From the Founding Editor

EDITORIALF

ew topics in the social sciences have received as much attention as“change,” yet few areas remain as murky and confused. I grew up with thisarea in the 1950s when Kurt Lewin, Ron Lippitt, Lee Bradford, Ken Benne, andmany others were developing a “theory” of change that led to both the invention of the T-group (T for Training), in which individuals underwent various
degrees of change, and the classic studies of Coch and French on how tochange the habits of production workers in the Pajama Factory.
My most vivid memory of that period concerns our efforts to do formal
academic research to measure the degree to which individuals changed in the
T-groups. It was believed that one of the major impacts of the group experience would be an increasing level of “self-insight” based on all the feedback
that each participant would get during the experience. A questionnaire wasdesigned that asked people to rate their level of self-insight before the groupexperience and, again, after; it was discovered to the researcher’s dismay thatthe level of insight went down. What was going on here?
The researchers then put on their clinical hats and talked to people to illuminate these paradoxical findings and discovered what, in retrospect, shouldhave been obvious. People who came to the workshops thought they had a reasonably
good level of self-insight, only to discover through the T-group experience how little theyknew of their impact on others and what “drove” their own behavior. The group experience revealed to most of us (and I experienced this myself) that we had much less selfinsight than we thought we had. This was important learning, and we all felt the betterfor it. The formal measurements failed to capture this change and, unfortunately, evenprovided grist for the mill of the critics of group training.
In the organizational context, what I often noted in my role as process consultant isthat the description and measurement of change depended entirely on who was doing themeasurement and from what perspective. A major change from the senior executive’s
perspective may hardly be noticed by the workers, yet a minor change in production
methods from an engineer’s point of view might seem like a major change to the workers. The implication of this hairsplitting is that concepts like “change,” “learning,” “evolution,” and “revolution” really don’t mean much until they are put into the appropriate
concrete context. Who is changing, what is changing, and from whose point of view is
the change being assessed? It may well turn out that change theory and models of change
will have to be quite specific, and the perceived consequences of change will vary as afunction of who is doing the perceiving. This issue of Reflections on the theme of change
will not resolve these various issues but, hopefully, will explore them in enough different contexts to give the reader a sense of why “change” is difficult to manage.

Ed Schein

REFLECTIONS, Volume 2, Number 3

1

LETTER TO THE EDITORI

was very pleased to see that the articles in Reflections present core organizational
learning concepts in accessible language, a rarity in the academic and practitioner literature. I say this as both an academic and a consultant.
Initiating the journal with classic articles from respected thought leaders reminded
us in the community that we do not have to reinvent the foundations. We already havesome great concepts and tools, even if it doesn’t feel like it sometimes when we are in
the field. To me, these classic articles exemplify the benefits of bringing together practitioners, consultants, and academics. Practitioners bring an understanding of what’s important to work on and creativity in applications. Consultants contribute a richexperience-base across many organizations and strong skills in applying methods, concepts, and tools. Academics bring knowledge of fundamental building blocks and rigor
in testing what makes a specific method, concept, or tool successful or not.
In this direction, Reflections provides some classic academic concepts, many extracted from real-world experiences. Consultants and practitioners, including many SoL
members, have spent the past two decades since these articles were written, applying
and improving these concepts. I look forward to future issues of Reflections where we
begin to understand how these concepts have evolved in the field and how these threegroups inform each other.
James Ritchie-Dunham

2

Volume 2, Number 3, REFLECTIONSEDITORIAL

In This Issue
Edgar H. Schein and Karen Ayas

Classic
We begin this issue with a very important classic that has not received enough attention.
While acknowledging that one of the powerful ways of communicating is to think metaphorically, we have not sufficiently examined that idea in the context of how we think
about “change.” The language we use to describe change may reduce or increase ourpower to accomplish what we want. It often reveals not only the rationale but also theemotions that underlie the effort. Robert Marshak takes us through a number of metaphorsof change and shows how they subtly influence both our theory and practice of change.

Features4

Change occurs at many levels, as the next papers illustrate. Our capacity to change or
facilitate change expands as we begin to see and understand how the world works. Adam
Kahane, a brilliant “change agent” takes us on a global journey of social change that, inthe end, requires self-change. As Nancy Adler underscores in her commentary, leaders
who really make a difference are those who have the courage to engage in personal transformation and to be the change they want to see. In their comments, Arie de Geus andGed Davis provide perspective on the role of scenarios in understanding and perceiving
how the world wants to change.
Next, Peter Frost, in an arresting account, shows how organizational toxins impact
the self and reminds us that much of what goes on in organizations becomes visible only
through its sometimes negative impact on the self. Bill O’Brien, a former CEO, provides
insights on where he seeks the remedy to toxicity and how to create institutions thatminimize emotional pain.
We then shift to an interesting case of managed organizational change by Ursula
Versteegen, Otto Scharmer, and Katrin Käufer in which many of the interventions are
based on concepts that push change “theory” into new realms, as noted in Ed Schein’scomments. Jean Bartunek’s questions invite us to reflect on the different aspects of putting such theory to use.
We all know that change theory and practice is complex and frustrating. The next two
papers provide some insight into why this might be the case. Richard Axelrod notes that wehave been stuck in old models and have not fully utilized whole systems change interventions sufficiently. He proposes the engagement paradigm, whose distinct emphasis is on
involving and enrolling all employees in the change process. Mike Beer argues that there arefundamental problems even in the way we generate knowledge, which explains the low levelof utilization and poor implementation. Lotte Bailyn and Karen Ayas comment, and it isworth noting that this state of affairs is one of the prime reasons for the existence of Reflections. Russell Ackoff rounds out the issue with a useful distinction between educators andgurus.

Views
John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid have put many of their important ideas into The Social Life of Information, which is reviewed by Etienne Wenger. Richard Karash reviews
Transforming Social Inquiry, Transforming Social Action, edited by Francine T. Sherman
and William R. Torbert.
Please write or e-mail us your suggestions and recommendations. Let us know what
you would like to see in Reflections. Send mail to jane@solonline.org or to Editor, Reflections: The SoL Journal, 222 Third Street, Suite 2323, Cambridge, MA 02142.

Volume 2, Number 3, REFLECTIONSContributors

Russell L. Ackoff is a professor emeritus, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
Nancy J. Adler is a professor of management at McGill University. She consults with global
companies and government organizations on projects in Asia, Europe, North and SouthAmerica, and the Middle East. She conducts research on strategic international humanresource management, global leadership, and global women leaders.
Richard H. Axelrod is president of The Axelrod Group, Inc., and author of Terms of Engagement: Changing the Way We Change Organizations.
Karen Ayas is associate editor, Reflections; research fellow, Erasmus University Rotterdam;and partner, The Ripples Group.
Lotte Bailyn is the T Wilson (1953) Professor of Management, MIT Sloan School of Management.
Jean M. Bartunek is professor, Department of Organization Studies, Boston College.
Michael Beer is the Cahners-Rabb Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School.
Ged Davis is vice president, global business environment, Shell International Limited andhead of Shell’s Scenarios Team.
Arie P. de Geus is a visiting fellow, London Business School.
Carmine Fantasia is a photographer based in Chicago, IL. She is a photo editor at McDougal
Littell Inc.
Peter J. Frost is the Edgar F. Kaiser Professor of Organizational Behavior, University of British
Columbia.
Katrin Käufer is a visiting scholar, MIT Sloan School of Management, and lecturer at the University of Innsbruck, Austria.
Adam Kahane is a founding partner of Generon Consulting. He works around the world withcorporate and civic leaders who aspire not just to adapt to the future but to shape it forthe better.
Richard Karash is a consultant and facilitator covering a broad range of learning organization disciplines, with a special emphasis on systems thinking.
Robert J. Marshak mixes a global organizational consulting practice with teaching and training at universities and institutes in the US, UK, Singapore, and Korea.
Bill O’Brien is retired CEO, Hanover Insurance Companies, and Partner Emeritus, GeneronConsulting.
Barry Pell is a photojournalist and world traveler based in Boston, MA.
James L. Ritchie-Dunham is a consultant with the Strategic Decision Simulation Group.
C. Otto Scharmer is a visiting lecturer, MIT Sloan School of Management; lecturer, Universityof Innsbruck, Austria; and research partner, Generon Consulting.
Edgar H. Schein is a Sloan Fellows professor of management emeritus and senior lecturer at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Emily Sper is a photographer, graphic designer, and author-illustrator in Boston, MA. Her
photographs have been exhibited in the US and abroad. <www.sperphoto.com>
Ursula Versteegen focuses her research and facilitation work on learning-based approaches
to knowledge creation, leadership, and community building.
Etienne Wenger is a globally recognized thought leader and author of Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. He helps organizations apply these ideas throughconsulting, workshops, and public speaking.

REFLECTIONS, Volume 2, Number 3

5

CLASSIC

Managing the Metaphorsof Change
Robert J. MarshakF

Robert J. Marshak
Consultant, teacher, and trainer

or most leaders and change agents, one seven-word expression has become synonymous with resistance to change: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” On the surface, it’s astraightforward, rather blunt statement of fact and advice: “Don’t mess with what’s already working.” As usually interpreted, however, it’s a slogan of resistance, defiantly asserting: “No change is wanted or needed here; go tinker somewhere else!” Consideredsymbolically, it may also reveal an unarticulated set of assumptions about change and theorganization in question. Every individual, and for that matter, cultural system, views andinterprets empirical events through a set of beliefs and assumptions. Often these beliefs
and assumptions are subconscious and rarely examined or questioned. They just are. Yet
they exert a profound influence over how a person sees a situation, and what actions willor will not be taken. If, for example, someone implicitly assumes that interpersonal communication is like calling another person on the telephone, then any miscommunication
might be attributed to a “bad connection” or “static on the line.” Viewed as a computerto-computer interface, the difficulties might be alternatively defined as “incompatible
software or hardware.” Depending on the implicit view, different remedies are likely tobe suggested: “Let’s hang up and try again,” or “Let’s make sure we are both using thesame (computer) language.”This discussio n advances the proposition that these underlying, usually
unarticulated understandings about a situation are often shaped and revealed metaphorically. Furthermore, because these understandings are critical to how people assess theneed for change—and indeed, their conception of change itself—paying attention to
managing the metaphors of change becomes a critical competency for leaders andchange agents.

6

Metaphors and Metaphoric Analysis

Reprinted from Organizational
Dynamics, Robert J. Marshak,vol. 22, Summer 1993, with permission from Elsevier Science.

A metaphor is a form of symbolic, rather than literal, expression. The Webster New World
Dictionary defines a metaphor as: “A figure of speech containing an implied comparison,in which a word or phrase ordinarily and primarily used for one thing is applied to another, e.g., the curtain of night.” Beyond their usefulness to poets and politicians, some
psychologists assert that metaphors serve as the essential bridge between the literal andthe symbolic, between cognition and affect, and between the conscious and the unconscious. As such, metaphors are often the medium for understanding and presenting ideas,
insights, and intuitions not always available to analytic reasoning and discourse. Others,
including linguists and philosophers, go further to suggest that metaphors serve as a primary method for understanding and expressing abstract, affective, and/or intuitive experience.
From these points of view, the statement “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” is more thana phrase signifying resistance to change. It is the manifest expression of a deeper, sometimes preconscious, symbolic construct that informs and maintains “reality” for the
speaker. It is, therefore, a key to what a person may really be thinking, even when the
person “hasn’t really thought about it.” Consequently, for diagnostic purposes, the way

Volume 2, Number 3, REFLECTIONSAn Example of Being Stuck in Machine Metaphor Thinking
A large high-tech company was faced in the 1990s with a host of dilemmas: Its traditional
market base was eroding, new competitors had entered the field, costs and overhead had
to be drastically cut to increase competitiveness, structural realignment was needed topromote greater synergy and quicker response, long-time customers were demanding
more responsiveness and less arrogance, and the “everyone can do their own thing as
long as you are successful” culture was getting in the wayof the teamwork and collective focus needed to respond to
the new challenges.
Unfortunately, the top executives of this corporation
were caught in an implicit machine metaphor model ofchange. The CEO called meetings of all the VPs, and ordered them to “fix things quickly in order to maintain ourmarket position.” The VPs dutifully went looking for “whatwas broken” so they could “fix it,” but came back perplexed. Everything was working theway it always had been—“nothing was broken”—so they couldn’t find anything to “fix.”
Because they had always been successful, they rationalized that there was nothing wrong
with them; it was just a temporary thing and soon everything would be back to normal.
Conditions, however, continued to get worse.

The top executives . . . were caught in
an implicit machine metaphor modelof change.

REFLECTIONS, Volume 2, Number 3

MARSHAKManaging the Metaphors of Change

to approach and listen to metaphorical expressions is “as if” they were literally true. A
closer look at our example slogan will reveal the potential power of this form of analysis.
First, consider what “it” in the slogan stands for. Clearly, “it” refers to the organization, system, policy, etc., in question. Thus the phrase is really saying: “If the organization ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” Now let’s consider the rest of the phrase. Things thatliterally break and require fixing in the “real world” are typically machines—toasters,
washing machines, lawn mowers, automobiles, etc. The phrase is essentially equating
the organization to a machine that requires fixing only when there is a breakdown or
malfunction. Thus, it would not be unreasonable to assume that at the moment of invoking the slogan, the speaker conceives of the organization, at a conscious or preconscious level, as if it were a machine and is inviting others to do the same. This is not atrivial association when we consider the implications of the extended metaphor of anorganization as a machine. If it is a machine, then things should be smooth-running,well-oiled, predictable, efficient, and designed such that all the parts fit together to fulfill a single, unambiguous function or purpose. This bears more than a passing similarity to the Scientific Management theory of organizations and reminds one that the Fatherof Scientific Management, Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915), was a trained mechanical engineer and machinist.
This leads to another important aspect of the extended metaphor. If an organization isa machine, then who are the managers and leaders of the organization/machine? Typically,machines are run by operators and engineers who determine output standards, maintainthe equipment, and set commands and controls that dictate what the machine will do.
Furthermore, when a machine breaks down or needs servicing, a repair person, maintenance worker, or mechanic is called in, asked to bring a tool kit, and told to “fix it.”
The concept of change itself is also part of this extended metaphor system. Thinking in terms of a machine metaphor invites thinking about organizational change interms of something “breaking down” and therefore “needing repairs.” Ideally, thisshould be done with “minimal downtime,” doing just enough to “get things up and running again.” Consequently, in the machine metaphor system of thought, change is often
equated to something being poorly maintained or broken. Accordingly, from this mind
set, the arrival of a change agent (repair person) at your place of work implies psychologically that you’ve done something wrong or, worse, broken something. This helps explain the sometimes emotionally-charged reaction: “There’s nothing wrong. . . nothing’s
broken!” Thus, one way people understand the abstract phenomena of organizationalchange is as if a broken-down machine is being returned to smooth-running performancethrough the assistance of a repair person who was called in and who works under the
direction of the machine’s operator or engineer.

7

MARSHAKManaging the Metaphors of Change

8Next, they decided to hold a series of retreats to find the problems in how they were
producing their traditional products and services. They identified a number of problems
that surely had to be “what was broken.” These were “fixed” with great fanfare and everyone was convinced that “things would soon be up and running again” the way they
always had been. Instead, conditions continued to worsen. Employees began to get worried and angry at the top leaders because they were failing to “fix the problem.” Leadersand managers, in turn, were blaming supervisors and employees for not working harder
to “fine-tune operations and/or operate at full throttle.” This led to a series of allemployee meetings where the top leadership assured everyone that the situation would
soon be “under control and smooth-running again.” Employees were further assured thata series of task forces were going to “take apart the operation from top to bottom to findout what was wrong.” Everyone just needed to have some patience. When conditions
didn’t get better, the CEO held a week-long special retreat with all the key managers of
the corporation. In concurrent sessions, different aspects of the corporation were “broken down and put back together again.” The reports all came back with minimal or
marginal ideas for improvements. Everyone kept saying: “Things are working correctly—
the way they were designed to work.” Furthermore, the existing “set-up” was the mosteffective and efficient way to “run the organization.”
Conditions continued to decline, and in desperation, the CEO called in a group of
management consultants. Their backgrounds varied, but their advice was the same: “Youhave to rethink your whole business; up until now you have only been tinkering.” Somewhat taken aback, the CEO assured each of the consultants that every conceivable way
to “fix or improve operations” had been tried, and that perhaps the consultants didn’t
really understand how the business worked. All of the consultants were steadfast andassured the CEO that nothing less than a “new conception” of the business and how it
operated would save the corporation. At this point the CEO, somewhat defensively, challenged the consultants: “You are the experts, find something in your tool kits to fix the
problem.” The consultants all replied it was not a question of “fixing” anything, rather
a need to “reinvent” the corporation. This just further annoyed the CEO, who couldn’t
figure out how business results could be so poor, if “nothing needed fixing.”
Recently, the CEO was replaced by the board of directors. In taking this action, theboard explained that they needed “a new leader who was not a captive of the past, hadsome vision, and was capable of giving birth to a new era.”
The story of this corporation is a familiar one in the 1990s. CEOs who try to “fix” or“repair” their organizations are being replaced in favor of new leaders who promise “anew way of thinking.” One need only look at GM, IBM, American Express, and even the
U.S. presidential election of 1992, to see leaders who thought they knew how to “keepthe machine running” being replaced by new leaders with “the vision thing.” The following discussion may shed some new light on this phenomenon and raise questions
about whether or not a change in implicit metaphor could make a difference.

Metaphors of Change
The “Fix and Maintain” imagery described above, while frequently encountered, is hardly
the only metaphor of organizational change. We can consider three additional types oforganizational change processes: Developmental, Transitional, and Transformational.
Each has its own characteristics and associated change technologies:
 Developmental change builds on the past and leads to better performance overtime, e.g., better teamwork.
 Transitional change involves a move from one state or condition to another, e.g.,
from manual to automated operations.
 Transformational change implies the transfiguration from one state of being to afundamentally different state of being, e.g., from a regulated monopoly to a marketdriven competitive business.
Clearly what is happening is different in each case. Significantly, the metaphors and imagery used to understand and describe each type of change are also different.
In developmental change, one builds on a foundation to achieve higher levels of per-Volume 2, Number 3, REFLECTIONSREFLECTIONS, Volume 2, Number 3

MARSHAK© Emily Sper

Managing the Metaphors of Change

formance. The metaphors and imagery are analogous to construction and/or developmental growth. The organization is
described as if it were a building under construction or adeveloping person. This kind of change is often perceived as
positive (getting bigger, getting better, etc.), especially when
the developmental plan and/or goals are agreed upon in advance. Developmental change agents are often referred to as
trainers, coaches, and/or developers. They may be asked to
do organization “development” or team “building” to help“lay a better foundation” in order to “improve” performance,“increase” capabilities, “build” additional competencies,
and/or “stimulate” and “nurture” growth.
An example of a developmental change effort was aseries of strategy sessions conducted by the editors of anational travel magazine. They saw their task as figuring
out ways to “build and develop” the magazine. Consequently, they focused on strategies
to “build circulation,” “develop” new features, and “increase” advertising based on the“strong foundation” of their traditional audience “base.” The possibility that changing
trends and demographics might call for more radical changes was consistently ignored
because “our job is to develop what we’ve got.”
In transitional change, an organization goes from one state to another state, suchas moving from a centralized to a decentralized operational system. The metaphors andimagery are analogous to relocating and/or moving from one place to another place.
Expressions such as “moving forward,” “knowing the right path,” “taking the bestroute,” “keeping to the timetable,” “avoiding obstacles and dead ends,” “leaving the oldbehind,” and so forth, are common. The lack of “a clear destination,” disagreement overthe need or desirability of “the move,” conflict over “the best route to take,” debates over
who has “to move,” “how fast to go,” and whether or not this is the best time “to packup and leave” are all ways to describe common difficulties encountered in transitionalchange efforts. Transitional change agents are called upon to be planners, guides, and/or explorers because they are supposedly more familiar with “the journey” and withwhat to expect “along the way.” Consequently, they are usually asked to help make plans
for the “duration of the journey,” or at least to make sure everyone is “headed in the right
direction.” They are also supposed to help facilitate “movement,” insure things “stay on
track,” and that no one is “left behind.” Once the organization “arrives” at its desired“destination,” it is assumed their guidance will no longer be needed.
An example of a transitional change was the planning process carried out by a leading daily newspaper to introduce a new printing technology in its publishing plant. The
process included specifications of the “desired end state” and the exact time the plant
would “get there.” Meetings were held with the union to insure that everyone was “onboard,” that “things stayed on track,” and that “the road ahead stayed clear.” A major
sticking point in the discussions with the union was “how fast to make the changeover.”After following a very detailed “schedule and timetable,” everyone in the plant celebrated “the arrival” of the new equipment and had a moment of silence for the oldpresses that were being “abandoned and left behind.” Indeed, many of the workers
talked about how hard it would be to get used to the sounds and rhythms of the “newplace.” Despite all the detailed planning and work with the union, no one ever considered working on other changes such as redesigning jobs or the pay system because “ourjob was to move to a new way of printing, not create a whole new plant.”
In transformational change, there is also language about change from one state toanother state. However, the metaphors and imagery are not about geographic movement
so much as they are about an alteration in the state of being, as in becoming a fundamentally different kind of organization. The imagery of “becoming” in transformational change
is also more radical and extreme than in developmental change, where the organization
becomes better at something, but doesn’t abandon its foundation, roots, or essential being. In transformational change, the metaphors and imagery are about a fundamental alteration in who or what the organization is—its very identity and way of being, e.g.,“abandoning the past in order to become a completely different kind of company.”

