Management of Change

1. POWER & POLITICS IN ORGANIZATIONS LECTURE 1

2. A Familiar Story Customer Customer TOP MIDDLE BOTTOM Customer Customer

3. TOP Burdened by what feels like unmanageable complexity Caught up in destructive turf warfare Fighting fires where they should be shaping the system’s future

4. MIDDLE Torn and confused between the conflicting demands and priorities coming at them from Tops and Bottoms Alienated from one another, non-cooperative and competitive Isolated when they should be working together to coordinate system processes

5. A Familiar Story Customer Customer TOP MIDDLE BOTTOM Customer Customer

6. BOTTOM Oppressed by what they see as distant and uncaring Tops Trapped in stifling pressures to conform Their negative feelings toward Tops and Middles distracts them from putting their creative energies into delivery of products and services

7. A Familiar Story CustomerCustomer TOP MIDDLE BOTTOM CustomerCustomer

8. CUSTOMER Feel done-to by nonresponsive deliver system Their disgruntlement with the system keeps them from being active partners in helping the system produce the products and services they need

9. A Familiar Story The explanation to this is neither personal nor specific to any organization. It is systemic. Here the major problem is SYSTEM BLINDNESS. We want to transform system blindness to system sight to be come the captain of our own ships by understanding the nature of the waters. Throughout the system there is personal stress, relationship breakdowns and severe limitations in the system’s capacity to do what it is intends to do.

10. System Blindness Spatial Temporal Relational Process Uncertainty

11. Spatial Blindness We see what is happening with us not what is happening elsewhere, We don’t see what other’s worlds are like, the issues they are dealing with, the stresses they are experiencing, We fail to understand one anther, we develop stereotypes, we take personally.

12. Temporal Blindness We see the present but not the past (the history of the present), we see what we are experiencing now but not what led to these experiences, We don’t see the story, We misdiagnose the current situation, We fix what does not need to be fixed and fail to fix what does.

13. Relational Blindness In systems we exist only in systemic relationships to one another, We tend not to see ourselves in systemic relationships, We experience much personal stress and pain, Potential partnerships fail to develop and system contributions are lost.

14. Process Blindness We don’t see our systems as wholes, We don’t see the processes of the whole as the whole struggles to survive, We don’t see how we fall in turf warfare, Our relationships with our peers deteriorate, productive partnerships fail to develop, and our contribution to the system suffer.

15. Uncertainty Blindness We see fixed positions battling fixed positions but we don’t see the uncertainty underlying these positions, Our righteous battles with one another keep us from realizing our full potential as Tops, Middles, Bottoms, and Customers.