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Winter 2005
Book Review: The Seven Day Weekend
Book Review: Predictable Surprises
"People change what they do less because they are given analysis that shifts their thinking, but because they are shown a truth that influences their feelings."
~ from The Heart of Change by John P. Kotter
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Peter Vaill, one of the nation’s most influential organizational change theorists, and a Professor of Management at Antioch University, coined the phrase permanent white water to describe the sensation of change in the 21st century.
He suggested that organizational white water means that organizational life will be a) full of surprises; b) increasingly complex; c) poorly organized, structured and ambiguous; d) quite costly; and e) brimming with problems.
Waves and Tides
If you've never been to an ocean, or a really large lake, then you've missed watching a shoreline disappear and reappear as if by magic every 24 hours or so. It's one of those constants you really get to appreciate when you live near water.
Our daily lives at work are a lot like the tides. People are hired, people leave. Projects come in, projects go out. Revenues come in, expenses go out. Departments centralize power, departments decentralize power. Within each of these patterns, some variations occur, but after all, what goes up, must come down.
Imagine how early man looked at the changing tides. Initially it must have seemed irrational, guided by sea monsters, angry gods and the actions of the community. But over time, the pattern emerged, and they learned enough to predict and depend on tides.
Take some time to look at patterns in your organization. Some take months or years to emerge. But when what once seems chaotic and arbitrary becomes part of a predictable series of events, you gain a measure of control.
Most people are fairly well-equipped to deal with the daily tides, even the most stability-seeking individual can cope with regular, predictable change. But change also comes in big doses that are hard to swallow.
Waves. Expected, unexpected, it doesn't matter when it comes crashing over your company. 9/11, the dot.com bust, the Iraqi war, Enron, predictable or unpredictable, these surprises can utterly engulf more than just a department or your organization, but entire industries.
While the daily tides depends on changing systems, and creating a culture that supports evolution and fluctuations, the Big Wave requires a focus on preparing people for an event and supporting people’s feelings around change. Being good at the daily tides makes it easier to survive the Big Waves, and leveraging the daily tides is all about creating our own patterns to compensate for, ameliorate, compliment or combat the daily tides. In this issue, we'll touch on both types of change and how it affects individuals and organizations.
© 2005 Adventure Associates, Inc.