9

MARSHAKManaging the Metaphors of Change

A range of metaphors are often used to describe organizational transformation. These
include images and metaphors associated with awakening, uncovering, escaping, purifying/purging, enlightening, becoming whole, returning to the core, unfolding, and dying
and being reborn. Thus, in organizational transformation, we might hear expressions ofa need “to wake up,” “remove the blinders,” “get out of the box,” “get rid of excess baggage,” “see the light,” “become more holistic,” “return to the basics,” and “recreate ourselves anew.” Organizations experiencing transformational change may ask change
agents to help them “remove their blinders” in order to develop new visions and values,
assist in “breaking out of the box,” help people “to see” or “to get it,” and/or help theorganization “re-invent” itself or “give birth” to a whole new way of doing things. At suchtimes, the change agent is likened to a liberator, visionary, or creator who possesses theability to help “unlock the situation,” “see new possibilities,” and “give birth” to the neworganization. One of the clearest examples of (forced) transformational change was thebreak-up of the Bell system into the new AT&T and the regional “Baby Bells.” In addressing this change, the leadership and employees of the new organizations were initially stymied in their efforts to “build and develop” their businesses based on past practices. It
was only after they struggled with “letting go” of time-honored values, traditions, andways of thinking in order to create new structures and systems, all in the context of new
visions and missions, that they began to experience success.

Mixing and Matching Metaphors

10

The four dominant types of metaphors about organizational change and change agentsare summarized in Exhibit 1.
Knowing how to understand, use, and align these metaphors can be a powerful toolin any change effort. Consider Exhibit 2, where an organizational situation is presented
and then described through each of the four different change metaphor systems.
These metaphors help to first define and then address the situation. Consequently,
knowing which metaphor(s) a person is using, whether they are aware of it or not, helps
enormously in understanding how they see the situation. Paying attention to how someone talks or writes about the change is a key to the underlying metaphor. For example,
if someone says in response to the situation described in Exhibit 2, “We have a strong
foundation to build on, we just need to improve our performance,” it would be a good
guess to assume they are operating from some form of an underlying “Build and Develop” metaphor system. With this understanding, one can then choose to get “in sync”
with the person by communicating using the same metaphor or image system, or invite
an alternative way of conceiving things by purposefully using a different metaphor orimage system. This is illustrated in Exhibit 3.
In fact, because of the relationship between the underlying metaphor and how
someone conceives of and then acts in a situation, it is possible to: Diagnose unarticulated assumptions and beliefs by paying attention to the metaphors and images used to describe any particular change.
 Prepare and align people with the true nature and requirements of the change byusing congruent and appropriate metaphors and images.
 Confuse or mislead people by using inappropriate or incongruent metaphors andimages.
With the examples in Exhibits 2 and 3 in mind, let’s look at these assertions in more detail. First, it’s important to remember that the same situation can be viewed and assessed
Exhibit 1 Metaphors of Change and Change Agents
Image of Change

Image of Change AgentFix & Maintain
Build & DevelopMove & Relocate
Liberate & Recreate

Repair Person, Maintenance Worker, Mechanic
Trainer, Coach, Developer
Planner, Guide, Explorer
Liberator, Visionary, Creator

Volume 2, Number 3, REFLECTIONS

MetaphorInternal Assessment

External Action

Fix & Maintain

The “processing machine” is broken
somewhere. We may need to fix themachine and/or fix (re-train) the operators.

“Things just aren’t in sync. A lot of things arefouled up. I don’t know if anything’s broken or
not, but we’ve got to fix things fast. We can’t
afford a lot of downtime. Find someone with agood set of tools fast!”

Build & Develop

The basic set-up is fine. We need to learn
how to work faster with better hand-offs
and teamwork between the departments.

“We can do better than we have been doing. We
have a strong foundation to build on, we just needto improve our performance. I’d like to set somestretch goals to shoot for, construct a winningteam, and then really develop the business. Find
someone who can help build us into a better team!”

Move & Relocate

We need to move from our old, familiar
manual processing system to a new,automated one. It will be hard to leave
the old ways behind, but we need tomove on.

“We’ve got to keep moving. We’ve stayed with ourold system too long. It’s time to leave that behindand go on to a more modern operation. We’ve along way to go, so we better start out now. Find
someone who’s been down this road before to help
us plan how to get there!”

Liberate & Recreate

We need to open our eyes and rethink
the business. Our hierarchical, sequential
operation must end. We need to become awhole new kind of organization.

“It’s time we woke up to reality. We need to get rid
of a lot of things and get down to the essence. We
need to break away from our habitual ways ofthinking. We need a new beginning and an end to
our past practices. Find someone who can help us
create a new vision of the future, re-invent theorganization, and get us out of the box we’re in!”in many different ways. Everyone sizes up a situation based on their own set of assumptions, beliefs, and metaphors for dealing with and describing reality. It is possible to view
and interpret the same situation as if one were dealing with a machine, a construction
project, a cross-country move, and/or breaking free from some limitation. Test this yourself. Think of a recent change in your organization. Was this done because “something
was broken,” because “it would make things bigger, better, faster,” because “it madesense to move from one place (or way of doing things) to another place,” and/or because“it was time to let go of the past and (re)create a new way of working”?
Second, how a situation is assessed—the metaphor(s) one uses to help define what
is happening—will lead to differing courses of action. Depending on the metaphoricalperspective, a wide variety of change initiatives could be recommended, from “tinkering” to “recreating” the business. If a “well-oiled machine” metaphor is used explicitly
or implicitly to assess the problem, it is likely the remedy will be some form of “repair
and maintenance,” perhaps a “tune-up.” It is unlikely, however, that a machine metaphor assessment would lead to a values or inspirational vision-driven intervention. It justwouldn’t make sense to say: “We need a tune-up, so let’s break free of the past and envision the future in order to breathe new life into the business.” Nor would it make sense
to say: “We need to move from where we are now to a new state, so let’s keep what
we’ve got, build on it, and strengthen it.” Our actions tend to follow our assessments.
The previous example of the Bell system is a case in point. During the first few
months (some would say years) after the break-up of the Bell system, managers andemployees had a hard time adjusting to the changes. In a series of workshops convened
to help people talk about what was happening and what they needed to do, the same
sentiments came up over and over again: “Nothing was broken to begin with; we don’tknow what to fix.” “They’ve taken away everything we were based on. How can they

REFLECTIONS, Volume 2, Number 3

Managing the Metaphors of ChangeObjective Situation: Processing of customer orders is being delayed as paperwork moves back and forth among four different departments. Invoices are late and sometimes inaccurate. Inventory control is described as “out of control.”

MARSHAK

Exhibit 2 The Impact of Metaphors on Assessment and Action

11

MARSHAKManaging the Metaphors of Change

12

Exhibit 3 Aligning the Metaphors of Change
Example 1:

Out of Sync

Leader A:

So what do you think about the task force’s recommendation?

Manager B:

It’s going to be quite a haul to get from where we are now to where they want us to go. (Move & Relocate)

Leader A:

You’re not kidding. It will be quite a job to wake up this organization. How about you? Have you seen thelight? What do you think we need to do to make sure we successfully break free from past practices andcreate the new organization? (Liberate & Recreate)

Manager B:

Well, as long as everyone is perfectly clear where we’re headed, why we’re going there, and the milestones along the way, it shouldn’t impact on current operations too badly. When will we get our marching orders? (Move & Relocate)

Example 2:

In SyncManager X:

So what do you think about the task force’s recommendation?

Manager Y:

It’s going to be quite a haul to get from where we are now to where they want us to go. (Move & Relocate)Manager X:

Are you up for the trip? What do you think we need to do to make sure we get to where we are headed?
(Move & Relocate)Manager Y:

Yes, I’m on board. Let’s be clear where we’re going and then map out the best way to get there. (Move &Relocate)

Example 3:

Re-sync

Leader Q:

So what do you think about the task force’s recommendation?

Executive P:

It’s going to be quite a haul to get from where we are now to where they want us to go. (Move & Relocate)

Leader Q:

I think we need to first realize the box we’re stuck in before we can go anywhere. (Move®

Executive P:

Yeah, I know what you mean. It’s hard to get anyone to think about going anywhere—you know,change—around here. We’re all stuck. (Move® Liberate)

Leader Q:

What do you think might help us get unstuck—get out of the box we’re in—so we can see some new possibilities? (Liberate & Recreate)

Executive P:

It’s funny. I never thought of it that way. I guess you can’t go anywhere as long as you are trapped in abox. Maybe we need an escape hatch! (Liberate & Recreate)

Leader Q:

That’s a great idea! Do you have any ideas where the escape hatch is located or how we could createone? (Liberate & Recreate)

Executive P:

Well, now that you mention it, we could try. . .

Liberate)

expect us to improve our performance now?” “We’ve been reorganized before, but thisisn’t like other moves; we’ve abandoned everything we stood for and we don’t know
where we’re going.” It was only after the concept and imagery of transformationalchange was introduced that people found the words to express what they had been feeling: “Yes, that’s it. It’s like we died and are waiting to be reborn.” “No wonder I felt solost. Now I understand that we have to create a whole new organization.” “No wonder I
felt so confused trying to build on what I had done in the past.”
Third, the metaphors and images used by people in publicly describing a situation areusually a strong indicator of the private, underlying assessments and premises from which
they are operating. For example, hearing someone say: “We’ve got to move from a hierarchical organization to a flatter structure” is a reasonable signal to assume that they arelooking at the situation through a “Move and Relocate” metaphor system. When different
people in the organization share the same underlying metaphor(s), there is usually agreement and focus on what to do. A common metaphor provides a shared understanding foreveryone. When the underlying metaphors are different, conflict over what to do and how
to do it is common. Thus one person may be trying to “fix the machine,” while another

Volume 2, Number 3, REFLECTIONSWhen the underlying metaphors aredifferent, conflict over what to do
and how to do it is common.

REFLECTIONS, Volume 2, Number 3

MARSHAKManaging the Metaphors of Change

wants to “move the organization,” and still another doesn’t want to “tear down what
we’ve spent so much time building up.” In such situations, people may fight over thecauses and cures to the problem without ever realizing that their differing, unexpressed,
metaphorical reasoning may be preventing them from really understanding one another.
This is illustrated by a planning session involving managers of a major government
agency addressing what to do about workforce diversity. During the session, there wasstrongly divided opinion about how much needed to be done. Some felt a major effort
involving retraining managers and redesigning the organization would be needed. Others
were equally adamant that not much more than a few directives would handle the situation. It was when they were asked to complete the sentence: “Dealing with workforce diversity issues is like doing _______ to an automobile,” that they realized what theirconflicts really were. About half of the managers responded: a “tune-up,” a “new paintjob,” or a “good cleaning and washing.” Meanwhile, the other half said: “a complete overhaul,” “installing a new engine and frame,” or “a complete redesign and reengineering.”
It was only after the implicit imagery that had been guiding their thinking was revealed
that they were able to have a substantive discussion about what needed to be done.
Fourth, people will be confused and misled when a manager or leader uses metaphorsand imagery in public discussions about a change effort that do not match the actual intended change. For example, if the leader privately believes there is a need to “rethink thebusiness,” “break free from the past,” “wake up to the new realities,” and “create anew,”then some form of transformational change is probably intended. Such changes can betraumatic, lengthy, and require a fundamental alteration in thinking and doing by organizational members. If, however, in public presentations, the leader tells the organization
that: “We’ve entered a new phase where we need to build on our past successes, strengthen
ourselves further, and insure a smooth running operation,” then it is likely that “Fix andMaintain” and/or “Build and Develop” metaphors and images will be evoked in the mindsof the audience. Thus, they will be ill-prepared, psychologically and emotionally, if they arethen sent to workshops to learn how to “think outside of the box.” If they then act confused or slow to get it, they may be labeled as resisters, rather than people who have been
confused and/or misled by inappropriate imagery. Sometimes such mixed messages areunintended or derive from some confusion or lack of clarity by the leader. In other cases,
they may be intended, but in the hopes of helping versus hurting the situation.
For example, in a large corporation heavily dependent on Defense Department spending, its president realized that world events, shifting priorities, and declining governmental budgets would seriously impact the company’s future unless the organization
fundamentally repositioned itself, changed its product/service mix, and altered its traditional culture. Nonetheless, when addressing middle managers about the need for thesechanges, the president kept (inappropriately) describing the changes called for as “basedon our long history and traditional values” and “building on our past successes.” Thepresident ended the session by exhorting the managers to go out and “develop their operations for the future.” Unfortunately, the president became increasingly dismayed as
manager after manager began developing plans to expand on what they were already doing, rather than rethinking the business. When later asked why imagery related to “building on the past” was used, the president responded: “Ithought it would help reduce resistance if they thought thechanges weren’t really that drastic. I just couldn’t imagine
telling them the ‘past was dead’ and that we had to ‘wakeup’ to the new realities and ‘invent’ a new organization.”
Finally, one way to help people align themselves withan intended change effort is to insure first that everyone isoperating from the same metaphor/image system, and thenthat the metaphors and images are congruent with the intended change. If people seemconfused about what to do, changing or altering the implicit and explicit metaphors mayeither free up their thinking, or cast the situation in a new light. When Total Quality Management (TQM) is talked about as a way to “provide more tools to fix more problems,” itis unlikely that people will understand the aspects of TQM that call for a new management
philosophy because a “Fix and Maintain” image is being evoked. Alternatively, if TQM isdescribed using a “Liberate and Recreate” metaphor system as “a whole new way of being

13

MARSHAKManaging the Metaphors of Change

Exhibit 4 Some Keys for Managing the Metaphors of Change
1. Listen to the word images you and others use to describe the change effort in order to assess clarity, consistency, and comprehension.
2. Make sure what you tell yourself and others metaphorically is what you mean literally.
3. Describe the change situation using all four (or more) change metaphor systems as an
exercise to gain new insights and guard against blind spots.
4. Work to align the symbolic language system to help get people fixing, building, moving,or recreating in unison.
5. Seek to intentionally shape how people conceive and think about the change through thecreative and constructive use of metaphors, images, and symbols.
6. When stuck, deliberately change the prevailing metaphor(s) and image(s) as a way to
get out of the box and induce new ways of thinking.

that breaks from past practices and calls for new ways of working together,” then it is more
likely that it will be understood as intended to change existing management practices.
People may still resist, but at least they and you know what they are resisting.
A good example of this was a large accounting firm where the introduction of TQM
was met with fierce resistance from all levels of employees and managers. They objectedto the idea that something might be wrong with the professional quality of their workand “needed fixing.” The change strategy that emphasized training managers in TQM
problem-solving tools and techniques (“because it was more hands-on”) had been a serious miscalculation. Everyone was angry that top management thought something “wasbroken” in the quality of their work and therefore they were being given “tool kits to fix
things.” When the change strategy was shifted to also explain the underlying logic, rationale, and factors and forces driving the change, tempers finally abated.

Managing the Metaphors of Change
Based on the above discussion, the following ideas (summarized in Exhibit 4) offer somespecifics to consider when dealing with organizational change:
1. Pay careful attention to how you and others describe, verbally and in writing, thechange in question. Are you describing the change as if what is needed is to:14

 Fix & Maintain: repair, tinker, adjust, fine-tune, deal with what’s broken, get theright tools, etc.?
 Build & Develop: Add to, grow, lay a good foundation, nurture, train, get bigger, getsmarter, get faster, etc.?
 Move & Relocate: move forward, go from ______ to ______, leave something behind,watch for obstacles, timetables, clear steps, milestones, etc.?
 Liberate & Recreate: wake up, think out of the box, create a new paradigm, see the light,
break free from the past, end _____ and give birth to _____, reinvent, recreate, etc.?
Listen to yourself and others as an act of diagnosis to test clarity, intent, and understanding regarding the change.
2. Make sure what you say is what you mean. Insure that how you think about anddescribe the change metaphorically is consistent with the intended change. Otherwise,
you may be confusing others and/or yourself. Don’t talk about “building on the past” ifwhat you really want to do is “escape the past and create a new future.” Note that any
recurring inconsistencies in how you and others describe the change could be a possible
indicator of continuing doubt, confusion, or lack of clarity as to what is really intended
and why.
3. Describe the intended change using all four, or more, metaphor systems as a planning exercise. Pay attention to the ways in which you see the situation the same or differently through each metaphor. Note the implications for intervention and action. For
example, imagine a meeting of Kremlin leaders in 1990 going through such an exercise: We need to fix and maintain communism because _________.
In order to do that, we need to _____________.

Volume 2, Number 3, REFLECTIONS

While there is no guarantee how such an exercise will turn out, it does assure that multiple views will be examined. It might also turn up some blind spots created by unspoken beliefs associated with unexpressed metaphorical reasoning.
4. Work to align the symbolic language system of everyone involved to match thedesired change. It does no good for the CEO to be talking about “moving and relocating” if lower-level managers are talking exclusively in terms of “fixing and/or building.”
It’s hard to imagine a successful organizational change effort where the CEO sends a
message about a “faster, more responsive, more effective organization” to middle managers who tell supervisors to “go fix your operation,” but are greeted by angry workers
who say: “What’s the problem? Nothing’s broken!” This also means that a change agent
should not unintentionally reinforce inappropriate metaphors and, in turn, the underlying ways of conceiving the situation. If a manager worries that a change effort may “require too much downtime” and that “a good set of tools is needed,” then the response“Don’t worry, I’ll get my tool kit and keep downtime limited” is reinforcing. That’s appropriate if the intended change is a “Fix and Maintain” type of change. If it isn’t, thena more appropriate response might be: “I’m not sure we’re fixing anything, so much as
we are moving from an old system to a new system. The move may take some time, so
we need to plan it carefully. The first step will be to map out the direction we’re headedin and where we want to be by next year.”
5. Lead by helping to shape how people conceive and think about things. The creative and constructive use of symbolic language systems is a critical leadership competency, especially during organizational change. Leaders simply cannot afford to let theirchange initiatives be recast and/or misunderstood as a result of implicit or unexamined
metaphors. Leaders must be clear in what they want and help shape and inform change
through congruent use of literal and symbolic reasoning. They must also be sensitive totheir own blind spots created by unthinking use of favored metaphors or images that
may be limiting their own reasoning processes.
6. Intentionally change prevailing metaphors and images as a way to induce new
ways of conceiving a situation. “In the box” thinking is created by habitual use ofthought patterns that inevitably lead to the same conclusion. New patterns are needed
to “get out of the box.” Because most people naturally use metaphors for abstract reasoning, one way to “get out of the box” is to deliberately change the underlying metaphors and images being applied to the situation. Any organizational change that requires
people to reconceive the situation they face will require a change in the underlying andusually unexamined metaphors. To ignore this aspect of managing change is to jeopardize the whole change effort.

Concluding Remarks
In sum, how one conceives of something is often based on the implicit or explicit metaphorical system(s) used to comprehend and engage reality. Therefore, how an organizational change is described metaphorically is both: an indicator of the speaker’s internal understanding and assessment of the situation,and a way to cue and influence how listeners should understand and respond.
Change may be change, but the symbolic languages associated with Maintenance, Development, Transition, and Transformation are all quite different. The next time someone
in your organization says: “But if it ain’t broke, why fix it?,” recall this discussion andseize the opportunity to paint a word picture of what you really want to communicate.

REFLECTIONS, Volume 2, Number 3

MARSHAKManaging the Metaphors of Change We need to build and develop communism because _______________.
In order to do that, we need to ___________.
 We need to move from the old form of communism to a new and different communism because ___________.
In order to do that, we need to ___________.
 We need to end communism and begin anew because ___________.
In order to do that, we need to __________.

15

FEATURE

How to Change the World:
Lessons for Entrepreneurs
from Activists
Adam Kahane

Speech delivered to Fast Company’s Real Time Conference, Orlando, Florida, May 2000.

Adam Kahane
Founding Partner
Generon Consulting

16

For the past 14 years, I have had a bit of an unusual life, commuting between
two very different worlds: the world of entrepreneurs and the world of activists. I’ve spent most of that time in the world of business, for the first sevenyears as a strategist with two large industrial companies, and then for the last
seven as the co-owner of a consulting firm. I’ve been able to work with top
business leaders in more than 50 countries, and with great companies likeRoyal Dutch/Shell, Federal Express, and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
During the same period, I’ve been making excursions into the world ofpoliticians and guerillas, civil servants and community leaders, trade unionists and clergymen. I’ve been privileged to work with people who are trying
to make a difference in some of the most challenging places in the world, including Israel, Northern Ireland, Cyprus, and Colombia, as well as in two of
the countries that made the most remarkable peaceful transitions of the 1990s,
South Africa and Guatemala.
Throughout these two sets of experiences, I have found myself confronted
with the same questions. How can we change the world? How can we makean impact for the better? How can we influence the future? And the question I
want to focus on here, how can we make sense of all of this in the world andlanguage of business? The best way I know to explain what I’ve learned is totake you through these past 14 years and tell you four stories. I’ve chosen
these stories because they explain four key lessons I’ve learned, four steps toward answering these questions. Then I’ll conclude with a summary of what
I’ve learned and what I think it means for those of us in business who want tomake a difference in the world.1
Let me start, briefly, at the beginning. I was born in Montreal, into a family that believed that it was important to try to make a difference. I grew up
thinking that I needed to find my vocation, and that that vocation needed tobe connected, even in a modest way, to making the world a better place. I had
a good head for analysis and so I studied physics and mathematics at McGill
University. But I wanted to do something that was connected more directly to
making a difference in the world, and so when I went to graduate school atBerkeley, I studied energy economics and energy policy. The big surprise I got
in switching from physics to economics was that it wasn’t as easy to predict
and control the behavior of people as the behavior of physical objects. If thislesson had sunk in, it would have prepared me well for life in the corporate
world—but of course it didn’t.

