I came across this picture (Ref: LolCentre) which shows in a humourous way how organisations get caught by its own culture. It might, of course, be an extreme case scenario, but it surely makes you think!How natural it is, isnt it, for organisations to get caught by the pattern of success it has created? History, perhaps, is full of examples of great companies falling apart due to this very paradigm which it fails to change. We are often told "if aint broken, dont fix it"; ever thought how wrong this is in an organisational cultural context? The norm which has driven us forward could well be the barrier for us to be disruptive and to be sustaining in the longer run. People seldom want to be the one challenging the though for it takes pain and effort; for its beyond ones confort zone to actually challenge this paradigm.
It's of course challenging to conclude between changes that brings in result and those that doesnt. However, organisations and leadership need to be open to disruptive thoughts and ideas which are beyond the norms and embrace it as part of its DNA. IMO, culture is never-ending iterative spiral of learning and evolving and surely there is scope for every organisation to adapt and learn in a continuous manner.
Easier said than done, isnt it? Well, if someone tells me "Thats how things are done around here", my curious mind asks them to "tell me more, how did to arrive at this way of doing things?". In doing so, I get to learn and engage myself in further understanding why my organisation behaves the way it does. I am curious to know, how do you handle this? Thoughts?
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2 comments:
Good post! After reading this I started thinking what are my daily habits and routines that are generally (and silently) accepted truths in my company.
How should one handle it then? That is tough question. In his book Medici Effect, Frans Johansson proposes an approach to creating innovative products and services i.e. thinking everything vicey versey to the traditional approach. E.g. "Why should our restaurant have cooks to make food? Let the customers make the food."
Maybe you could make a list of the the daily habits and routines that you have and then spend little time on thinking how you can do it totally the opposite way.
Good and workable suggestion Timo on listing our daily habbits and challenging outselves.
Abt thinking vice-versa, I think this is precisely how disruptive changes takes place; ordinary people challenging the norms and their daily habbits.
Thinking out of the box and challenging the traditional belief systems; making it part of ones DNA is the first step towards sustaining business models.
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