Managing Leadership^®

One of the wealthiest business families in the world recently hosted an event to which they invited some of the management field’s leading thinkers. The post-event PR material, to show just how cutting-edge this gathering was, included a slide from the presentation of one of these gurus; it went something like this:

If the pace of change outside your organizational boundary is greater than that within, you are in trouble.

More than merely plausible, it sounds downright compelling - a call to action, a challenge to ride the very crest of the tidal wave of change sweeping the world. How exhilarating - and yet how deep and insightful! Quite a lot for your money, in that one simple idea.

But then, it’s one more thing: nonsense.

Change may be all around us, but our organizations don’t exist to get swept away by it, nor to flee hysterically before it. Yes, we do well to understand change - and all other factors that influence our environment.

But not in order to get all zenned up about them. Rather, we want to accomplish our objectives. Doing so may - often does - require us specifically to avoid becoming what we study.

In this same part of the world, thousands of years ago, a rather more profound thinker noted that change often masks stability. Noting the passage of water down a stream, he observed that while all the water moves on, to be replaced by new water, the course remains the same. Even the individual ripples and sub-currents retain their identity and position unchanged.

So, when you look out at the world and see change, are you sure you are seeing the whole picture? Do you see the relevant pieces of it? Do you take the time to examine their import for you and your organization?

Or, do you just jump in and get swept downstream like so much flotsam, imagining yourself to be an agent - a master - of what you in truth have become merely a part, flailing away unthinkingly - and uniformly - like every other part?

Remember Wally Bock’s concept of the Socratic Oath. The more obvious a prescription sounds, the more pernicious it may actually be, the more important to be subjected to critical and detailed examination.

Managers who forget this too often will soon enough learn that they, unlike water, are not a renewable resource. As shallow as such ideas really tend to be, you can easily lose yourself in them. Stand up, step out of the current, and study what’s going on before you get all wet.

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Today’s tips: Speaking of intelligent appreciation of change and how to approach it, don’t forget Steve Roesler’s singular series on the topic at All Things Workplace.

Sometimes change is good, something to be fought for. Consider this piece about women in the political ministries, or in boardroom directorships - in Spain - from the Economist.

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