The Illusion of Control© 2001 by Generon Consulting.

This brings me to my first story, which I call “The Illusion of Control.” In 1986,
I got my first real job, as a corporate planning coordinator for Pacific Gas & Elec-

Volume 2, Number 3, REFLECTIONSThe Limits of Detachment
This leads me to my second story, which I call “The Limits of Detachment.” In1988, after I’d been at PG&E for a few years, I got a job offer from the strategy
department of Royal Dutch/Shell in London. For someone who was interested
in the larger world of corporate strategizing, this was a wonderful opportunity.
Shell is one of the largest and most global companies—it has operations in 130
countries—with a tradition of leadership that is not only cosmopolitan andbusinesslike but also thoughtful and ethical.
What particularly interested me is that Shell had pioneered a sophisticated
way to approach the future that centered on a methodology called scenario
planning. The key idea was that it really wasn’t possible to forecast or control
the future, and in fact, the conceit that you could forecast what was going tohappen led to a “tunnel vision” that could be fatal. Instead, the approach was
to inquire deeply and broadly into what was happening in the world and thento construct two or three or four scenarios about how things might turn out.
These scenarios about the world then became the basis for exploring different
options for the company and deciding on what to do. The emphasis was onbuilding the capacity of the company to learn; Shell played a big role inlaunching the whole field of organizational learning.2
This story is about the global scenario work we did from 1991 to 1992.
One of the important principles of the Shell approach was to stretch to see
what we were not seeing. Two important techniques we used were to go on
Learning Journeys—to visit places and organizations around the world where
we could glimpse new things that were going on—and also to consult Remarkable Persons—businesspeople, academics, activists, scientists, heretics, anyone with a usefully different way of looking at what was going on. You canimagine what an exciting and enriching experience this was for me.
Our exploration ended up focusing on the twin revolutions of globalization and liberalization. By liberalization, we were talking about opening mar-

REFLECTIONS, Volume 2, Number 3

KAHANE
How to Change the World

tric Company in San Francisco. PG&E was the monopoly supplier of electricity
and gas to all consumers in its territory in northern California. I liked having animportant job with a powerful company that did something so concrete anduseful. I was happy to be able to use my analytical skills to help figure out what
was happening in the world and what the company should do about it.
Strategy work at PG&E had a particular slant because the company was ashareholder-owned, publicly regulated utility. A lot of the decisions about
what we were able to do and most of the decisions about how much profit we
could make were in the hands of various regulatory commissions. This was thetime when the trend toward deregulation was starting to hit the US electricity
and gas industries, so most of the strategic attention of PG&E executives wason negotiating with the regulators. One measure of the importance of this wasthat nine out of ten members of the company’s top management committee
were lawyers.
This was my first exposure to the world of corporate strategy, and to thecorporate way of approaching the future and of being in the world. What I
learned in that job was the importance of analyzing what was going in theworld, of forecasting what would happen, of advocating for the rules wewanted, and of reacting to the rules as they were changed. I would characterize our paradigm as an orderly world in which almost all the things that mattered to us—inside and outside the company—could be controlled, either by
us or by the regulators. I liked this way of approaching things; it certainly was
invigorating from where I sat, near the top of the company hierarchy, but I
knew that it was parochial and that it couldn’t last. Deregulation was pushing
PG&E and its executives into a larger world where they would be forced to deal
with many more competitors and much less control. For myself, I wondered
what it would be like to live in this larger, out-of-control world.

Arie P. de Geus
Visiting Fellow
London Business School

Commentary
by Arie P. de Geus
Scenarios have found many, sometimes surprising, applications. Herman Kahn is credited for being the first to use the Hollywood
film script or screenplay to help people
think the “unthinkable” (Kahn, 1962). In
those days, the “unthinkable” was a nuclear
conflict! Later, Pierre Wack developed theidea of using scenarios as a strategic planning tool at Royal Dutch/Shell (Wack, 1985).
This was partly to think the unthinkable, but
mostly to teach the Shell managers “thegentle art of reperceiving”: new ways to see
the future or, rather, ways to see new, unexplored futures.
Practitioners then began to find that scenarios are useful instruments for resolving
conflict. In this area, Adam Kahane has done
his remarkable work in South Africa, Guatemala, and Colombia. Uniting the parties-indispute in thinking through a shared future
was an effective means for creating a common language. Divided in the past, the parties united around the future or, rather, thepossible futures! The word “scenarios” is always plural, in contrast to “prediction,”
which is by definition singular.
The underlying idea in the use of scenarios is to present the “actors”—that is, thepeople who need to think the unthinkableor the managers who have to take the decisions—with “internally consistent stories of
relevant, plausible futures” (van der Heijden‚
1996). The actors have to work through thereperceiving of their future or agree on joint
actions or attitudes to take in those futures.
Equally, all through the now 40-year history of scenario planning, the script writers
have always had to fight the human inclination to perceive one future as preferable. I
have to admit that I have mostly resisted thistendency. It has been my view that the actors
or learners, as I like to call them, have to do

17

KAHANE
How to Change the World18

their own learning. Also, I have been rather
suspicious that the script writers use theiracquired detailed knowledge of the possible
futures to impose what they think is themost desirable scenario on the learners.
Nevertheless, I think that Kahane makes astrong case that in deep-seated, often
bloody conflict situations, a shared vision ofa desirable future can become an irresistible
force for change.
References
Kahn, H. Thinking About the Unthinkable(New York: Horizon Press, 1962).
Van der Heijen, K. The Art of Strategic Conversation (New York: Wiley, 1996).
Wack, P. “Scenarios: Uncharted Waters
Ahead.” Harvard Business Review 63(1985): 73–89; “Scenarios: Shooting
the Rapids.” Harvard Business Review
63 (1985): 75–90.

kets with free trade and deregulation, and also opening up political systems
with free information flow and elections. We constructed two stories about
how the world might unfold as a result of these dynamics:
 New Frontiers describes what happens when many poor countries liberalize successfully and claim a larger role for themselves on the worldstage—politically, economically, and culturally. This liberalization is turbulent and painful to many established interests, but it continues because
people believe that it is in their long-term interest, and that their own prosperity is ultimately linked with that of others.
 In Barricades, people resist globalization and liberalization because theyfear they might lose what they value most: their jobs, power, autonomy,
religious traditions, and cultural identity. Many economic and politicalvested interests are deeply threatened by liberalization and attempt to contain it. Where liberalization is tried, expectations are not met quickly
enough. People may believe that liberalization will make them better off
in the long run, but the long run is just too long, and in the meantime, therequired sacrifices are too great.3
These were two logical, plausible, challenging narratives about how
Shell’s business environment might turn out. After we had written the scenarios, we used them as the input for many strategy workshops with different
Shell companies around the world. These sessions were useful in that they
helped Shell executives see, talk about, and act on important opportunities andthreats presented by the scenarios, including possibilities that were not previously on their radar screens. So they helped the company to learn and adapt.
One aspect of these conversations, however, left me uneasy. Most of us
who had worked on or heard the scenarios thought that, overall, Barricades
was not as good for the world as New Frontiers, even though Barricades would
be brought about by people doing what they thought was best, and would offer good business opportunities for Shell. But the general view at Shell was that
it would not be proper for us to try to act to promote New Frontiers over Barricades, except in areas close to our commercial interests, like trade policy.
This view had two roots. First, favoring one scenario over another would
make the stories less effective as a tool for stretching the executives’ thinking
and helping the company become more adaptable. Second, and more fundamental, companies should not intervene in politics; they should stick to theirown business playing field. Later, when I worked in Guatemala and heard theappalling story of the United Fruit Company’s involvement in the 1954 coup d’état there, I understood the risksof corporations becoming involved outside their commercial domain. At the same time, I was disturbed and—more
significantly for my story here—I was de-energized bywhat seemed to me to be a somewhat detached stancetoward the world. I wondered whether there was anotherway to approach the future.

I was disturbed and . . . de-energizedby what seemed to me to be asomewhat detached stance toward
the world.

The Power of Engagement
This brings me to my third story, “The Power of Engagement.” In 1991, afterI’d been working at Shell for three years, our department in London got a callfrom a professor at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa. A groupof academics, businesspeople, and activists there had heard about the Shell
scenario methodology and wanted to use it to think about the future of South
Africa. I was chosen to go help them, and that’s how I ended up facilitating
what became known as the Mont Fleur scenario project.4
The context in South Africa is important to understanding this story. In
1990, Nelson Mandela was freed from prison, and the ban on the African National Congress (ANC) and the other black and left-wing political parties wasVolume 2, Number 3, REFLECTIONS Ostrich is a story of the white government believing that it could avoid anegotiated settlement with the black majority, burying its head in thesand, and thereby making matters worse in the end.
 Lame Duck tells the story of a prolonged transition where the new government is hobbled by compromises built into the constitution and, because it purports to respond to all but satisfies none, it isn’t really able toaddress the country’s problems.
 Icarus describes a strong black majority government coming to power ona wave of popular support and embarking on a huge, unsustainable public spending spree that crashes the economy.
 Flight of the Flamingoes is a story about how the new government could
avoid the pitfalls of the first three scenarios and gradually rebuild a successful economy.
I want to focus here on the Icarus scenario. Of the four stories, it was themost unexpected and, I think, had the most influence on thinking in South Af-

REFLECTIONS, Volume 2, Number 3

KAHANE
How to Change the World

lifted. The first all-race elections were held in 1994. So theMont Fleur project took place right in the middle of a complex period of many kinds of negotiations about how tomake the transition from apartheid. There was a series ofofficial constitutional negotiations and also hundreds ofdifferent “forums” where multi-stakeholder groups
worked on issues of health, transport, education, economics, and so on. During this period, no one was really incontrol; both the government and the liberation movement had concluded that they couldn’t impose their solution on the other and that, regrettably, some sort ofcooperation was necessary. The joke going around at thetime was that there were two ways to solve the problemsof South Africa: the practical solution and the miraculous
solution. The practical solution is that we would all get
down on our knees and pray for a band of angels to descend from heaven and make things better. The miraculous solution is that we would work together to find a way
forward. On the whole, South Africans implemented themiraculous solution. Although the Mont Fleur project
played only a small role in this larger process, it gave mea privileged window into what was going on and that’s
why I focus on it here.
Mont Fleur was a kind of forum that was intended toinfluence the future of the country through the development of a set of scenarios about how things might unfold
over the coming ten years. The project was named after
the conference center where we met, in the mountains
outside Cape Town. When I arrived, I didn’t know any
methodology other than the one we used at Shell, so that’s
what we used at Mont Fleur. What was different about
this project, then, was not the process but the context. The
Mont Fleur work was not done by the staff of a single company but by a teamof 22 leaders drawn from organizations that ranged across the political map:
community activists, conservative politicians, ANC officials, trade unionists,
academics, establishment economists, top corporate executives, and so on.
One of the great things about working with a group like this is that they canlearn a lot about what is going on from listening to each other, and have somewhat less need than a corporate group for Learning Journeys and Remarkable
Persons to help them see what they are not seeing. It was as if each of themhad a piece of the larger puzzle picture of South Africa.
The team came up with four scenarios:© Barry Pell

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KAHANE
How to Change the World© Barry Pell20

rica. Here was a group that included the most prominent economic thinkers on
the left—including one who later became the first black Minister of Finance andanother the first black Governor of the Reserve Bank—pointing out the dangerof a black government trying to implement certain kinds of left-wing economic
policies. This scenario was being told at a time when most leadership attention
was focused on achieving a successful political and constitutional transition, noton economics. The conventional thinking about economics on the left was that
South Africa was a rich country and that its problems could be solved byquickly redistributing resources away from rich whites toward poor blacks, but
Icarus said that this would not be a sustainable solution.
Once the scenarios had been written, the team organized a series of workshops with different political, business, and civic groups, where the stories
were presented and the implications discussed. One of the workshops waswith the leadership of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), a radical black political party, and at this meeting, one of the members of the Mont Fleur team,
who was the PAC’s head of economics, presented the Icarus scenario. He said,“This is a story about what will happen if our rivals, the ANC, come to power.
And if they don’t do it, we will push them into it.” That
provocation led to one of the most productive of all theworkshops. Many years later, in 1999, when anothermember of the team was appointed to be Governor of theReserve Bank, he said in his official inauguration speech,“We are not Icarus. There is no need to fear that we will
fly too close to the sun.” Overall, one of the biggest surprises about post-1994 South Africa is how economicallyprudent the new government has been. So at least one of
the scenarios—and probably the others as well—had asignificant influence on how the future unfolded.
Why did this scenario exercise have such a big andbroad influence? And why did I feel such an extraordinarily passionate and creative energy in the Mont Fleur workshops? The answer is obvious, although it didn’t occur tome for years. Although the methodology of this project
was the same as the one we used at Shell, the purpose was fundamentally different. The Mont Fleur participants were not, like corporate strategists, simply
trying to adapt to the future as best they could; they had come together because they wanted to influence the future, to make it better. They were playing on a larger field. When you think about it logically, one of the reasons the
future is unpredictable is because we can influence it. The team members
didn’t see themselves as detached observers, but as active participants; mostof them had devoted their lives to fighting for a better South Africa. They were
aware of how their own thoughts and actions had an impact on what happened around them—they were reflective—as, for example, in the statement
the man from the PAC made about the dangers in his own
party’s policies.
The Mont Fleur project showed me the enormous potential that cooperative, multi-stakeholder processes had tochange the world. But it also raised several new questions
in my mind. I noticed that some members of the team were
uneasy with the consensus of the group and especially withthe attempt to agree on a shared vision of the future theywanted, as it was articulated in Flight of the Flamingoes.
They were concerned that they had compromised, that they
had not been true to the ideas and ideals that were important to them; they worried that they had collaborated withthe enemy. Obviously, South Africans had taken enormous strides toward reconciliation and peaceful resolution of their terrible differences, but I wondered
what it would take to break down the barriers further.

The Mont Fleur participants were not,like corporate strategists, simply
trying to adapt to the future as best
they could . . . they wanted toinfluence the future.

Volume 2, Number 3, REFLECTIONSKAHANE
How to Change the WorldThis Mont Fleur experience catapulted me into a new life. I knew that theenergy I felt in helping the South Africans to help their country meant that I had
found my true vocation. I ended up resigning from Shell, moving to South Africa,
marrying the project coordinator, Dorothy, and with a few friends, opening theconsulting business that has grown into Generon. In the years that followed, we
worked with large companies, governments, non-governmental organizations,and multi-stakeholder civic groups in Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Americas.

Five Minutes That Changed History
My last story, “Five Minutes That Changed History,” is about a civic scenario
project that we led in Guatemala from 1998 to 1999.5 The process we used wasbased on the original Mont Fleur model, as we had improved on it in the intervening years. The situation in Guatemala was in some ways similar to that inSouth Africa and in some ways different. Guatemala had suffered the longestrunning and most brutal civil war in Latin America, more than 36 years, withmore than 200,000 people killed or disappeared, mostly at the hands of thegovernment. The government and the guerillas had finally signed a peace
treaty in 1996, and the society had now begun the difficult work of rebuilding.
We worked with a group of 45 leaders drawn from every sector of Guatemalan society: government ministers, former guerilla leaders and military officers, business owners, university presidents, journalists, human rights
leaders, mayors, students, and others. They were at a higher level and weremore diverse than the Mont Fleur group. Guatemala is the country in theAmericas with the largest percentage of indigenous people (more than half),
and the team included a strong contingent of Mayan leaders.
In the first phase of the work, constructing the scenarios, this team met
three times at beautiful Lake Atitlán in the highlands. The results of this phasewere at one level similar to Mont Fleur: a set of three scenarios about whatmight happen in Guatemala over the coming years.
 The Illusion of the Moth. The moth’s path is dangerous; it flies toward
whatever light it sees and is therefore often dazzled and burned. In this
scenario, economic conditions do not improve, and diversity andinterculturality are not really taken to heart, so discrimination of all types
persists. National reconciliation is shallow, and polarization and social
conflict continue. People cry out for political messianism and authoritarianism. Labor instability and unemployment rise, and international cooperation decays. The economy is characterized by short-termism. Tax
revenues are not sufficient to pay for social necessities. The national spirit
is pessimistic, mediocrity prevails, the rule of law is absent, and impunity
remains. Overall, the process is one of people being worn down, withexpectations unmet and solidarity eroded in the face of selfish agendas.
 The Zigzag of the Beetle. The back-and-forth flight of the beetle is erraticand directionless. In this scenario, advances in political, economic, andsocial life occur side by side with regressions. There is economic growthalong with unequal participation in its benefits; interculturality along with
exclusion and discrimination; and citizen participation along with apathy
and lack of representation. Environmental degradation increases. The
state is incapable of achieving real fiscal reform. Reconciliation and dialogue coexist with deep wounds and fear. Overall, the pattern is one of
mixed results and no clear progress.
 The Flight of the Firefly. Each firefly illuminates its own way and also thatof others; together, a group of fireflies pushes back the darkness. In this
scenario, Guatemalans come to terms with their history and construct amodel where tolerance and educational transformation create interculturality and eliminate discrimination. Holistic development is reflected
in a nation with its own identity, and with pluralism, fairness, the rule of

REFLECTIONS, Volume 2, Number 3

Ged Davis
Vice President
Shell International Limited

Commentaryby Ged Davis
For somebody who has a strong desire tochange the world, it is not unnatural to ask
the question: “How can the world bechanged?” And as a scenario practitioner,
one is forced to address the more subsidiary
question: “What role, if any, might scenarios
play?” Scenarios, as alternate stories about
the future, can be vehicles for all sorts ofideas. Depending on one’s mental maps,
they may be viewed as outrageous, inspiring, challenging, or boring.
The simplest analysis of the world assumes that it can be understood by trends
alone. Unfortunately, simple extrapolation
has a rather poor track record. A simple
analysis recognizes that the past and thepresent are inert, so we can expect somethings to persist. What these things might beis something worth knowing. But the future
is a blank sheet, and knowing what canchange is also very worth knowing. When we
can distinguish between what might persist
and what might change, we can use this toexpand our understanding of how the world
works. This is important for both activists andentrepreneurs because “a trend is a trend until it bends,” and at the bends are risks, excitement, and opportunities for change.
To make a difference, we need to impart
information that has the power to change
future and current actions. As Gregory
Bateson points out, for this to happen, we
need a “difference that makes a difference.”
This is the starting point for useful scenarios, since we do not change the world
but only the opinions and visions of people.
Scenarios, if they are insightful and have an
impact, can change people’s view of how
the world works and even encourage themto rethink their own roles. In this sense, scenario practices lean heavily on psychotherapy theory and practice developed in
the past 50 years.

