainly, you are not so destined. The sooner you realise this, the easier becomes your burden.</ref> The selection process by which one ascends that greasy pole is relentless, unending and brutal. It fashions people, the way a river fashions stone.<ref>Now you may notice ''another'' [[paradox]] here: however singly directed from on high it seems, the very illusion of command-and-control ''[[emergence|emerges]] from the subconscious machinations of the beast''.</ref>
===Leaders as a mirror of nature===
===Leaders as a mirror of nature===
All this is a baroque way of saying: these men and women who run the firm, who have the means to change it — they owe their very position to their synchronicity with how it is ''now''. All its idiosyncrasies and imperfections; everything about its cock-eyed, peg-legged, pie-bald, skewiff, ''existing'' self.  
{{drop|A|ll this is}} a baroque way of saying: these men and women who run the firm, who have the means to change it — they owe their very position to their synchronicity with how it is ''now''. All its idiosyncrasies and imperfections; everything about its cock-eyed, peg-legged, pie-bald, skewiff, ''existing'' self.  


The answer to the question: “if this firm, as it is now, made its own leaders, what would they look like?” is: ''LIKE THIS''.
The answer to the question: “if this firm, as it is now, made its own leaders, what would they look like?” is: ''LIKE THIS''.
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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 my own exalted station? 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?  
{{drop|S|o 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 my own exalted station? 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.  
Yet we live in a time of change. We must change or die. We select our leaders to drive change.  
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''Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas.'' Only their staff would do that, if anyone asked them. So no-one asks them.
''Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas.'' Only their staff would do that, if anyone asked them. So no-one asks them.
=== How change happens ===
=== How change happens ===
Change comes from fracture, disruption and disharmony: when shafts of light are thrown from unexpected angles by unintentionally broken windows, and they illuminate old problems or new opportunities in unexpected ways. Leaders are not positioned, or disposed, to see these opportunities. They lie around on the ground, in accidents, problems, snafus, temporal shifts, breaks in the weather, transitory vistas: fleeting opportunities hidden well beyond the visible range of the executive suite.  
{{drop|C|hange comes from}} fracture, disruption and disharmony: when shafts of light are thrown from unexpected angles by unintentionally broken windows, and they illuminate old problems or new opportunities in unexpected ways. Leaders are not positioned, or disposed, to see these opportunities. They lie around on the ground, in accidents, problems, snafus, temporal shifts, breaks in the weather, transitory vistas: fleeting opportunities hidden well beyond the visible range of the executive suite.  


Penicillin, the microwave, Velcro and the theory of the Big Bang were all discovered by accident. So too, Teflon, vulcanised rubber, Viagra and Coca-Cola.<ref>According to [https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/g1216/10-awesome-accidental-discoveries/ ''Popular Mechanics'' Magazine].</ref>  
Penicillin, the microwave, Velcro and the theory of the Big Bang were all discovered by accident. So too, Teflon, vulcanised rubber, Viagra and Coca-Cola.<ref>According to [https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/g1216/10-awesome-accidental-discoveries/ ''Popular Mechanics'' Magazine].</ref>  

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