Karl Weick, luminous organization theorist writes:

If an organization is narrow in the images that it directs toward its own actions, then when it examines what it has said, it will see only bland displays. This means in turn that the organization won’t be able to make much interesting sense of what’s going on or of its place in it. That’s not a trivial outcome, because the kind of sense that an organization makes of its thoughts and of itself has an effect on its ability to deal with change. An organization that continually sees itself in novel images, images that are permeated with diverse skills and sensitivities, thereby is equipped to deal with altered surroundings when they appear.*

The images and metaphors we use to describe our organizations is one of the ways in which we enact them–it is, that is, one of the ways in which we bring that organization into Being. And yet, it is common to think of our descriptions as merely…well, descriptive, not enactive.

This may be why “process improvement” so often fails to engender the kinds of transformation hoped for: it does little more than improve the conditions that are given by the descriptions that brought us to where we’re at to begin with.

Lots of change. Little transformation.

* (from http://www.onepine.info/pweick.htm, retrieved on Aug 16, 2007)

Posted in: Organization by admin on Thursday, December 20th, 2007

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