21

KAHANE
How to Change the World22

Of interest in Kahane’s work is not justthe final scenarios that are a basis for questioning vision and the generation of options, but the processes that he has
designed to force catharsis and new understanding in the group of scenario explorers
and builders. A scenario practitioner would
like to know more about who was selected
to join the teams, who should have been
but was not, and the processes for interaction and synthesis of ideas.
Generally, as scenario practitioners, weare interested in the future of complex, open
human systems, but most of the tools thatplanners use presume we know the structureof the system we are studying and can predict outcomes. The problem, of course, isthat human systems are not physical systems (which, as modern physics tells us, arealso not always predictable). The image that
actors have of the system they are in is every bit as important as our understanding of
the system itself. Human systems invariably
hold in the present the seeds of many potential futures. Kahane’s “Illusion of Control”
is, in practice, the illusion of closed, predictable human systems. One rarely comes into
contact with such systems.
I wonder how detached Shell’s scenarios
have been. From the early 1970s, they haverested on insights (that is, “uncomfortablerealities”) about how the world works. Theiraim has been to challenge prevailing groupthink, to derive challenging planning assumptions, and to provide a catalyst for
generating new options and benchmarking
business visions. Changes in a large corporation can take time. The 1989 scenarios on
which I worked with Kahane produced two
scenarios: Sustainable World, which introduced the company to the potential of climate change and sustainability as policy
issues, and Global Mercantilism, whichhighlighted rapid market liberalization andthe emergence of a customer-focused energy industry. These anticipated the direction of the policy agenda in the 1990s andwere an element in the development of
Shell’s vision to embrace sustainable development and move closer to the customer inthe gas and power businesses.
The 1992 global scenarios, New Frontiersand Barricades, were the first to explore thepost-Cold War era and anticipated the risksof rapid globalization. In some respects, they
were not detached—New Frontiers was visionary (“a globalization that works for all”),
and Barricades explored a world reacting
against these global forces.
Shell has, over the years, supported
scenario work in a number of countries inorder to aid open debate on future possibilities. The Mont Fleur scenarios in South
Africa have been the most publicized and, insome ways, the most successful, presumingthat the participants learned much about
how the whole system works. The scenarios
demonstrate the power of using one’s hopes
for the future as a basis for mediation in thelaw, and genuine consensus. A democratic state grants equal opportunities to all. A fiscal pact reduces gaps between sectors. Citizen participation and productivity increase. Sustained and fair economic growth create
real reconciliation and spreading optimism.
Once these stories had been agreed on, the second phase of the project
began, using the scenarios to engage the nation as a whole. Here the work
started to look different from the South African project: more purposeful andambitious. The team used the scenarios not just to stimulate debate but to provoke concrete action intended to change the future of their country. Team
members played a role in the 1999 national elections as candidates, politicalplatform drafters, and non-party public figures; they worked on educational
reforms in universities and in the public school system; they organized local
development projects in Quezaltenango, the second largest city; and worked
on reknitting the country’s torn social fabric through replicating the team’s
dialogue process with hundreds of business, Mayan, academic, NGO, media,
military, church, and worker organizations.6 The Visión Guatemala project,which is still ongoing, is a significant chapter in the postwar rebuilding of Guatemala.
Where did this higher level of collective, concrete action to change theworld come from? I would give a macro and a micro answer to that question.
At a macro level, the project convenors and participants were willing, unlike
in Mont Fleur, to attempt to agree explicitly not just on what might happen in
Guatemala (the scenarios) but what they wanted to happen (the vision, thatis, the Flight of the Firefly scenario); this is why the project was given the name
Visión Guatemala. Perhaps this was due to the fact that the project took place
after the brutal war and also after the conclusion of the peace negotiations(whereas the Mont Fleur work took place during the South African negotiations), so the time was right to try to work together and be seen to work together toward common goals. Perhaps it was due to a different orientation of
the project leaders or my different orientation.
My micro explanation is that the future of the project’s success was settled
during a five-minute episode in the first workshop. On the second evening of
this meeting, the team gathered after dinner in a circle, and told stories about
experiences they had had that they thought related to what had happened, washappening, or might happen in Guatemala—in other words, to share their personal window onto the dynamics that the scenarios were intended to illuminate. For example, one businesswoman, who is a prominent fighter against
judicial impunity, told the story of her sister’s assassination by the military.
She had gone from office to office trying to find out what had happened, andthe first military official she had spoken with and who had denied everything
was the man sitting next to her that evening in the circle. So people showed a
lot of openness and courage.
Then, first thing the next morning, when we had gathered again, one man
who had not spoken the night before said that he wanted to tell a story about
his role in the exhumation of mass graves from a village massacre. He talked
about what it had been like for him to find the corpses of children and pregnant women, and to work with the villagers to figure out what to do. Whenhe finished his story, the whole room was silent for about five minutes. I had
no idea what to do, so I didn’t do anything. Something happened during thissilence. One person said later that there had been a spirit in the room; anothersaid that this had been a moment of communion. I do not consider myself very
sensitive to these extraordinary phenomena, but if you crank up the volume
like this, even I can hear it. I heard it then.
I believe that the subsequent success of the team in doing the hard workof agreeing on the scenarios and vision and then acting on this agreement canbe traced to that episode. I would say that this was the moment where thegroup’s shared will and shared commitment became clear, when everyone

Volume 2, Number 3, REFLECTIONSHow to Change the World
Here, then, is how I would summarize what I have learned from these four
experiences. The people I have met who are most effective at changing theworld have two qualities. On the one hand, they are extraordinarily committed, body and soul, to the change they want to see in the world, to a goal larger
than themselves. On the other hand, they are extraordinarily open to listening
to what is happening in the world, in others, and in themselves. Do you know
the joke, “How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? Only one,but the light bulb has to want to change”? My paradoxical conclusion is thatto change the world, you both have to be committed to changing it and be able
to listen to how it wants to change.11
The South Africans and Guatemalans I worked with have been able to
make history because they have lived this paradox. They have had the courage to commit their lives to effecting the changes they wanted to see. At thesame time, they have had the courage to engage with others, even their enemies, to give up the illusion of being in control, to venture beyond detachment, and to surrender to the process. It is through holding this two-part
intention that they have been able to help a better future be born. On the surface, these two intentions are in contradiction, but at a subtle, deeper level
they are not. Martin Buber expressed this perfectly when he wrote:
Free is the man that wills without caprice. He believes in the actual, which is tosay: he believes in the real association of the real duality, I and You. He believes
in destiny and also that it needs him. It does not lead him, it waits for him. He
must proceed toward it without knowing where it waits for him. He must go
forth with his whole being: that he knows. It will not turn out the way his resolve intended it; but what he wants to come will come only if he resolves to dothat which he can will. He must sacrifice his little will, which is unfree and ruledby things and drives, for his great will that moves away from being determined

REFLECTIONS, Volume 2, Number 3

KAHANE

present. They showed that, although each of
the main proponents had a partial and incoherent view of the whole system, a morebalanced, holistic understanding was a better basis for joint action.
Such insights can, at the personal level,
create enormous energy for change by releasing the individual from self-imposedconstraints. This catharsis can be the basis
for a new world view and a new sense of
the possible. When scenarios are alignedwith personal stories, they can become
powerful agents of change.
Kahane states that “you have to be committed to changing the world and able tolisten to how it wants to change.” The pragmatist in me senses that to be successful,
we also need to have a good dose of reality,that is, an insightful understanding of “howthe world works.” We need to have a senseof the scope of our influence to be able tofocus on those things for which we have themost leverage.
But do we need scenarios to change theworld? The first thing we need is a deep loveand caring for the “world” we want tochange—to heal, to make it more whole, andin David Bohm’s words, to make it more coherent. Second, we need to trust our intuition about the world, knowing that weknow more than we think we know.
Scenarios may not make us individuallymore caring, intuitive, or visionary, but theprocesses for building them and using them
may better our collective understanding of
the world and each other’s visions. If weknow “how things work” and we can sharein the larger vision, we can motivate ourselves for great actions. We can then truly
change the world. If we achieve this with
our most pressing problems, then scenarios
will have made a valuable contribution tohuman development.

How to Change the World

knew why they were there and what they had to do.7 Several members of theteam have referred to this episode as the turning point in the project.
I think that it is easy to understand why the team was able to achieve a
deeper, more real consensus—less of the feeling of having compromised that
one of the Mont Fleur participants expressed—through the telling of their personal stories. Social psychologist Solomon Asch wrote that “consensus is valid
only to the extent to which each individual asserts his own relation to the facts
and retains his individuality; there can be no genuine agreement . . . unlesseach adheres to the testimony of his experience and steadfastly maintains hishold on reality.”8 We can only move into the future together with confidence
if each person has told his or her truth about the past and present.9
Another way of describing what happened when the story of the mass
graves was told is that the whole of the Guatemalan reality became visible in
the part represented by that story. With this way of listening, each story canbe heard as a hologram, rather than merely as the piece of a puzzle.10 Several
years earlier, my wife Dorothy and I had facilitated a strategy workshop for the
Synod of Anglican bishops of Southern Africa. At the beginning, when we
asked for proposed ground rules for the workshop, one bishop suggested that
we listen attentively to each other; then a second one said that we should listen with empathy; and finally a third one offered that we should listen to thesacred within each of us. Holographic listening opens up the possibility ofsuch a communion and oneness.
What I learned from this fourth experience is that we have the greatest
capacity to make a difference when we dare to open ourselves up, to expose
our most honest nightmares and our most heart-felt dreams. The Visión Guatemala team members had the impact they did because they were willing bothto commit themselves to their vision of the future and to surrender to it.

23KAHANE
How to Change the World

to find destiny. Now he no longer interferes, nor does hemerely allow things to happen. He listens to what grows, to theway of Being in the world, not in order to be carried along by it
but rather in order to actualize it in the manner in which it,needing him, wants to be actualized by him—with humanspirit and human deed, with human life and human death. He
believes, I said; but this implies: he encounters.12© Barry Pell

24

What relevance does this conclusion from the world ofactivists have for the world of entrepreneurs? The key toseeing the connection is to understand that great activists
and great entrepreneurs have one essential quality in common: they both see that there is something wrong, something missing, something that doesn’t fit in the world, andthey work to fix it, to fill the gap, to create something new.13
They have the ability and will to see what is happening and what is needed, andthen to actualize it, to bring it forth. Charles Handy calls them “the new alchemists” because they have the ability to create something out of nothing.14
The civic experiences I have had, in dramatic settings like South Africa andGuatemala, have allowed me to see concretely how this generativity occurs,
clearly and in bright colors. But it also occurs in business, just in more muted
tones. If I look at business through this lens, then I can see that you have to do
two things if you want to be a great entrepreneur. I’m not necessarily sayingthat this is the only way to be a great entrepreneur, but it is one way.
The first thing to do is to commit yourself to changing the world. The key
to tapping into your own best energy and creativity, as well as to the best energy and creativity of those around you, is to commit yourself to serving alarger purpose. The energy I first noticed at Mont Fleur revealed somethingboth about the larger commitment of those South Africans and also about
what this larger work evoked in me. People are at their best not only when
what they are doing is in line with their personal purpose, but when their personal purpose is in line with a higher purpose.
This alignment is the root of both generativity and entrepreneurialism. In
Michael Lewis’s book about Jim Clark, the entrepreneur who founded threemultibillion-dollar companies—Silicon Graphics, Netscape, and Healtheon—
one of Clark’s colleagues says: “The passion, the fire was there. There was afeeling that we were about to change the world. And we all knew that was
how you made money, by changing the world.” 15 An entrepreneur makes
money by discovering something that doesn’t exist—a “white space”—and bychanging the world by bringing it into being.
The questions to ask yourself are: How does my company’s product orservice meet a real need in the world, make the world better? How does committing myself to this bring out the best in me; how is this my vocation, mydestiny? If it isn’t, you’re not in the right business: not ina business to which you can bring the extraordinary levels of commitment and energy and creativity that a business needs in order to succeed.
The second thing to do if you want to be a great entrepreneur is to listen to what wants to change in the world.
This imperative is in tension with the first because itmeans being passionate about an idea and also being open
to other ideas. Charles Handy says that entrepreneurs are “self-promoting and,at the same time, self-questioning.” So you need to have more than commitment; you have to be able to sense what is trying to be born in the world, towhat you must commit yourself. And by “sense,” I mean more than just “analyze”; when the legendary hockey player Wayne Gretsky said, “I skate to where
I think the puck will be,” obviously he was referring to a kind of knowing that. . . if you want to be a great
entrepreneur, . . . listen to what wants
to change in the world.

Volume 2, Number 3, REFLECTIONS You have to be able to see the world, to observe precisely, as we did at
Shell, through your own and other people’s eyes; to see new possibilities
and new scenarios through the eyes of customers, of other players, ofcompetitors, of heretics.
 Second and more difficult, you have to be able to see yourself in the mirror,
as some of the Mont Fleur participants did; to see your own role and influence, your own part in the dance; to be reflective; to see your own seeing.
 And third and most difficult, you have to be able to glimpse the place
where looking at the world and looking at yourself are the same, as themembers of Visión Guatemala did, to see the underlying oneness.

KAHANE
How to Change the World

involves more than analysis. These other ways of knowing are especially important for entrepreneurs in the emergent, speeded-up new economy.
The sensing and listening and seeing that you have to do have three dimensions:

Where to Start
This brings me to the end of my remarks and to my final point, which is about
where you have to start if you want to change the world. You can see that theconclusion I have reached so far implies that my capacity to change the world
depends on my level of personal development: my sense of my own vocation andmy commitment to it, the range of my seeing and sensing, and so on. So anotherway to interpret my four stories is that the keys to changing the world were always there, as much at PG&E and Shell as in South Africa and Guatemala, butthat I was too immature to see them. A more positive way of putting this is thatmy capacity to help bring forth change in the world has grown as I have grown.
I can see in my current work when my way of leading—what I do, how I
am—helps something new and better be born, and when it holds it back or kills
it. What I am saying is that if you can’t see yourself in the picture, then, by definition, you have no lever to change the world. To turn the old slogan on its head:
if you’re not part of the problem, you’re not part of the solution. An activist who
is committed to changing the world, but who can’t listen to what wants to change
in the world, is a fanatic. An entrepreneur who is committed to changing theworld, but who can’t listen to what wants to change in the world, is a tycoon.16
So generativity requires reflectiveness. Our capacity to see and change theworld co-evolves with our capacity to see and change ourselves. This is theholographic principle again. Goethe put this beautifully when he wrote, “Manknows himself only to the extent that he knows the world; he becomes awareof himself only within the world, and aware of the world only within himself.
Every object, well contemplated, opens up a new organ within us.”17
Let me summarize with a story about a rabbi who, like me, set out tochange the world. He found that he wasn’t making much progress, so he tried
to change his country. This was also too difficult, so he tried to change hisneighborhood. When he didn’t have success there, he tried to change his family. Even that was easier said than done, so he tried to change himself. Then
an interesting thing happened. When he had changed himself, his familychanged. And when his family changed, his neighborhood changed. When his
neighborhood changed, his country changed. And when his country changed,
the world changed.
So now you know where to start.

Notes
1. See also Kahane, A. “Changing the Winds: Scenarios for People Who Want to Change
the World.” Whole Earth No. 96 (March 22, 1999).
2. See van der Heijden, K. Scenarios: The Art of Strategic Conversation (New York:REFLECTIONS, Volume 2, Number 3

25

KAHANE
How to Change the World

Wiley, 1996); P. Senge et al. The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook: Strategies and Tools for
Building a Learning Organization (New York: Doubleday, 1994); and P. Senge et al.
The Dance of Change: The Challenges to Sustaining Change in Learning Organizations (New York: Doubleday, 1999).
3. These scenarios are summarized in Jaworski, J. Synchronicity: The Inner Path of
Leadership (San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler, 1996).
4. See le Roux, P. et al. “The Mont Fleur Scenarios.” Deeper News 7 (1992).
5. See Diez Pinto, E. et al., Los Escenarios del Futuro (Guatemala City, Guatemala:Visión Guatemala, 1999).
6. A similar, earlier exercise in violence-torn Colombia involved more than 30,000
people in workshops and reached millions more via television and newspapers. See
Carvajal, M.J. et al. “Destino Colombia.” Deeper News 9 (1998).
7. See Scharmer, C.O. “Presencing: Shifting the Place from Which Leaders Operate.” Paper presented at the Conference on Knowledge and Innovation, Helsinki, Finland,
May 2000.
8. Quoted in Weisbord, M. Discovering Common Ground: How Search Conferences Bring
People Together to Achieve Breakthrough Innovation, Empowerment, Shared Vision,and Collaborative Action (San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler, 1992).
9. This is the same philosophy that underpinned the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (which started its work in 1995, after Mont Fleur), with its emphasis on hearing the testimony of victims and perpetrators, as well as Guatemala’s
Commission for Historical Clarification.
10. See Bortoft, H. The Wholeness of Nature. Goethe’s Way towards a Science of Conscious Participation in Nature (Hudson, NY: Lindisfarne Press, 1996).
11. For a more extended formulation of this idea in the context of the new economy, see
Jaworski, J. and C.O. Scharmer. “Leadership in the New Economy: Sensing and Actualizing Emerging Futures” (Beverly, MA: Generon Consulting, 2000).
12. Buber, M. I and Thou (New York: Touchstone Books, 1970).
13. See Spinosa, C., F. Flores, and H. Dreyfus. Disclosing New Worlds: Entrepreneurship,
Democratic Action, and the Cultivation of Solidarity (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997).
14. Handy, C. The New Alchemists: How Visionary People Make Something Out of Nothing (London: Hutchison, 1999).
15. Lewis, M. The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story (New York: W.W. Norton, 2000).
16. This insight is due to Bill Torbert.
17. von Goethe, J.W. Goethe’s Scientific Studies. Translated by D. Miller. Edited by A.P.
Cottrell and D. Miller. (Boston, MA: Suhrkamp Insel, 1985).

Commentary
by Nancy J. Adler
26

Leading: Giving Yourself for Things Far Greater Than Yourself
To be human is to give yourself for things far greater than yourself (Chittister, 1998);
To lead is to give yourself for things far greater than yourself.

Nancy J. Adler
Professor of Management
McGill University

When I was 11 years old, my Austrian mother explained to me that when she was myage, she had wanted to have at least 6 children. Yet by the time she met my American
father, just 8 years later, she no longer wanted any children. Losing most of her friends
and family during World War II to Hitler’s terror had convinced her that the world was
not a fit place to raise children. Luckily, especially from my perspective, my father convinced my mother that, within the family, the two of them could create a bubble oflove, and within that bubble, their children could grow up in safety and happiness, protected from the inhumanity raging outside. Having grown up within the bubble of theirlove, and in sunny southern California rather than war-torn Europe, I never doubted
that our role on earth, as human beings and as leaders, was to expand the bubble to encompass the world: or, as the rabbis would exhort us, to return to our original task of
Tikun Olam, the restoration of the world.

Volume 2, Number 3, REFLECTIONSREFLECTIONS, Volume 2, Number 3

KAHANE
How to Change the WorldOf course, none of us can claim that the twentieth century exited on a safe, secure,or loving note—a note imbued with peace, wisdom, compassion, and love (Adler, 1998).
As we ask ourselves which of our twentieth-century legacies we wish to pass on to thechildren of the twenty-first century, we are humbled into shameful silence. Yes, we haveadvanced science, technology, and commerce, but at the price of a world torn asunder
by a polluted environment, cities infested with social chaos and physical decay, an increasingly skewed income distribution that condemns large portions of the population
to poverty (including people living in the world’s most affluent societies), and rampant
physical violence continuing to kill people in titularly limited wars and seemingly random acts of violence. No, we did not exit the twentieth century with pride. Unless wecollectively learn to treat each other and our planet in a more civilized way, it may soon
become blasphemous to even consider ourselves a civilization (Rechtschaffen, 1996).
And yet why not a more peaceful, sustainable, and compassionate society in thetwenty-first century? 1 Why not a global civilization that we could bequeath with pride
to our children and our children’s children? Naively idealistic? Perhaps, but only if we
ignore the wisdom and approaches of Adam Kahane and like-minded colleagues aroundthe world. Only if we renege on our role as leaders and simply adapt to the future,
rather than collectively attempting to improve it. As US Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright admonishes us, “We have a responsibility in our time, as others have had in
theirs, not to be prisoners of history, but to shape history” (Albright, 1997).
After a quarter-century of conducting research and consulting on global strategy
and cross-cultural management, I have increasingly focused the past few years on thesmall but rapidly increasing number of women who are among the world’s most prominent business and political leaders—women who have served as their country’s president or prime minister or as CEO of a major global firm.2 Perhaps it is not surprisingthat at this moment in history, countries around the world, most for the first time, areturning to women leaders rather than to the traditional cohort of men. People want achange; they no longer want the narrow, circumscribed leadership of the twentiethcentury nor its outcomes. They hope and imagine that women will bring a more inclusive and compassionate approach to leadership. 3
In Nicaragua, for example, former president Violetta Chamorro’s ability to bring all
the members of her family together every week for Sunday dinner achieved near legendary status. Symbolically, her dinners gave the nation hope that it could heal its civil
war–inflicted wounds and find a peace that would reunite all Nicaraguans (SaintGermain, 1993). Why such elevated hopes from a Sunday night dinner? Because of
Chamorro’s four adult children, two were prominent Sandanistas, while the other two
equally prominently opposed the Sandanistas, not an unusual split in war-torn Nicaragua (Saint-Germain, 1993). As Chamorro’s children told their stories around her diningroom table, others in the country began to believe that they too could “reach a deeper,
more real consensus—including unity and peace—through the telling of their personal
stories.” Implicitly, the Nicaraguans believed that by listening attentively to each other,with empathy, they could hear the sacred within each person, their core humanity andthat of the nation. It is no coincidence that the symbol of hope, peace, and unity was adining-room table and not a boardroom table (Hassink, 1996, 1999). Kahane underscores that such holographic listening—in which each story reflects the whole, rather
than merely contributing a piece to the puzzle—opens up the possibility of communionand oneness, of transcending history to create a new future: “We have the greatest capacity to make a difference when we dare to open ourselves up, to expose our mosthonest nightmares and our most heartfelt-dreams.”
As Kahane points out, leaders who make a difference are extraordinarily committed,
body and soul, to the change they want to see in the world, to a goal much larger thanthemselves. In her personal commitment, Chandrika Kumaratunga, the president of wartorn Sri Lanka, has become a prism for the paradoxes of extraordinary leadership that
Kahane describes.4 When she was only 11 years old, her father, who was the country’s
founding father and its first prime minister, was assassinated, many believe due to his
policies, which advantaged the Sinhalese and stripped the Tamil of their cultural rights.
Her mother, who also served as prime minister, furthered the country’s ethnically divisive27

KAHANE
How to Change the World

policies. Later on, Kumaratunga’s husband, a politically involved citizen and noted actor,
was murdered in what many believe to have been Tamil-initiated violence. With the constant and very real threat of death to her and to her children, why did Kumaratungachoose to stay in Sri Lanka and run for office? And once she won, how did she find thecourage to tell her mother—whom she later appointed to serve as prime minister—and thecountry that she was going to attempt to find a peaceful solution to Sri Lanka’s seeminglyinterminable civil war by sitting down with the Tamil and listening to their story?
Kumaratunga, with both her father and husband murdered, chose to go outside thepatterns of history and say, “Enough! There has to be a better way.” Her attempts tomove Sri Lanka toward peace and unity have by no means met with unequivocal success. Yet Kumaratunga persists, even in the face of constant death threats and a bomb
explosion that has already claimed one of her eyes.
Kahane reminds us that leaders who influence history do so because they live theparadox. They have the courage to commit their lives to effecting the changes theywant to see. At the same time, they have the courage to engage with others—even theirenemies—the courage to give up the illusion of being in control, to venture beyond detachment, and to surrender to the process. Will Kumaratunga be able to commit tochanging her country while remaining open to how each faction wants to change? Willshe be able to maintain the paradox? To paraphrase Martin Buber (1970):
Does Kumaratunga believe in destiny and also that destiny needs her; that destiny
does not lead her, but rather waits for her. Can she proceed toward her country’s andher own destiny without knowing where it waits for her? Will she be able to continue
going forth with her whole being? Destiny will not turn out the way her resolve intended it; but what she wants will come about only if she resolves to do that which
she can. Will she be able to neither interfere nor merely allow things to happen?

28

While the answer will only be written in the months and years ahead, we know that
Kumaratunga has demonstrated enormous courage to date to begin the journey.
This past summer, my Jewish nephew Aaron married a deeply religious Catholic woman
Karen. Although told that their wedding ceremony and life together would be rooted inboth spiritual traditions, both families questioned the reality of the young couple’s pronouncement when the invitations arrived announcing that the wedding would take placeat Holy Family Catholic Church with a Catholic priest, and no rabbi, presiding. Only as thepriest opened the service in Hebrew with a Jewish prayer, did the tension begin to recede.
In one of the most moving and profoundly meaningful wedding ceremonies I haveever attended, the priest celebrated Aaron and Karen’s unique individuality, including
their two distinctly different spiritual traditions. He made no attempt to minimize or ignore the differences between Judaism and Christianity. After the bride and groom had
exchanged vows, the priest reminded us of the hatred that has all too frequently separated Jewish and Catholic communities. He then asked each of us to see Karen and
Aaron as symbolic of the love that could unite the two traditions, the love that could
replace the all too common hatred. What more powerful symbol of global leadership:
love replacing hate, love bridging distinct individuality, love uniting bride and groom on
their wedding day, love respecting and bridging differences among all peoples at all
times. Kahane reflects that our capacity to see and change the world co-evolves withour capacity to see and change ourselves. As the marriage ceremony changed Aaron
and Karen into husband and wife, so too did it change all of us into people who moredeeply understand what it means to unify diversity without extinguishing individuality.
Paraphrasing Goethe: People know themselves only to the extent that they know theworld; they become aware of themselves only within the world, and aware of the world
only within themselves (von Goethe, 1985).
To be human is to find ourselves behind our names (Krieger, 1998).
To lead is to find ourselves behind our names.

Notes

1. The McGill-McConnell Program for Leadership in the Voluntary Sector has the goal of
creating a more peaceful, compassionate, sustainable society. Many of the ideas expressed in this commentary reflect the philosophy of the program and the approach

Volume 2, Number 3, REFLECTIONSKAHANE
How to Change the World

that the author took as a part of the team developing and delivering the first module,
the Reflective Mindset. For more information, contact the McGill-McConnell programat Tel: 514-398-4060.
2. For a more in-depth discussion of women serving as global leaders, see Adler, N.J. “Did
You Hear? Global Leadership in Charity’s World.” Journal of Management Inquiry 7(1998): 135–143; “Global Leaders: A Dialogue with Future History.” International Management 1 (1997): 21–33; “Global Entrepreneurs: Women, Myths, and History.” Global
Focus 11 (1999): 125–134; “The Women’s Global Leadership Forum: Enhancing One
Company’s Leadership Capacity.” Human Resource Management 39 (2000): 209–225.
3. To date, given the novelty of women in very senior leadership positions, there is no
proof that women will in fact lead in different ways from men.
4. For a further discussion of Chandrika Kumaratunga’s leadership as prime minister andexecutive president of Sri Lanka, see Burns, J. “After Years of War, Hope in Sri Lanka.”
New York Times (August 24, 1994): A11; Burns, J. “In Sri Lanka, Glimmer of Peace After
Years of War.” New York Times (April 16, 1995): 8; Editorial “Sri Lanka’s Cycle of Tragedy.” New York Times (August 19, 1994): A26; Burns, J. “Sri Lanka’s Leader Presses Drive
to Take War to Rebels.” New York Times (November 13, 1995): A3; Piyasena, S. and B.
Parmanand. Chadrika and The Electoral Revolution in Sri Lanka (New Delhi: Navrang,
1995); “Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga” as found on the Internet atwww.slfp.lk/CBK.html on October 20, 1999; “Kumaratunga, Chandrika Bandaranaike,”
The International Who’s Who 2000 63rd edition (London: Europa Publications Ltd.,
1999): 874; “Special Report/Sri Lanka/Interview: I Can Take a Lot of Risks: President
Kumaratunga on War, Peace and Solitude.” Time International as found on the Internetwith Electrical Library on October 20, 1999; among others.

References

Adler, N.J. “Societal Leadership: The Wisdom of Peace.” in Executive Wisdom and Organizational Change, eds. S. Srivastva and D. Cooperrider (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass,
1998): 205–221.
Albright, M.K. “Harvard Commencement Address.” New York Times (June 6, 1997): A8.
Buber, M.I. I and Thou (New York: Touchstone Books, 1970).
Chittister, J. in What Does It Mean To Be Human?, eds. F. Franck, J. Roze, and R. Connolly(Nyack, NY: Circumstantial Productions, 1998): 194.
Hassink, J. The Table of Power (Amsterdam: Menno van de Koppel, 1996); Queen Bees: Female Power Stations (Amsterdam: Menno van de Koppel, 1999). Artist Jacqueline
Hassink has done a series of studies and photo essays on the tables of power (boardroom tables) and tables of relationship (dining-room tables) of both male and female
CEOs worldwide.
Krieger, D. in What Does It Mean To Be Human?, eds. F. Franck, J. Roze, and R. Connolly(Nyack, NY: Circumstantial Productions, 1998): 273.
Rechtschaffen, S. Timeshifting (New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Audio Publishing, 1996).
Saint-Germain, M.A. “Women in Power in Nicaragua: Myth and Reality” in Women as National Leaders, ed. M.A. Genovese (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1993): 80.
von Goethe, J.W. Goethe’s Scientific Studies, trans. D. Miller. eds. A.P. Cottrell and D. Miller(Boston, MA: Suhrkamp Insel, 1985).
29

REFLECTIONS, Volume 2, Number 3

FEATURE

From Illness to Insight:
Discovering Toxins in People
and Their OrganizationsPeter J. Frost

I

Peter J. Frost
Edgar F. Kaiser Professor of
Organizational Behavior
University of British Columbia

30© 2001 by the Society for Organizational Learning and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

n 1999, I coauthored an article entitled “The Toxic Handler: Organizational Hero—andCasualty” (Frost and Robinson, 1999). What follows are my reflections and interpretations, my story of how the ideas for the notion of toxicity and toxin handling grew frommy experiences with cancer and with handling the emotional pain of people in my organization. Primarily, I try to show how an idea emerged from personal experiences andcapture some of the serendipity of the outcome. I also comment on what I currently think
about toxin handlers because my research on the topic is a work in progress.
In March 1997, late on a Friday evening, just as my wife and I were preparing to go
out for a walk, a doctor from the Vancouver Cancer Center called. “I’m sorry to give you
this call, Doctor Frost, but the needle biopsy we took from your neck this afternoon has
shown melanoma cancer, and it’s in your lymph system,” he said. “You will need tocome in next week for a consultation. Your oncologist will talk to you about arranging
to meet a surgeon. You will need to have all the lymph nodes on the right side of yourneck surgically removed as soon as we can arrange it.”
While this triggered changes in my personal life (Frost, 1999; forthcoming), it also
set in motion my ideas about ways in which organizations and people in them behave.
Of course, at that time, my primary focus was on coping with the onset of an aggressive
form of cancer and trying to get well. In a few weeks, I had surgery to remove the infected lymph nodes and took several weeks off work to heal. At the same time, I foundmyself trying to make sense of the onset of cancer, given my life experiences during theprevious few years. I assumed no direct responsibility for having caused the cancer nor
did I feel any guilt because I had cancer. However, I knew from my reading of the literature on stress that illnesses like cancer can be triggered by high levels of stress that depress the body’s immune system and weaken the body’s resistance to illness. Given that
I had been working in a high stress environment for several years (particularly as an
associate dean), it seemed possible that what I had been doing might have been a factor
in my illness. I was motivated to try to identify anything in my work habits and life stylein those years that I might need to address and change.
Any practices and treatment that could keep my immune system healthy became
important to my recovery plan, so a few months after surgery, I attended Joan
Borysenko’s week-long seminar on health and healing. At this workshop, I crystallized
my ideas about emotional pain in organizations and what might happen to people who
try to manage that pain for the benefit of the organization.
Joan Borysenko is a cofounder and former director of the Mind/Body Clinic at the
New England Deaconess Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and author of a book onsome key early ideas in mind/body medicine (Borysenko, 1987). Given her research focus and practical experience and my health concerns, the workshop was helpful to me ina number of ways. Midway through the week, Dr. Borysenko talked about the effects ofemotions on people’s immune systems, noting that strong emotions such as anger, sadness, frustration, or despair can be particularly “toxic” to the human body and can affectthe immune system’s ability to protect it. Her comment rang a bell for me and fed intosome thoughts that I had been connecting to my work experiences (more on this later).

Volume 2, Number 3, REFLECTIONSFROST
From Illness to Insight

What really got my attention, however, was Dr. Borysenko’s observation that there
are some people who take on the emotional pain of others for the benefit of the wholesystem: “They are like psychic sponges for a family or for a work system. They pick up
all the toxicity in the system.” I wrote this comment down in my notebook, and I remember getting goose bumps on my arms. (In some societies, Dr. Borysenko noted, “sin eaters” take on the sins of the group so that the whole community can be healed.) “Aha!” I
thought excitedly, “All this ties directly into what I have perceived as something leaders
do for their companies. Maybe some leaders are toxic leaders, in the sense that they takeon the pain in their organizations for the benefit of others!” (I subsequently changed my thinking to distinguishbetween leaders who create pain for their subordinatesand peers, “toxic bosses,” and people exercising formal orinformal leadership who handle other’s pain. I now believe it is possible for leaders to both create and handle
toxicity in their workplaces. Perhaps this is a feature ofbeing a good leader.)Another reference in the workshop fed my excitement
and triggered a second insight. Dr. Borysenko discussed the work of Larry Dossey, author of Healing Words (Dossey, 1993). He cited empirical evidence of the healing effects
of prayer. The book was a bestseller, and Dossey received a flood of mostly congratulatory feedback from readers. However, Dossey also got hate mail criticizing him for meddling with prayer through his work. Some people wished him ill, saying that they would
pray that he be punished for his hubris. Dossey did further research on the negative effects of prayer, culminating in Be Careful What You Pray For (Dossey, 1997). The comment that produced more goose bumps and generated another “Aha!” was theobservation that some forms of prayer might be toxic to the person who is the focus of
the message. It might then be possible, I thought, for someone to be hurt by anotherperson’s negative feelings, wishes, or emotions when they are directed toward them.
Whether or not this is true, it provided important input to my puzzle about leadership and emotional pain. I began to think that people who were handling the emotional
pain of others might themselves become vulnerable to the pain expressed. The work ofhandling toxins might then become hazardous to the handler’s health. This outcome
might be particularly likely if a member of an organization became known as a person
on whom to dump one’s unhappiness. Given my interpretation of Dossey’s message, it
occurred to me that this transfer might also happen if the person in pain associated anyof the pain’s cause to the handler and thus wished the handler ill. This situation mightarise, for example, when the handler was a formal leader in an organization. The leader
might have been responsible or seen to be responsible for someone else’s pain and thenhad the effect of the pain directed toward himself or herself.
After the workshop, I began to play with these ideas in the context of my own experience. For four years, in the early to mid 1990s, I was associate dean of my businessschool. At first, I had the portfolio of faculty development (a type of human resources
function) and later took on the additional role of associate dean for professional and management development programs (the executive trainingarm of the school). I was part of a team of four senior executives in the school, led by the dean. It was a time of
rapid change fueled partly by many initiatives from thedean’s office and partly by ongoing budget cuts that hit theuniversity and the school. I had been a practicing manager
earlier in my career. Now, with my background as an organizational behavior professor, I had a chance to practicewhat I preached (this practice met with mixed success, asanyone who moves from academia to administration
quickly finds out). I enjoyed the role despite the manypressures and the fast work pace, although I felt burnedout by the end of my term. Part of me wanted to accept the
dean’s invitation to stay on. Instead, I took a sabbaticaland returned to research and teaching.

There are some people who take on
the emotional pain of others for the
benefit of the whole system.

REFLECTIONS, Volume 2, Number 3© Emily Sper

31

FROST
From Illness to Insight

32

So what had I learned that might be related to my ideas about toxicity? I began tosee that emotional pain or toxicity was quite prevalent in my organization. It stemmed
from many sources including the frustration when dedicated academics have to teachand do research in an environment constantly squeezed for resources. It came from professional staff who often did not have the flexibility or sufficient funds to do their jobs
as well as they wanted. It came from faculty having to deal with changes initiated by thedean’s office. It was embedded in the debates and discussions on policy changes andnew practices that inevitably favored some members more than others. It came from constraints and from opportunities. People could become angry and frustrated or despondent and sad because of what was added to their work as well as what was taken away.
Emotional pain seemed to occur as a normal product.
Some pain occurs because people lose benefits or feelings of self-worth or esteem.
Or the pain may be caused by people striving to improve certain aspects, for example,
creating new products or services, setting new benchmarks for performance, and so on.
Achieving a goal is rarely painless, although success typically enhances self-worth. Because toxicity is likely to be part of the best-run organizations, the issue is less about
creating toxin-free systems and more about keeping toxins moving through and out of
the system or finding ways to contain and then disperse them.
I started seeing an organization as the human body or some other living system.
Perhaps organizations are entities that produce toxins as a normal function. One may beable to understand how an organization is performing by analyzing the toxins it produces, that is, by tracking the kinds and distribution of emotional pain triggered as various processes occur. It might be useful to identify and understand how pain is dispersedin the system. My hunch is that some organizations do a better job of processing pain
than others. I think it is possible that when the levels and intensity of pain generation
are pathological, they create duress for the handling systems, possibly damaging them.
In the human body, the equivalent would be the onset of stresses that make it difficult
for the natural toxin removers, the kidney or the liver and so on, to function efficiently.
Over time, these components may wear down and become damaged, so the immune
system is compromised and illness ensues.
Questions raised by this perspective include: How do organizations monitor the levelof toxicity in their systems? How does toxicity become pathological? How can toxicity
be kept below a level at which it is no longer dangerous to individuals and to the organization? Two other questions preoccupied me: How is the toxicity managed and dispersed? What happens to the people who try to handle the toxins?
To my knowledge, little had been written in the organizational literature at that timeabout emotional pain in the workplace or about how to handle it. (I later read a book on
toxic leadership [Whicker, 1996], which focused on the toxicity managers generate. And
a colleague pointed out a piece on toxicity in organizations that featured an interview
with Jeffrey Pfeffer [Webber, 1998].) There don’t seem to be ways of thinking about thesocial organization equivalents of the liver, the kidneys,
and so on, although, in some ways, the human resource(HR) function might be seen this way, and services suchas Employee Assistance Programs (EAP) have the structure to help. My sense of toxicity and how it needs to behandled suggests a more pervasive involvement of organization systems than just “delegating” it to HR or to EAP.
I turned once again to my own experience as a manager and to my sense that some managers may be toxin
handlers. One activity that occupied much of my time as a dean was listening to people
who were upset or unhappy or frustrated with what they were dealing with inside theorganization. Sometimes the issues were work-related; sometimes they were personal.
Often, I would be a listening post for the pain or would try to alleviate it. Sometimes,
anger or disappointment would spill into my office as a result of something generated
by leadership initiatives in the school or university. Sometimes, as an administrator, I
was the initiator of the unhappiness or I was involved in triggering the emotion. I was,nevertheless, someone to whom others came to express their pain.

How can toxicity be kept below alevel at which it is no longer
dangerous to individuals and to theorganization?

Volume 2, Number 3, REFLECTIONSFROST
From Illness to InsightThis kind of emotion-managing work is hard to “see”
in contrast to other organizational work such as preparing
budgets, writing reports, or producing products. Whensomeone asks, “What did you do at the office today?,” theresponse of the toxin handler is typically vague: “Well, I
listened to different people tell me their stories of pain.”
Often that would be it; such work can take the whole day.
Yet it does not register in the organization the way that
other work does. The so-called “real work” of reports,
projects, and so forth that the toxin handler is responsible
for has to be done off hours, away from the press ofpeople’s concerns. This almost invisible work, toxin handling, does not figure much in the lexicon of organizational
performance and is not well understood. Consequently, it
is not well supported or rewarded.
For me, the pain was often intense and, while the person who expressed it may have left feeling better, I often
carried it around with me, especially if I felt that I had
somehow caused it. During four years, I found it increasingly difficult to release the pain others presented to me,
in part because I was not really aware of the “wear andtear” on me until after I had left.
Based on my experience, I speculated that handling toxins for too long or in an intense environment without support
or respite can harm the toxin handler. The toxins penetrate
the handlers’ defenses, and the handlers become toxic themselves. Experienced handlers such as therapists and social
workers burn out despite being trained to handle pain. Few
managers have the protective training of such professionals,
so they are very vulnerable to contamination by toxins.
I began sharing my ideas with managers in executive
seminars. The first time I spoke about my thoughts, I was
ending a morning session on leadership issues with some 30 managers attending a threeweek executive program. There were managers from several organizations, mostly Canadian, some from other countries. They were all being groomed for senior management
posts and had successful track records in their companies. I decided to take the last 10
minutes to sketch out my ideas about toxicity and the role and costs of toxin handling.
The room became very quiet. At the end of my brief presentation, I said that we could continue the conversation over lunch if people were interested. I added that, together withcolleague Sandra Robinson, I was starting to interview managers about their experienceswith toxic situations and if any of the class wanted to volunteer, I would be happy to include them in the study.
At the end of class, the participants who wanted totalk about my ideas mobbed me. Many said that the term
toxin handler “connected the dots” about their experiences as managers that they could not previously articulate. They felt these legitimate activities were so “touchy
feely” that they needed to hide them from their managers.
The term toxicity seemed to serve as a release. Many volunteered to be interviewed and typically told powerful stories about toxicity in their companies. Sometimes the source of the pain was other managers, organizational
interventions, or simply change. Sometimes they saw themselves as a source of the pain
and were astute or lucky enough to end the situation and to dissipate the pain. Often
they described ways in which they were toxin handlers. Their backgrounds confirmed
my hunch that the handlers include line managers running projects, managers in chargeof operational units, or product or service champions. Several participants gave examples
of toxin handlers eventually burning out or becoming ill.

© Emily SperI speculated that handling toxins for
too long or in an intense environment
without support or respite can harm
the toxin handler.

REFLECTIONS, Volume 2, Number 333

FROST
From Illness to InsightI noticed this emotional connection to my ideas in other presentations to management groups in Canada, Australia, and the United States. It encouraged me to expand
the reach of our developing sample. On a long bus ride in Norway en route to a conference on organizational culture, I sat next to Ed Schein. His positive response to my ideas
further encouraged me to devote my time and energy to the project. By the time our article was published, we had talked with more than 70 managers about their experienceswith toxicity (Frost and Robinson, 1999).
So far, the descriptions and stories suggest that these concepts may be useful inunderstanding organizations. But there is still much careful work to do, and I continue
to explore the notions of toxicity and toxin handling. I am also deeply interested in the
aspects of compassion in the toxin-handling role and in the way compassion may be ahidden facet of organizational life (Frost et al., 2000).

References
Borysenko, J. Minding the Body, Mending the Mind (New York: Bantam, 1987).
Dossey, L. Healing Words (New York: HarperCollins, 1993).
Dossey, L. Be Careful What You Pray For (San Francisco, CA: Harper, 1997).
Frost, P.J. “Why Compassion Counts!” Journal of Management Inquiry 8 (1999): 127–133.
Frost, P. and S. Robinson. “The Toxic Handler: Organizational Hero—and Casualty,” Harvard Business Review 77 (1999): 96–106.
Frost, P.J. “Four Life Lessons,” in Beside Still Water: Essays in Spiritual Development, ed. P. Vaill(forthcoming).
Frost, P.J., J.E. Dutton, M.C. Worline, and A. Wilson. “Narratives of Compassion in Organizations,”
in Emotion in Organizations, second edition, ed. S. Fineman (London: Sage, 2000): 25–45.
Webber, A.M. “Danger: Toxic Company.” Fast Company 19 (1998): 152–156.
Whicker, M.L. Toxic Leaders—When Organizations Go Bad (Westport, CT: Quorom Books, 1996).

Commentaryby Bill O’Brien

34

Bill O’Brien
Retired CEO
Hanover Insurance Companies
Partner Emeritus
Generon ConsultingPeter Frost’s notions of emotional pain and toxicity are an apt diagnosis of the current psychic environment in all too many of our corporations today. If I were a CEO confronted with leading an organization in which the culture is racked with toxins resulting in emotional pain and impaired
business performance, I would seek my principal guidance from the field of morals and other spiritual traditions that have accumulated wisdom about the interior life of humans. Why?
First, in my experience, most toxins are produced by inferior moral action such as inappropriate
exercise of power. For example, some leaders use their positions to be served rather than to serve or
let their egos overwhelm their judgment. Some pursue self-interests at the expense of the common
good. And others frame information to manipulate others, rather than allowing them to draw theirown conclusions from untainted data (commonly known as spin). There are other sources of toxinsthat cause emotional pain, but most of them fall into about six generic categories. All these issues
are moral problems, not medical ones. I suspect they cause medical problems because the mind/
body relationship is real. Malfunctions in one area often produce symptoms in the other.
Second, while the liver and kidneys filter toxins from the human system, their equivalent in humancommunities has yet to be discovered. The idea of toxin handlers serving as a sort of sponge, in lieu ofkidneys or a liver, to absorb emotional pain within an organization makes me apprehensive. The people
who serve as sponges will eventually burn out, causing an epidemic of what I call “victimology,” which
is a breakdown of individual will and personal responsibility, often found when an excessively hierarchical bureaucratic culture overwhelms individual spirit. This highly contagious disease spreads rapidly
when people abandon ownership of their responsibilities because they no longer believe they canchange things for the better or put a meaningful handprint on their part of the world.
It is clear to me that the remedy for these infected cultures lies in raising the moral quality ofleadership. C.S. Lewis offers the best explanation of morals I have read (Lewis, 1996):

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From Illness to Insight

Morals are rules that are the directions for running the human machine. Every moral rule isthere to prevent a breakdown, or a strain, or a friction, in the running of that machine. That is
why these rules at first seem to be constantly interfering with our natural inclinations.
There are two ways in which the human machine goes wrong. One is when the human individuals drift apart from one another, or else collide with one another and do one another damage, by cheating or bullying. The other is when things go wrong inside the individual— whendifferent parts of him (his different faculties and desires and so on) either drift apart or interferewith one another. You can get the idea plain if you think of us as a fleet of ships sailing in formation. The voyage will be a success only, in the first place, if the ships do not collide and get in
one another’s way and secondly, if each ship is seaworthy and has her engines in good order. Asa matter of fact, you can not have either of these two things without the other. If the ships keepon having collisions, they will not remain seaworthy very long. On the other hand, if their steering gears are out of order, they will not be able to avoid collisions. But there is one thing that wehave not yet taken into account. We have not asked where the fleet is trying to get to. However
well the fleet sailed, the voyage would be a failure if it were meant to reach New York and actually arrived in Calcutta.
Lewis summarizes by saying:
Morality, then, seems to be concerned with three things. Firstly, with fair play and harmony between individuals. Secondly, with what might be called tidying up or harmonizing the things inside each individual. Thirdly, with the general purpose of human life as a whole; what man wasmade for; what course the whole fleet ought to be on.
If we want to transform our institutions to a higher plateau—that is, better business performance,
fulfilled workers, and low toxicity—I suggest leadership development that taps into the rich reservoirof eastern and western spiritual traditions and integrates their wisdom with modern management
science and technology. Why is it our organizations have formal programs to achieve best practices
for technology, finance, and distribution, but nothing equivalent for their practice of values or morals? The benefit would have a rippling effect through every corner and aspect of the organization.

References

Lewis, C.S. Mere Christianity (New York: Simon & Schuster Touchstone, 1996): 69, 70, 71.

35

REFLECTIONS, Volume 2, Number 3

FEATURE

Praxis Pentagonof Organizational Learning
Ursula Versteegen, C. Otto Scharmer,
and Katrin Käufer

In this paper, we reflect on our experiences in initiating an organizationwide
learning and change process within a global health-care company in Europe. The tools
and method we used are what we call the “Organizational Learning Pentagon.” The fivebuilding blocks of the pentagon are based on Senge’s concept of the five disciplines(1990, 1994), Schein’s process consultation (1987) and corporate culture (1992), Bohm’s
and Isaacs’ dialogue (Bohm, 1990; Isaacs, 1993, 1999), and Argyris and Schön’s doubleloop learning (1996).
The organizational learning pentagon has five corners (figure 1):

Ursula VersteegenResearcher and facilitator

36

C. Otto Scharmer
Visiting Lecturer, MIT Sloan Schoolof Management
Lecturer, University of Innsbruck,
Austria
Research Partner, Generon Consulting© 2001 by the Society for Organizational Learning and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

1. Systems thinking. Senge’s fifth discipline allows actors within a system to identify
the causative factors and feedback loops that determine the behavior of that systemand to recognize them as dependent variables of their own thinking (Senge, 1990;
Kim, 1992, 1994).
2. Aspiration and personal mastery. Profound change processes always involve significant personal change. Personal mastery is the capacity to tap into the sources of
one’s own aspirations, commitment, and will: What do I really care about? What do
I want to create? (Senge, 1990). Or, as Michael Ray frames the creative process:“Who is my Self? What is my Work?” (Catford and Ray, 1991).
3. Dialogue or conversation. Dialogue is simply the art of collective thinking. It enables
individuals and teams to see, suspend, and reflect on their deep assumptions andmental models in use (Bohm, 1990; Isaacs, 1993, 1999; Schein, 1993). Dialogue integrates what Senge refers to as mental models and team learning (1990).
4. Parallel learning structures. These groups, networks, or communities of people operate in parallel with the formal organization (Schein, 1995; Bushe and Shani, 1991).
For example, the executive leadership team of a large US-based oil company gathers
four times a year for off-site learning meetings to create, capture, and disseminate
knowledge and learning. Hence, the first ground rule for the meetings is that no decision will be made. Their purpose is not decision making, but learning together.
5. Process consultation. This consulting methodology helps build relationships withclients and among peers, subordinates, and bosses (Schein, 1987, 1999). In process
consultation, the client-consultant relationship is framed as a learning relationshipgeared toward helping others to help themselves (Schein, 1999).

Health-care Company Case
At a company retreat convened to realign corporate strategy, the CEO of a global healthcare company asks the attending general managers what they consider to be the greatest
challenge for their businesses in the near future and how the corporate group can help
them meet these challenges. The same answers are heard again and again: globalization,
increasing speed, coping with the last merger, and redirecting the leadership.
After the company retreat, corporate management publishes a blueprint for thegroup’s strategic realignment, based on the statements of general managers from thecountries represented. According to the consensus, the company should not merely re-Volume 2, Number 3, REFLECTIONSVERSTEEGEN ET AL.

act to changing markets but play an active role in effecting the change. The corporate
objective thus reads: “We want to become a learning organization which fully uses all of
its resources—people, technology, information, and capital.”

Katrin Käufer
Visiting Scholar
MIT Sloan School of Management
Lecturer, University of Innsbruck,
Austria

Praxis Pentagon of Organizational Learning

The general manager and the vice president of corporate development compile an inventory of the company’s situation in Europe: health-care reform laws in many European
countries have increased cost pressures in the health-care market. Many national markets
have undergone structural changes. The general manager and the vice president initiate
a dialogue with several staff members. Most of them are fed up with change of any kind;they report on three projects that have occurred during the preceding 12 months:
reengineering, merger, and strategy development. “It has been my experience,” states one
participant, “that these projects take enormous amounts of time, in addition to one’s regular work, but end up not becoming relevant.” Another colleague adds, “We have produced mountains of data and binders full of plans and charts—but, as far as I know, thesuggestions were not used. Actual decisions did not follow.”
At the CEO’s request, the internal consultant held interviews, each lasting several
hours, with each of the seven top managers. (The interview questionnaire had been developed with the help of an external consultant.) These interviews furnish the data fordesigning a leadership workshop. Some pivotal questions: “What does our company
need you for? What do you need your company for? What do you need the other executives for? What do they need you for?”1 Feedback indicates that there are three mental
models regarding the problems, the cause, and the solution. Table 1 maps the managers’
perceptions.

Strategic Realignment in Europe

Leadership Workshop
Based on the interview data, the internal learning-organization person and external consultants (Versteegen and Scharmer) design a three-day workshop for top managers. The
13 attendees (the general manager, vice president, and divisional managers) meet in asmall, secluded hotel. The design of the meeting space encourages people to move about.
The tables are placed against the walls, and there are few chairs, causing people to walkaround or sit on the rug. Tall café tables encourage spontaneous conversation.
Spatial arrangements make the tension palpable: at one end of the room, corporate
executives hang posters from clotheslines, showing corporate vision, objectives, values,
principles, and so on. The “status quo” table in front of the posters represents the local
managers’ views. At the opposite end of the room, the just-formulated vision of the company, its corporate goals, and so on are displayed. Along the sides of the room, posters
show the key initiatives with respect to the envisioned goal formulated for general management and action plans and responsibilities.
In an introductory round, the participants use objects they’ve brought along to describe where, in their view, the company stands. “What’s missing is fertilizer,” a participant comments while placing a shriveled, tired-looking office plant on the “status quo”

Figure 1 The organizational learning pentagon.

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Praxis Pentagon of Organizational Learning

38

Table 1 Three views on current reality: problem, diagnosis, therapy.
View 1: ConcordeView 2: Boeing

View 3: Acrobat Flyer

Issue/Problem

We don’t have enoughmarketing power.

We can’t look far ahead;
we don’t have enough insight.

We aren’t taking enoughrisks.

Diagnosis/CauseWe aren’t aggressive enough.

We act faster than we canthink.

We do everything the way
we’ve always done it;
we let go of things thatwe’ve never done.

Therapy/Proposed Action

We need to speed up.

We need to slow down.

We need to change direction.

table. Another person holds up a rose: “Corporate interest comes before self-interest.”
The next two-and-a-half days reflect the tension between the present reality and a possible future on three levels: individual, team, and overall organization.

Process“We bear the responsibility for sales, but are not part of general management. Managers
work toward functional goals, but they do not feel that they are responsible for sales,” a divisional manager remarks. The divisional managers are sitting on chairs in an inner circle;
surrounding them is an outer circle where the general managers are seated. “Why do weneed to be a team?” he continues. Only a few minutes earlier, the CEO had described thesituation from his viewpoint, singling out the divisional managers for blame. A direct confrontation ensues, but leads to a long dialogue. People concentrate on listening to each otherand keep the conversation going. It is almost 1 AM when the meeting finally breaks up.
By the afternoon of the second day, the sales VP is at the end of his patience: “Weare sitting around and talking as if we had nothing to do with the problems. We are theleadership!” Without further ado, he takes over as moderator. The discussion starts getting heated. When the third order for sandwiches is received that day, the hotel ownerstops by to see what is wrong. For the past 12 hours, no one has been in the dining room.
The group generates a joint vision on Sunday morning. All the elements are on thetable. Within 15 minutes during the coffee break, a self-appointed editorial committee
writes a statement of corporate vision. “I have never seen anything like this before,” says
one participant. “Normally, it would have taken us weeks to forge this vision. We would
have bargained over every word without reaching a consensus in the end. And the best
part is that the whole thing was blessed and approved by everybody within two seconds
after the break.”After lunch, the 13 focused individuals stroll through the room studying the points
on the old and new posters. Each person’s objective is to identify three key leverage
points essential for attaining the corporate goals. “At that moment, I realized,” said aparticipant later, “that it is really I who is being challenged to decide what the key points
are. No one else.”
With speed and concentration, the participants present the leverage points that they
identified. Which groupings emerge? The attendees quickly cluster the points into an
overall picture, forming a triangle, with “cultural change” in the middle. Its apex is“people”; the two angles at the base read “customer focus” and “products and services.”
All three initiatives are assigned different corners of the room. Each participant now decides which initiative she or he will personally sponsor during the next six months. Allgaze at one another in astonishment because of the clear picture that emerged. Two attendees go to the corner marked “products and services”; two others to “customer focus.” All others gather at the merged point, “cultural change and people.”
The principal results of this workshop are:
1. Definition of a common vision and common objectives.
2. Identification of three initiatives that management sees as key leverage factors for
redirection and change—“cultural change and people,” “customer focus,” andVolume 2, Number 3, REFLECTIONSVERSTEEGEN ET AL.

“products and services.” Each group has two sponsors from the two top management layers.
3. Establishment of a new core group and two additional groups within general management.

Praxis Pentagon of Organizational Learning

The participants quickly reach a decision: the second leadership workshop will convene in three months, during the third week of October. Meanwhile, they will launch
experiments and projects related to the focus initiatives. One participant commented: “Ireally was very skeptical; I couldn’t quite imagine all this. But it was worth it, in any
case. I’ve never experienced anything like it.” Returning to their jobs, the managers start
the initiatives for which they are responsible.

Grassroot Projects
At the same time as the leadership workshop, questions arise in the organization about
how everyone can be included in the change process, thereby making employees’ experience and know-how productive. Top management’s abstract topics can no longer definetasks and team composition. Employees will drive possible projects from the bottom in
efforts called “grassroots projects.” These projects have a certain degree of invisibility andsupport before they are made public within the company to prevent premature “growth
control” and enable the initiator to succeed even if the idea conflicts with taboos or supervisors’ opinions. In this sense, grassroots projects are protected zones where the initiatives are given financial and consulting support. Employees initiate grassroots projects
everywhere in the organization.

Communication
Another issue is how to keep the staff up to date. A design
student creates a logo of an open door. The door leads to a“room of opportunities” where employees can bring individual creativity as part of grassroots projects. The symbolicroom turns into a real project office when management
makes unused office space available.
The company’s employee newspaper reports on theoverall process and various grassroots groups and top
management’s focus initiatives. Employees ask for theirown section to report on day-to-day events.

Strategy Summit

REFLECTIONS, Volume 2, Number 3

39© Emily Sper

About four months after the leadership conference, at 7
AM one morning, a downtown streetcar depot buzzes withactivity as the members of the 17 initiatives, focus groups,
and grassroots projects are setting up displays. At 9 AM,
the plenary panel begins by looking back on the past year
and ahead at prospects for the next year. About 120 staff
members who have been actively searching for direction
and change attend.
A pianist plays in the background; “chill-outs” provide islands of retreat in the unobstructed hall furnishedwith deep carpets, sofas, and small table lamps in pink,green, and white. A mirrored ball hangs from the ceilingof the two-storied, open hall. It rotates during dinner,
shedding sparkling starlight on the people seated atlong, festively decorated dining tables.
In different areas of the room, members present 17
initiatives, from which 10 workshops form. During the plenary session, the workshop attendees report and address

VERSTEEGEN ET AL.
Praxis Pentagon of Organizational Learningfour questions: (1) what did we try to do?, (2) what has happened?, (3) what have welearned?, and (4) what new questions do we have and what steps should we take?
In its documentation, the editorial team formed at the end of the day describes theoutlook for the next year:“Many plans were made, drafts prepared, project groups established, and partial
steps taken. A few opened their previously closed minds, engaged in discussion, invested
time and commitment, and, in the best of cases, arrived at practicable results. Individual
projects have been a success. Now everyone is called upon to bring current projects to a
rapid conclusion, converting ideas into palpable results. For this, we need courage andclear language.”

Customer Dialogue Study
One outcome of the strategy summit is the obvious need for a new relationship with customers. Employees conduct dialogue interviews with customers (physicians) and identify
three different physician profiles: the scientific-information users who are content withmerely receiving the offered product information; the application-oriented physicians who
would like to be regarded as users and need product information written in terms of disease symptoms; and the research-driven physicians who want to be seen as fellow researchers who aim for mutual fact-finding.
Figure 2 describes three customer-relation logics. The
first logic is product-driven, primarily by the sales representatives (“push principle”). The second is servicedriven by customer needs (“pull principle”). The third
logic is driven by research, mutual fact-finding, and thecreativity of the two cooperating partners (“creativity
principle”).
Since logic one characterizes the existing field sales force, the question arises of how
to develop and establish the basis and core competencies for the other two customerrelation logics. A discussion of the study produces a project proposal for developing thesecond and third logics: to build strategic learning partnerships with the self-organizing
physician networks, and to build a nationwide platform from which the creators of newcooperation models between medical practitioners and other professional groups canreflect on their experience, learn from each other, and jointly develop their next steps.
The nationwide project, “Making Network Experience Productive,” is implemented. Itestablishes a nationwide platform by and for practitioners in networks to help them learn
from their experiences better and faster. A year later, 120
initiators and activists from physicians’ networks andnew cooperative models meet for a symposium. Thirty
companies and organizations jointly sponsor the project.

One outcome of the strategy summit
is the obvious need for a new
relationship with customers.

40

Reflection: Anatomy of an Innovation Stream

Figure 2 Three customer relation
logics (from Käufer, Scharmer, andVersteegen, 1996).

The initial company retreat of general managers revealed
that the present and future challenges could be met only if
the organization succeeded in developing organizational
learning capacities. Following the leadership workshop,change projects formed at both the periphery and the center of the organization. The grassroot projects in the fieldsales division were change processes coming from the periphery. The three focus initiatives begun in the leadershipworkshop were change processes originating in the center.
What followed was a dialogue with customers that finallytranscended the corporate boundaries, reaching the realtarget group for the company’s value creation. Finally, thenationwide physician practitioners’ symposium marked thefarthest-reaching effect of the changes.

Volume 2, Number 3, REFLECTIONSAn Emerging New Set of Principles
Throughout the change episode outlined, a team composed of staff from the corporate
development group and external consultants provided support, facilitated and designed
workshops, conducted interviews, and helped organize events. The external consultants
included researchers affiliated with the Society for Organizational Learning (SoL) and theHdK (Berlin School of Arts). The organizational learning pentagon served as the basic
toolbox that the team used throughout its work. In reflection during and after the process, other less visible, but no less significant principles and practices emerged:

VERSTEEGEN ET AL.


1. Improved leadership and dialogue ability within the leadership team and between
the leadership team and the rest of the organization.
2. Prioritization of central change processes (focus initiative on cultural change andpeople; customer focus initiative).
3. Identification of two new relationship logics with customers as a basis for strategic
realignment of the future sales force (dialogue study).
4. A parallel structure of learning for the top leadership team (leadership workshops).

Praxis Pentagon of Organizational Learning

The symposium constituted cooperation with the customer—a requirement set forth at
the beginning of the process. Some of the processes initiated in the leadership workshop havedissipated; some have materialized into project experiences, and others have been incorporated into new organizational routines, becoming part of the corporation’s knowledge base.
From our vantage point today, the process we describe had four outcomes:

1. Primacy of praxis
2. Space-time sculptures
3. Moving through the eye of the needle
4. Uncovering common will
5. Self-transcending will
The team considered these new principles as relevant to the success of the process as thelearning pentagon.

Principle 1: Primacy of Praxis
Primacy of praxis shifts the focus of practicing from the context of “doing exercises” to thecontext of “coping with real-world praxis.” The Greek term praxis means action. Aristotle
distinguished between two types: (1) action that we perform in order to make something(poiesis), for example, producing shoes, or (2) actions we do for the purpose of enacting
this activity for its own sake (praxis), for example, the process of playing music. Thus, primacy of praxis has a double meaning. On the one hand, it simply means that practitioners
define and own the agenda. On the other hand, it means to engage in activities that contain their goal in themselves, that is, in activities that we value because of themselves.
Primacy of praxis focuses on creating fluid, situated practice fields that allow learning environments to follow the flow of innovation and change, rather than organizing
for learning around a fixed set of workshops, exercises, and infrastructures. In our work,
we have found two principles for structuring workshops: (1) begin with “current” and“emerging” realities and then move to images, inspirations, and intuitions of the future;and (2) have an unfettered focus on the participants’ real work challenges and make theteaching of tools contingent on the current issues and challenges.
This principle avoids the traditional lectures by experts to novices and instead focuses on helping participants perceive the process by which they continuously recreate
and reenact the reality in which they operate. In this regard, primacy of praxis situatessystems thinking in the context of real work.

Principle 2: Space-Time Sculptures
Most workshops and seminars are designed according to constrained uses of time andspace, which we call unidirectional architectures. For example, presenters usually use one

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Praxis Pentagon of Organizational Learning

side of the room, and the audience sits on the opposite side. Or often the meeting is devoted either to reviewing the past or to planning the future. What is missing is a social
technology that allows the systematic inclusion of the full spectrum of temporal and spatial diversity. The principle of space-time sculptures focuses on eliciting the whole temporal and spatial experience.
One way of dissolving a spatial fixation on one perspective is to rotate the presentersin the room by 360 degrees during the course of the workshop. In this way, participants
face each wall of the room successively. For example, in a three- or four-day workshop,
we begin by describing the current situation and the “journey that brought us here” on
one wall (present reality, timeline). Then the spatial orientation changes, and the second
step focuses on sensing and articulating emerging new patterns within and around thesystem (wall two: emerging patterns). The next morning, we start with yet another spatial orientation, focusing on presencing 2 emerging futures, and crystallizing the visionthat people want to create (wall three). This step deals with the “journey of the future”
and is organized around issues of purpose, vision, and will. Finally, the fourth step
evolves from a “journey of getting there,” represented by moving between the two opposite poles of “present reality” (wall one) and the “aspired future” (wall three). Focusing
on the creative tension between present and future states results in identifying key initiatives (wall four), which helps participants move the systemfrom current reality to the aspired future.
Inspired by a professor and his students at the HdK,
we allow for a diverse experience of time and space bybreaking the space with tall bistro tables and chairs, sofas,and easy chairs. The goal is to create a physical space thatpeople can arrange and experience in many different
ways, mirroring and reinforcing the notion that participants can also rearrange their internal experiences in new ways.

The principle of space-time sculptures
focuses on eliciting the whole
temporal and spatial experience.

Principle 3: Moving through the Eye of the Needle
The relevance of participants’ personal journeys during workshops has become more obvious to us. Whether or not participants are able to move through the “eye of the needle” in aworkshop corresponds to the success and the sustainability of the change process they initiate. In his theory of social sculpturing, the avant garde artist Joseph Beuys coined the term
umstülpung (inversion) to describe the process we call “moving through the eye of theneedle” (Beuys, 1989). Umstülpung literally means turning a whole field upside down andinside out. For a better understanding of this shift, let us consider a root polarity of social
reality formation: the relationship between self and other, or self and world. Goethe says:
42

Man knows himself only to the extent that he knows the world; he becomes aware of himself only within the world, and aware of the world only within himself. Every object, wellcontemplated, opens up a new organ within us.3

For Goethe, polarity and enhancement meant that the poles of a polarity are not separate but
intertwined. The more you focus on one side, the more likely you will end up at the other.
Umstülpung or inversion denotes a shift in identity. Before going through the eye ofthe needle, social structure is perceived as the primary reality. Individual identity is a quasi“secondary” reality because individuals see themselves as having to adapt to the primary
reality of the existing social structure (for example, people complain about issues with themindset of a victim). After going through the eye of the needle, people experience social
forms and structures entirely differently because they have participated in creating thosestructures themselves (for example, people co-creating their futures). Thus, their selfexperience or identity as social actors changes from having been created (before thethreshold) to being a co-creator (after the threshold).

Principle 4: Uncovering Common Will
When a group of people uncovers the various layers of present reality and develops ashared image and an emerging sense of the future, they form and access a common will.

Volume 2, Number 3, REFLECTIONSVERSTEEGEN ET AL.

Praxis Pentagon of Organizational Learning© Emily Sper

The process of uncovering common will involves more than “visioning.” It evolves only
after the process of unearthing various layers of current and emerging realities. In agriculture, the success of the sowing season is a function not only of the seeds, but of soil
preparation. In the same way, the success of will formation is a function not only of vision, but of first passing through the layers of present and emergent realities that thenbecome the container for intuiting the emerging future. To paraphrase Clausewitz (1989),
who claimed that war was the continuation of politics by other means, we can say thatthe formation of will is the continuation of awareness by other means.

Principle 5: Self-Transcending Will
Bill O’Brien, former CEO of the Hanover Insurance Company and now founding partnerof Generon, summarizes his key learning: “The success of an intervention depends on theinterior condition of the intervenor.” In other words, the success of a tangible move in aparticular situation depends on the intangible “interior condition” of the intervenor. (The capacity to create the appropriate interior condition is becoming a significant topic for
future research and practice.)
What source allows us to perform this fundamental
shift of will? There is only one such source, says O’Brien:
love. Not love as an emotional phenomenon, but love as aproperty of will, as the capacity “to help others complete
themselves.” In this sense, we have found that the most important tool for leading transformational change is one’s self and its capacity to transcend its own boundaries.

The most important tool for leadingtransformational change is one’s self
and its capacity to transcend its own
boundaries.

ClosureThese emerging principles summarize the learning experience that the consulting or support team in this organizationwide change process considered most important. They
might supplement the organizational learning pentagon for future research.
Our involvement with the health-care company began immediately after a restructuring (merger) and a discontinued reengineering process and subsequently focused on changing the mental models and on mobilizing companywide energy. The impulse of theinnovation we described started in the center of the organization when the top executives
realized the challenges they faced. The impulse for change continued to expand into the rest

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VERSTEEGEN ET AL.


1. The interview questions were inspired by Ekkehard Kappler (1992).
2. Presencing means sensing emerging futures and bringing your full self into reality (Scharmer,
forthcoming).
3. Goethe, 1823; quoted from Cottrell, 1998.

Praxis Pentagon of Organizational Learningof the organization long after the general manager who had originally initiated the changes
left the company. Today, the company is in the midst of yet another mega-merger and is thus
engaged in another round of turmoil and change.

44

Notes

References
Argyris, C. and D. Schön. Organizational Learning II. Theory, Method, and Practice (Reading, MA:
Addison-Wesley, 1996).
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Einführungsrede beim öffentlichen Podiumsgespräch zwischen Joseph Beuys und Michael Ende
im Festsaal der Wangener Waldorfschule am 19. Februar 1985, 2. Aufl., Wangen, 1989.
Bohm, D. On Dialogue (Ojal, CA: David Bohm Seminars, 1990).
Bushe, G.R. and A.B. Shani. Parallel Learning Structure (Reading, MA: Addison Wesley, 1991).
Catford, L. and M. Ray. The Path of the Everyday Hero. Drawing on the Power of Myth to Meet Life’s
Most Important Challenges (New York, NY: Tarcher/Putnam, 1991).
Clausewitz, C. v. Vom Kriege (Rowohlt, Germany: Reinbek, 1989).
Cottrell, A.P. “The Resurrection of Thinking and the Redemption of Faust: Goethe’s New ScientificAttitude.” in Goethe’s Way of Science. A Phenomenology of Nature, eds. D. Seamon and A.
Zajonc. (Albany, NY: State University Press, 1998).
Isaacs, W. “Taking Flight: Dialogue, Collective Thinking and Organizational Learning.” Organizational Studies, Special Issue on the Learning Organization (Autumn 1993): 24–38.
Isaacs, W. On Dialogue: The Art of Thinking Together (New York: Doubleday, 1999).
Kappler, E. “Wozu brauchst Du mich?” Eckpfeiler, nicht nur einer Fakultätsentwicklung, Vortrag an
der Universität Witten/Herdecke, 26.05.1992, unveröffentlichte Manuskript, Wuppertal, 1992.
Käufer, K., C.O. Scharmer, U. Versteegen. Zwischen “McHealthCare” und “virtuellen Gesundheitshäusern”. Zehn strategische Entwicklungsoptionen im Umfeld einer Triadisierung derKundenbeziehung. (Boston und Hamburg: Unveröffentlichte Studie, 1996).
Kim, D. “Seven Steps for Using ‘Fixes That Backfire’ to Get Off a ‘Problem-Solving Treadmill’.” The
System Thinker 5 (1992): 2-4.
Kim, D. “Archetype 1, 2, 3.” in The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook, eds. P. Senge, A. Kleiner, C. Roberts,
R.B. Ross, B.J. Smith (New York: Doubleday Currency, 1994).
Scharmer, C.O. “Presencing: The Tacit Dimension of Leading Revolutionary Change” (Innsbruck,
Austria and Cambridge, MA: University of Innsbruck and MIT Sloan School of Management,
habilitation thesis, forthcoming).
Schein, E. Process Consultation (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1987).
Schein, E. Organizational Culture and Leadership. 2nd ed. (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1992).
Schein, E. “On Dialogue, Culture, and Organizational Learning.” Organizational Dynamics, Special
Issue on the Learning Organization (Autumn 1993): 40-51.
Schein, E. “Learning Consortia: How to Create Parallel Learning Systems for Organization Sets”(Cambridge, MA: MIT Sloan School of Management, working paper, Organizational Learning
Center, 1995).
Schein, E. Process Consultation Revisited (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1999).
Senge, P. The Fifth Discipline (New York: Doubleday Currency, 1990).
Senge, P., A. Kleiner, C. Roberts, R.B. Ross, B.J. Smith. The Fifth Discipline. Fieldbook (New York,
NY: Doubleday Currency, 1994).

Commentaryby Jean M. Bartunek
Versteegen et al. spark our imaginations about ways in which theoretical models might inspire ouractions and contribute helpful suggestions for practical methods that we might use in effective
consulting. Some descriptions about the use of space-time are particularly fascinating. The article

Volume 2, Number 3, REFLECTIONSVERSTEEGEN ET AL.
Jean M. Bartunek
Professor
Department of Organization Studies
Boston College

Praxis Pentagon of Organizational Learning

also raises several pertinent questions about the relationship between published models of change
and their implementation in a particular consulting situation.
First, what does it mean when consulting is informed by certain published models, such as various disciplines in The Fifth Discipline, especially since these models require considerable skill in
implementation? When such approaches are implemented, is it straightforward what a consultant
should do? Is what happens in the setting the same as what authors who describe the model suggest? If not, how and why not? How might the implementation contribute to an understanding of
the model being implemented?
Second, what is the source of initiatives during the consultation? The authors sometimes do not
identify the sources of actions that occur (for example, “At the same time as the leadership workshop, questions arise . . .”). This gives the impression that sometimes events just happen and raises
questions about the consultants’ roles. How much of what happened was due to the consultants’
initiative, and how much was due to the initiatives of various company members? This can be asked
about many consulting initiatives. What kinds and how many initiatives should consultants take,compared with the initiatives of organization members?
Third, would the participants like to join in this type of consultation again? This quote from one
participant is common in many critiques of prior consultations: “These projects take enormous
amounts of time . . . but end up not becoming relevant.” It isn’t clear, however, from the description,that successful behavioral changes were implemented. What kind of consulting do people like to participate in on a recurring basis? What kinds of consulting approaches are repeatable? What results areneeded and in what time frame for organizational members to feel that their time was well spent?
Finally, the authors assert that a necessary basis for their work is love. But they also note thatthe organization to which they were consulting had just been through a merger. If there is any potential love, the organization must have been the acquirer, rather than the acquired. How do consultants express feelings that are appropriate to the organization’s situation? How is love expressedin an organizational setting in which there is little love? And when is it an appropriate emotion on
the part of the consultants?

Commentaryby Edgar H. ScheinThis paper breaks new ground. What we have needed for some time is new concepts that describe
what the authors call praxis, the actual interventions that are made when managers and consultants attempt to “manage change.” These concepts derive from more general models and theories,
but they are anchored in their specific connection to how the change agent actually thinks about
what he or she is doing. What is striking in this paper is how the authors have combined some fundamental ideas from Senge; Isaacs; Argyris and Schön; Bushe and Shani; and Schein into a coherent framework. Then, in the case, they show how this model helps the consultant/intervenors toplan and structure their interventions.
In reflecting on the case and in analyzing their experiences, the authors then find some newprinciples, which may well tie together much of what we know about the change and learning process. Some of these principles are not new, but the relative emphasis given to them may indeed benew. In particular, I am struck by how much we are beginning to pay attention to the concept of“will” and the “uncovering of common will.” We have always talked of motivation and commitment,
but the recent work on will, which is also reflected in Kahane’s case and Axelrod’s analysis, reminds
us that we may not have uncovered sufficiently the nature of will itself or how to access it.
The intriguing idea here is that will might have to be uncovered, that we do not always know either individually or as members of groups and larger systems what our will is. The implication that
real action and real change occur only when deeper levels of will are accessed must be taken seriously because the kinds of interventions that will enable people to access these deeper levels arequite different from what we usually do. This insight brings me to the next and, perhaps, most important point illustrated in this paper. We cannot separate the cognitive from the emotional andfrom the motivational. The learning pentagon that the authors introduce is an interesting blend of
attention to all three fundamental elements of human nature. And the principles of praxis, which theauthors identify at the end of the paper, similarly combine attention to thought, feeling, and will.
This paper will bear rereading, thinking, and reflection for some time to come.

REFLECTIONS, Volume 2, Number 3

45
Edgar H. Schein
MIT Sloan School ofManagement

FEATURE

Why Change Management
Needs Changing
Richard H. Axelrod

Y

Richard H. Axelrod
President
The Axelrod Group, Inc.
Author, Teams of Engagement

ou fumble for your glasses and check the clock. It’s 3 AM. What began a few weeks
ago as a nagging anxiety has suddenly transformed into real fear. You are now certainthat the major change you are responsible for bringing to your organization is on the vergeof collapse. How did it come to this? You followed the standard model for organizationalchange that the best business schools teach and most successful organizations practice.
You gathered your best people and inspired them to take up the challenges ahead. Next,
you hired a top consulting firm to provide you with the latest techniques and show you
how to manage any resistance. And sure enough, this all-star team produced innovative
strategies to move the organization forward. Yet now, as you stare at the ceiling, a loudvoice inside you says, “The organization isn’t supporting this. The resisters will win out.”
Who is to blame in such a situation? The consultants? The committee members who
put in so many late nights? You?
Actually, no one is to blame. Everyone followed current best practice. The problem
is that the very paradigm that prescribed your actions, as well as those of your consultants and team members, is worn out. In order to understand why, let’s examine the historical roots of this paradigm.

Brief History of Organizational Change

46© 2001 by the Society for Organizational Learning and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The change management paradigm is part of an evolutionary process. Ever since the WesternElectric Hawthorne experiments in 1939 identified the critical role of people in organizations,
we have been looking for ways to unleash the power of employees. Some say that this process goes back to the early 1900s and that the early time-and-motion studies were really an
attempt to create work environments in which people could contribute and be productive.
Whatever your point of view, leaders have been struggling for a long time with the questionof how to create change that produces high-quality solutions and solid organizational support.
The Hawthorne experiments generated the idea that paying attention to people wasimportant, so important that the simple act of paying attention affected productivity. Kurt
Lewin’s research during World War II and the landmark Hardwood studies conductedfrom 1940 to 1947 showed that involving people in change increases the likelihood thatthey will accept needed change while at the same time increasing productivity. In the
1960s, the University of Michigan’s Center for Social Research developed survey-guided
development. The idea was to ask employees for input on organizational issues. The
survey-guided development process involved collecting data, summarizing it, and feeding it back to the various components of the organization. Each component was thenresponsible for reviewing its data and resolving the issues identified. The Navy refined
this process when it surveyed a crew a week before the ship was put into dry dock. During the time the ship was being repaired, the crew would attend workshops to review
the survey data and develop solutions. At the end of the repair period, the ship would
return to sea, having done maintenance on its physical and social structures.
Organizational theorists Richard Beckhard and D.E. Zand were among the first to recognize the importance of creating a parallel system for generating organizational change,and others such as John Kotter advocate its use (Beckhard and Harris, 1987; Zand, 1974;

Volume 2, Number 3, REFLECTIONSThe Parallel Organization
Typically, the parallel organization (figure 1) is composed of:

AXELRODWhy Change Management Needs Changing

Kotter, 1996). Although the processes of employee involvement, quality improvementchange, and self-directed teams were first developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s,
they were not commonly used until the 1980s with the advent of employee involvement
and quality circles, which used the popular parallel organization structures for bringing
about needed change. For the first time, a worker on an auto assembly line had the power
not only to stop the line at once when noticing a problem, but also to work with coworkers to identify solutions and recommend courses of action. Mainstream consulting firms
recognized the success of the parallel organization model and soon adopted it under the
rubric of change management. There is hardly an organizational change process that does
not have a sponsor group, a steering committee, and design groups—all key componentsof the parallel system—at its core. The parallel organization and the accompanying change
management paradigm have become the process of choice for changing the organization.

 A sponsor group of senior leaders who initiate the process, cheerlead the effort, andprovide the funding.
 A steering committee that represents a cross-section of people from all levels andfunctions who manage the change process.
 One or more design groups that develop the specific changes.
Together, these teams function alongside the regular organization to plan, manage,
accelerate, and reduce barriers to change. The promise of the parallel organization isbased on the following assumptions: A diversity of members on the teams, along with key decision makers, provides away to overcome red tape and is the most efficient governance structure for thechange process.
 Teams populated with “the best and the brightest” ensure high-quality solutions.
 Cross-functional and multilevel membership breaks down silos and guarantees solutions that favor the total organization.

Traditional Organization

47

Change Management Structure

Figure 1 The parallel organization.

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AXELROD
Why Change Management Needs Changing

48

 The team members’ cooperation will be transmitted throughout the organization.
 The committees’ consensus decision making ensures both high-quality solutions
and members’ buy-in.
 The teams’ cross-functional and cross-hierarchical nature ensures that members will
believe they were represented in the process.
 The teams’ credibility ensures that organization members will readily accept their ideas.

Flaws of Change Management
Mainstream consulting firms’ adoption of the parallel organizational model to bring aboutchange was unquestionably a great advance. However, it has failed to live up to its promise for four reasons.
First, participants in the parallel structure often fail to effectively include the rest of
the organization in the change process, which produces what Peter Senge calls the “engagement gap.” He notes that as a change process progresses, those in the inner circle(typically the members of the parallel organization) become increasingly distant fromthose outside it (Senge et al., 1999). In the dynamics of “true believers and non-believers,” Senge observes that each group develops negative stereotypes of the other that, ifleft unattended, can cause failure.
Second, when the parallel organization became the mainstream structure, it was often adopted without its underlying values of high employee involvement and participative decision making. Consultants began to lead rather than facilitate the process, using
team members as sources of information instead of working with them to design andimplement change from within. The whole notion of the parallel organization as a place
where organizational members can learn and experiment with new behaviors was abandoned in favor of using the parallel organization to overcome resistance to change andgain acceptance of predetermined courses of action (Schein, 1999). This use of participative structures, where the answers are already known, produces what Chris Argyris
calls organizational defensiveness, increasing resistance to change rather than reducing
it (Argyris, 1990).
Third, although using the parallel organization model includes people from various
levels and functions along with consultants to identify and determine needed change, it
often fails to include outside stakeholders such as customers, suppliers, and community
members in the process. Outside stakeholders introduce variety and new thinking into
the system, heavily increasing the emergence of creative solutions.
Fourth, change management concentrates on process improvements at the expenseof cultural issues. As the mainstream consulting processes such as reengineering adopted
the parallel organization method, shifting the organization’s culture became secondary
to implementing the change, often through new technology. Even though the development of new systems and structures required people to change how they worked andwith whom they worked, consultants ignored these cultural aspects. People found themselves in new organizational configurations designed to improve cooperation, teamwork,and customer service, while the old hierarchical culture remained unchanged. Michael
Hammer explains the failure of many reengineering projects when he comments that heforgot about people: “I was reflecting my engineering background and was insufficiently
appreciative of the human dimension. I have learned that’s critical” (White, 1996).
There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that the current method of bringing about organizational change does not work. More importantly, in a comparison of change management to what leading organizational theorists are currently advocating, its failings
become obvious. In a four-year study of organizational change at six large corporations,
Michael Beer, Russell A. Eisenstat, and Bert Spector found that effective change did notoccur through programmatic change (Beer et al., 1990). Rather, effective change occurred when organizations follow these six steps:
1. Mobilize commitment through joint diagnosis of problems.
2. Develop a shared vision of how to organize and manage for competitiveness.
3. Foster consensus for the new vision, competence to enact it, and cohesion to moveit along.

Volume 2, Number 3, REFLECTIONSAXELROD

4. Spread revitalization to all departments without pushing it from the top.
5. Institutionalize revitalization through formal policies, systems, and structures.
6. Monitor and adjust strategies in response to problems.

Why Change Management Needs Changing

Similarly, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Barry Stein, and Todd Jick promote a model for successful change that echoes Beer et al.: “More people participating in the search for ideas . . .
create pressure to do something about them. More overlap, communications channels, andteam mechanisms keep more ideas circulating. And the existence of teams and teamwork at the top, drawing together
many areas and exchanging ideas among them, increase thelikelihood of tying together external circumstances andgrassroots experience” (Kanter et al., 1992).
Finally, Achilles A. Armenakis and Arthur G. Bedeianstate: “Evidence has accumulated over the past decade thatthe successfulness of change efforts is due not only to theircontent or substantive nature, but also to the processes followed or actions undertaken during their implementation. Content and process considerations must thus be viewed as complementary elements in planning and monitoring anorganizational change” (Armenakis and Bedeian, 1999). In short, what we do and how we
do it are equally important.
What I call the engagement paradigm, which I describe below, provides leaders withthe principles and techniques to implement these recommendations and avoid the pitfalls of change management.

There is plenty of anecdotal evidence
that the current method of bringing
about organizational change does
not work.

Toward a New Paradigm
Recently, a new class of processes commonly called “large group interventions” has revolutionized the practice of organizational change. Some of these include the future search
conference, a process by which diverse groups discover common futures (Weisbord and
Janoff, 1995); real-time strategic change, a process for aligning and creating collective futures while developing new strategies and directions (Jacobs, 1994); whole-scale change,a process for connecting an organization so that it has one brain and one heart(Dannemiller et al., 2000); and our conference model,® a process for the design of effective organizations and processes (Axelrod and Axelrod, 1999). These interventions take thebest ideas of the parallel organization model, creating both the opportunity and place forpeople in a system to study the system from outside, create new futures, and develop new
ways of working together that cross organizational levels and boundaries. However, more
people participate than previously thought prudent or possible, thus creating a critical massof people who, because of their involvement, are more likely to support needed changes.
In doing so, these interventions, which are examples of the “engagement paradigm,” resolve the previously identified difficulties of the parallel organization: namely, more people
are actively involved in the change process. The democratic principles that are the foundation of these processes militate against the potential for misuse and provide the opportunity for cultural change. And,because these processes are more inclusive, they add variety to the system, increasing the probability of innovation,
adaptation, and learning. To better understand these interventions and how they work, let’s examine our method, theconference model, in greater detail.
The conference model consists of an integrated seriesof large and small group sessions that typically deal with:In these highly participatory sessions, employees—along withother important stakeholders such as customers and suppli-

REFLECTIONS, Volume 2, Number 3© Carmine Fantasia

 Creating a vision for the future.
 Creating partnerships with customers and suppliers.
 Analyzing organizational processes and cultures.
 Designing new organizational structures and processes.

49

AXELROD
Why Change Management Needs Changing

ers—examine the organization’s history and current circumstances, and then create a future
together. The conference model has two unique features: (1) a series of connected conferences,held every four to six weeks, which create momentum and address issues at increasing depth;and (2) walkthroughs, mini-conferences held for organization members who could not attend
the main conferences. In the walkthroughs, participants learn the results of the large groupsessions and can provide input to the change process. Thus, they receive feedback, and their
input is incorporated into the proceedings before the next session. Together, the combinationof integrated conferences and walkthroughs turns the current change management paradigm
on its head. Instead of small groups determining what to change and then selling it to the restof the organization, a critical mass of the organization comes together to create the future.
The conference model in particular and large group interventions in general led tothe development of a new model for change, the engagement paradigm. In the large
group processes, I observed that, although each process claimed to be based on principles, the principles were used to explain why that methodology worked. I began to realize that a way of thinking about change, independent of methodology and applicablein a wide variety of settings and circumstances, was needed. The methodology-based
approaches to change could not provide the necessary innovation and flexibility to meetthe requirements of complex organizations in rapidly changing environments. If leaders
were limited to techniques for organizational change without a core set of principles for
guidance, they would always be using formulaic approaches to change rather than creating change processes to fit their unique circumstances. As a result, the four core principles of the engagement paradigm were born:
1. Widen the circle of involvement.
2. Connect people to each other and ideas.
3. Create communities for action.
4. Embrace democratic principles.
These core principles are the foundation of the engagement paradigm. While building on
the change management model, the engagement paradigm provides a framework for developing not only support but also enthusiastic engagement of the entire organization.
When an organization follows the four core principles, it can expect that:50

 People grasp the issues, become aligned around a common purpose, and create new
directions because they understand both the dangers and the opportunities.
 Urgency and energy are produced to create a new future.
 Free-flowing information and cooperation replace organizational silos because
people are connected to the issues and to each other.
 Broad participation quickly identifies performance gaps and their solutions, improving productivity and customer satisfaction.
 Creativity is sparked when people from all levels and functions, along with customers, suppliers, and others, contribute their best ideas.
 Capacity for future changes increases as people develop the skills and processes tomeet not just the current challenges, but future ones as well.
Marie McCormick, in a recent doctoral dissertation, substantiated the benefits of the engagement paradigm (McCormick, 1999). McCormick’s study of 343 participants in large
group interventions in both health care and education found that people who participatedin organizational change processes based on the engagement paradigm better understoodthe organization, clients, and customers, the relationships among jobs, and industry issues. Additionally, participants reported increased commitment of organizational members, a greater sense of personal empowerment, increased departmental support, a greater
feeling of community, and more hope for future success. Leaders who successfully apply
these deceptively simple yet extremely ambitious principles can create organizations that
respond effectively to chaos, confusion, and complexity. Let’s examine each in detail.

1. Widen the Circle of Involvement
Widening the circle of involvement means including hundreds, even thousands, of employees in a change process, along with lower-level employees, customers, and suppli-

Volume 2, Number 3, REFLECTIONS

Increase Ownership While Reducing Resistance

AXELRODWhy Change Management Needs Changing

ers. This involvement expands on the process consultation assumption that the client andthe consultant must become a team and that the consultant must ensure that the client
is appropriately involved, by expanding both the numbers and variety of people engaging in the change process from the beginning (Schein, 1969).
Social scientist Eric Trist substantiated the benefits of the engagement paradigm: “Unless we invent ways where paradigm shifts can be experienced by large numbers of people,
then change will remain a myth” (Weisbord and Janoff, 1991). Douglas McGregor in The
Human Side of Enterprise stated that the ability to create solutions to organizational issues
is widely distributed throughout the organization (McGregor, 1960). Similarly, Michael D.
McMaster observed, “We become attached to our beliefs that we are leaders because wehave titles. . . . These attachments deceive us into believing that we can create all the required change on our own. . . . We think we are able to know what to change and how tochange it without including the rest of the system” (McMaster, 1996).
Let’s review briefly some benefits of widening the circle of involvement.

The argument that engaging more people in change reduces resistance is not new. In a
1948 article, Lester Coch and J.R.P. French found that high-involvement groups, in which
employees were involved from the beginning of the change process, not only outperformed the no-participation groups but also experienced increased productivity. The noparticipation groups’ productivity dropped, and grievances and quits increased. Whilethese results may seem obvious today, we often ignore the lessons learned from this landmark study. Exclusion produces resistance; inclusion produces ownership.

Create a Critical Mass of People
Another benefit of increasing involvement is that it creates a critical mass for change.
In sociological terms, critical mass is defined as the groupof people necessary for an idea to be adopted by thewhole population. I believe that successful organizationalchange requires a critical mass of at least 20% to 40% of
employees.
To create a critical mass, ask who needs to be included and whose voice needs tobe heard. When thinking about whom to include, choose people who have the information to create effective solutions, the authority to approve them, and the responsibility
to implement them. Also select people who will be directly or indirectly affected by thechanges under consideration. And invite those likely to be opposed to the new course ofaction, such as those who face job elimination.

Exclusion produces resistance;
inclusion produces ownership.

Increase Innovation, Adaptation, and Learning
We hear constantly about the need for innovation, adaptation, and learning to keep ourbusiness organizations competitive. In addressing this issue, the Santa Fe Institute developed a new school of systems theory called complex adaptive systems. Robert Axelrod andMichael D. Cohen define a complex adaptive system as one in which “. . . everyone’s
strategies influence the context in which everyone else is acting. . . . A system is complex when there are strong interactions among its elements, so that current events heavily
influence the probabilities of many kinds of later events” (Axelrod and Cohen, 2000).
When applied to organizational settings, the study of complex adaptive systems provides
leaders with an organizational framework that truly addresses complexity.
Axelrod and Cohen, state that introducing variety into a system increases the probability that innovation, adaptation, and learning will occur. So how can an organization
introduce variety into change processes?
1. Include people from outside the formal system, for example, patients, students, or
customers.
2. Include those who might not agree with you. For example, if artists or educators are

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AXELROD
Why Change Management Needs Changing

included in a discussion of technical issues, they will likely bring a different discipline and approach to the situation.
3. Occasionally add new people to existing groups or rotate membership.
The following example of Detroit Edison illustrates the principle of widening the circle ofinvolvement.

Detroit Edison
Like many organizations, Detroit Edison’s annual cost of procuring supplies was out ofline; so, according to current best practice, management brought in a consulting firm to
improve the supply-chain process. Predictably, the consultants set up a parallel organization whose design teams developed innovative recommendations for change. But after
two years, few of the recommendations had been implemented. Everyone connected withthe change process—the sponsor team, the steering committee, and the design team—was frustrated by the lack of progress. Meanwhile, organization members were both suspicious and resentful of the process. After two years of change management, the process
was practically dead in the water.
Fortunately, when the leaders of Detroit Edison recognized that the process was indanger of collapsing, they took drastic action and involved more than one-third of theiremployees along with customers, suppliers, contractors, and key union officials in large
group sessions to devise new plans for the supply chain process. Using the work to dateas a starting point, they carefully created links from the previous work to the current
challenges. When it was time to implement the new process, they used current projects
that required supply chain emphasis, thus grounding the improvements in real work.
Joe Aresto, leader of the supply chain improvement process commented, “A stalledchange process marked by withdrawal and resentment was replaced with new enthusiasm
and commitment resulting in over 26 active supply-chain improvement projects at Detroit
Edison, with savings in the millions. Not only that, but our nuclear division and our customer information technology group picked up on what we did and successfully appliedthese principles in recent change efforts with excellent results. My personal experience isthat I enter these processes with one mental model of how things should be, and, as aresult of working with others, my mental model shifts to one that is much better than theoriginal. More importantly, I have learned that when people can put their own thumbprint
on a change process, there is no need to sell them on the benefits; they own it.”

2. Connect People to Each Other and Ideas
52

In today’s organizations, people may work together for years without ever meeting. They
communicate by voice mail, fax, and e-mail. Walls, cubicles, and organizational silos reinforce their isolation. When they need to get something done, they do not know where
to go or whom to ask. Unless they are able to connect with each other and a common
purpose, they are unable to act effectively. When we connect, we build trust; when webuild trust, we are able to create synergy.
Most models of group development, including those by Bruce Tuckman (1965) andWill Schutz (1994), recognize connection as the first stage of group development.
Harrison Owen found that people felt the most valuable sessions occurred during coffee
breaks, lunches, and other unscheduled activities when they got to know one another(Owen, 1997). Owen made such informal connection a cornerstone of his process fororganizational change.
How do you build connection? Here are some techniques: Create a compelling purpose. This does not mean creating slogans or plaques on thewall. Rather, it means bringing people together to discuss what they want to change
in the organization and for themselves, and what they are doing that has purposeand meaning.
 Honor the past and present in creating the future. Elders can pass on organizational
folklore in story-telling sessions. Everyone can explain what brought them to theorganization and why they stay.

Volume 2, Number 3, REFLECTIONSIn the next example, Inova Health System successfully connected doctors, nurses, patients, and providers from various settings into a cohesive organization.

Inova Health System
Inova Health System employs 15,000 employees in five acute-care hospitals, two long-termcare facilities, a large home-health service, and various outpatient clinics. In the mid 1990s,
Inova recognized that increasing costs, changing reimbursements, escalating competition,
and an increased demand for home and ambulatory services would require dramaticchanges in patient care delivery. Instead of following theconventional change management paradigm, Inova used a
strategy of systemwide engagement: in six months, the organization held four conferences and 700 walkthroughs,
which together allowed 52% of its staff to contribute to thechange process. Jolene Tornabeni, executive vice president
and chief operating officer, recalls: “I knew there were significant changes that we’d have to go through, and I wanted the change driven from theinside out. It was critical for people to be engaged in understanding the need for change,
determining what needed to be changed, and designing how it would be changed.”
Sticking with the principles of engagement produced a high degree of ownership andcooperation within Inova. For example, it developed a coordinated patient information
system and implemented quality case management, which combines the functions ofquality assurance, case management, and clinical outcome assurance into one streamlined service. Administrators, clinicians, and staff share and work together across thesystem. And people who had once referred to themselves as employees of their particular hospital or clinic now call themselves Inova employees.

AXELRODWhy Change Management Needs Changing

 Listen until you feel you cannot stand it, and then listen some more. Listening builds
relationships. Listen with understanding and empathy. Work for understanding, notagreement.
 Make the whole system visible. Activities such as “passing the order through,” inwhich a person pretends to be an order or a service traveling through the organization, allow people to learn what happens in other departments and produces new
systemic learning.

When we connect, we build trust;when we build trust, we are able tocreate synergy.

3. Create Communities for Action
The next principle is to create a community from the large group of connected people. I
define a community as a group of people who willingly come together and put time andenergy toward achieving a common goal or goals. People’s willingness to pool their talents and energy makes a community different from a typical business unit. Caring is afunction of consent, not control. Therefore, leaders must form a community that cares
about outcomes, which occurs when they create conditions that demonstrate that each
community member is valued. In doing so, leaders must allow for celebrating successes
and learning from failures. To sustain commitment, it is essential to create informationsharing and feedback systems so that the community members can monitor progress.
Mutual support must be built into the process. And leaders must be fully engaged in thechange process and model behaviors congruent with the proposed changes.
How can you create communities for action?
1. Co-create the future. People support what they help to create. Involve more people
at the beginning of the process when the important decisions are being made, notat the end when everything has been decided.
2. Maintain a future focus. In doing so, you create positive energy and see new possibilities.
3. Create a learning environment. Continually ask what is working or not working. As
people learn and discover together, they begin to feel smart about the issues. Whenpeople feel smart, they act smart, taking control of situations and problems and developing creative solutions.

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AXELROD

Hewlett-Packard

Why Change Management Needs Changing

Let’s look at how a unit at Hewlett-Packard transformed a“refugee camp” into an engaged community for action.

© Emily Sper

Mike Freeman, former director of Hewlett-Packard’s microelectronics operation, remarked, “We were like a refugee
camp. We had five different organizations, we were located on one site, and we had to transform ourselves into
an integrated manufacturing organization while facing achanging and uncertain market. We worked for the same
company but spoke different languages. Shock resulting
from a downturn in our industry permeated the organization. We were confused and without organizational
homes. Survival meant creating a new way of life.”
To redesign the organization, the unit held five large group sessions involving nearly
everyone. During these conferences, people built connections that allowed new levels of
coordination and cooperation. People began to understand the need for change and became connected around a common purpose—creating a new organization that could effectively meet industry challenges. As a result, the refugee camp was transformed into
an efficient, collaborative, customer-focused organization.
Freeman identified six critical outcomes from this process: “An environment thatvalues learning through exploration and inquiry, an organization where we feel free to
examine roles and responsibilities and there is a free flow of information, and an organization that responds and adapts more quickly to constant turbulent change. Manufacturing costs have been reduced at twice the asked-for rate, and cycle times are 25% ofprevious levels. Finally, the quality of work life has significantly improved as measured
by a standard employee-survey process.”

4. Embrace Democratic Principles

54

We’ve come a long way from the feudal systems in which lords owned the land and themeans of production, including the people who worked in the fields. Today, most leadersrecognize that authoritarian approaches to change do not work. But embracing democracy raises issues of predictability, power and authority, and fear. I call this constellationof issues the democratic dilemma (table 1): Who will care for the whole? Who will provide focus? Who will pull everything together? These are legitimate questions.
It is hard to estimate what is required to embrace democratic principles. And I am
not suggesting that organizations should be pure democracies. However, employing
these principles makes the difference between a follow-the-rules, resistance-prone organization and one in which people grasp the issues and initiate action. William A.
Pasmore and Mary R. Fagans reinforce the importance of democracy: “Although it is truethat many institutions in a democratic society can function quite well without adopting
democratic values, it is also true that organizations that fail to understand the importance of democracy will never achieve their full potential” (Pasmore and Fagans, 1992).
The democratic principles I advocate for achieving lasting, meaningful change are:
 Equity and fairness. Working together blurs the privileges associated with roles andtitles. Everyone has an equal responsibility for contributing to the outcome. Considering the impact of the change on everyone requires development of evenhanded
outcomes.
 Maximum sharing of information. Senior managers often wonder why the rest of theorganization does not see things the way they do. Often it is because they have information that they haven’t shared. Sharing information lets everyone know what
is happening in both the internal and external environments and creates initiative.
Holding back information creates dependency.
 Freedom and autonomy. Fears of chaos abound when leaders picture everyone in theorganization doing his or her own thing, but restricting freedom and autonomy di-Volume 2, Number 3, REFLECTIONSPredictability

If I make the decision, I know the outcome.

If I involve others, the outcome is less predictable.

Power and Authority

If I keep decision-making authority, then I
have the power to make things happen.

If I include others in the decision, then I must
influence and be influenceable.

Fear

If I decide, I have nothing to fear but myown abilities.

If others decide, I am more fearful of theoutcome.

minishes action. The trick is to provide a balance so that people can respond tochanging conditions, without creating chaos.
 Open decision-making processes. It is important for leaders to let go of long-standing
prerogatives while, at the same time, contributing their knowledge, insights, and responsibility for the outcome. Decision-making processes must be accessible to manyorganizational members, they must be public, and they must allow for everyone’s
input.

AXELROD

Democratic Approaches

Leader-Centered Approaches

Why Change Management Needs Changing

Table 1 The Democratic Dilemma

Kurt Lewin’s research on leadership and participation supports this position (Weisbord,1987). During World War II, Lewin worked with Margaret Mead to identify ways to reduce consumption of rationed foods. In one instance, an expert lectured housewives on
the need to change their buying habits. In another, the housewives were given the facts
and time to discuss the issues, after which they made decisions as a group. The results
are not surprising. People in groups that reached consensus through discussion changed
their buying habits more than those in groups that received expert information through alecture. Lewin identified a simple but telling principle: we are likely to modify our own
behavior when we participate in problem analysis and solution and likely to carry out
decisions that we have helped make.
Some techniques for fostering democracy are:
1. Promote equity and fairness by opening the deliberations of the change process tovolunteers, thereby avoiding the temptation to hand-pick all the participants.
2. Use round tables or sit in circles.
3. Communicate early and often through multiple channels and with various media. However, face-to-face conversations in which dialogue can occur are the most effective.
4. Spend no more than one-third of communication meetings presenting information.
Spend two-thirds of the session dialoguing with one another about the issues.
5. Create high-involvement decision-making processes while clarifying ground rules
and boundaries to guard against feelings of betrayal.
The next example shows how embracing democratic principles created a critical mass ofpeople who were able to effect meaningful change in a state educational system.

Washington Alliance for Better Schools
A nonprofit consortium of 11 school districts in and around Seattle, the Washington Alliance for Better Schools incorporated the principles and techniques of the engagement
paradigm into its program to meet the state’s goals for preparing students to meet futurechallenges. It successfully engaged school districts, educational organizations, families,
communities, higher education, business and labor, and the governor and state legislature in developing a 10-year vision to meet the state’s goals. These included the ability toread with comprehension, think analytically, and apply the core concepts of mathematics, social, and physical and life sciences.
Jonelle Adams, the program’s executive director, said that the conferences andwalkthroughs held across the state were successful because of the attention to democratic
principles. At the first conference, program leaders asked participants to explain what it
would be like if they were to incorporate the principles of egalitarian spirit, co-creationof the future, and public information and decision making into their work. The principles

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Why Change Management Needs Changing

56

guided everything that followed. The participants’ work together produced innovative
initiatives and a critical mass behind them. Recently, the state legislature approved therecommendations calling for new technology, teacher certification, a safe-schools program, pay increases to retain good teachers, and extra staff-development days.

Five Myths of the Engagement Paradigm
When I discuss the engagement paradigm with potential users, they often raise familiar
objections. The myths that make leaders hold to the familiar change management paradigm and prevent them from achieving real change are:
1. “Unless I keep a tight rein, I cannot control the outcomes.” As leaders contemplate
employee involvement and democratic principles, they sometimes believe that they
will be required to completely abdicate their legitimate authority, responsibility, andability to provide input based on their knowledge and experience. The involvementof leaders is critical, but their roles shift. Instead of being responsible for identifying
problems and solutions, they are responsible for identifying issues, purposes, andboundary constraints, and applying the principles of the engagement paradigm
throughout the process.
2. “We must build a firewall between the organization and its stakeholders.” Accompanying this myth is the fear that if customers, suppliers, and even competitors are includedin the change process, the company’s dirty laundry will become public and will alienate the people necessary to its success. Just as including those affected by change builds
ownership and commitment within an organization, it does the same with those outside.
3. “Productivity will suffer if I involve a lot of people.” Exactly the opposite is true; I
have seen telephone-call handling rates, manufacturing productivity, and customer
service levels improve during conferences. Employees understand the significanceof involving more people in change processes, and those unable to attend make extra efforts during these times.
4. “The majority cannot be trusted to put the organization’s interests first.” Whenpeople understand all the issues and the role they play, they are willing to offer ideas
and support decisions that benefit the whole.
5. “Changes designed by the best and the brightest are the most cost effective.” It isfinancially and emotionally expensive to increase employee involvement. The wholechange process instantly becomes more visible, and the stakes become higher. But
consider the costs of disengagement, brilliant strategies never implemented, increased cynicism and resistance, an exodus of talented people who don’t feel they
are heard. Organizations that invest in engagement reap rich rewards.

Conclusion
The next time you meet with a group, small or large, begin to apply the principles andthe techniques outlined here. You will be surprised by how quickly you can transformyour organization into a cohesive, purposeful community.
Neil Robertson, principal human resources business manager at British Airways,
recently commented on what he saw as the byproduct of engagement: “It is my belief
that managers do not know it all, and they have to find ways to tap into the knowledgeof the organization. How to get the system talking to itself in useful and systematic ways
is crucial to success. When we are successful, we find that, in addition to bringing aboutorganizational change, we have increased the capacity of leaders and their organizations
to handle change. This may be the most important outcome of all.”

References
Argyris, C. Overcoming Organizational Defenses: Facilitating Organizational Learning (Needham
Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon, 1990).
Armenakis, A.A and A.G. Bedeian. “Organizational Change: A Review of Theory and Research in
the 1990s.” Journal of Management 25 (1999): 293–315.

Volume 2, Number 3, REFLECTIONSAXELROD
Why Change Management Needs Changing

Axelrod, R.H. and E.M. Axelrod. The Conference Model (San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler, 1999):
8–14.
Axelrod, R. and M.D. Cohen. Harnessing Complexity: Organizational Implications of a Scientific Frontier (New York: Free Press, 2000).
Beckhard, R. and R.T. Harris. Organizational Transitions: Managing Complex Change, 2nd ed. (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1987).
Beer, M., R.A. Eisenstat, and B. Spector. “Why Change Programs Don’t Produce Change,” Harvard
Business Review 68 (November–December 1990): 158–166.
Coch, L. and J.R.P. French. “Overcoming Resistance to Change.” Human Relations I (1948): 512–532.
Dannemiller, K., S. James, and P.D. Tolchinsky. Collaborating for Change: Whole Scale Change (SanFrancisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler, 2000).
Jacobs, R.J. Real Time Strategic Change (San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler, 1994).
Kanter, R.M., B.A. Stein, and T.D. Jick. The Challenge of Organizational Change: How Companies
Experience It and Leaders Guide It (New York: Free Press, 1992): 19.
Kotter, J.P. Leading Change (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1996).
McCormick, M.T. “The Impact of Large-Scale Participative Interventions on Participants” (Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Dissertation Services, Ph.D. dissertation, 1999).
McGregor, D. The Human Side of Enterprise (New York: McGraw Hill, 1960): 33–34.
McMaster, M.D. The Intelligent Advantage: Organizing for Complexity (Newton, MA: Butterworth
Heinemann, 1996): 77.
Owen, H. Open Space Technology: A User’s Guide (San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler, 1997): 3.
Pasmore, W.A. and M.R. Fagans. “Participation, Individual Development, and Organizational
Change: A Review and Synthesis.” Journal of Management 18 (1992): 375–397.
Schein, E.H. Process Consultation (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1969).
Schein, E.H. The Corporate Culture Survival Guide (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1999).
Senge, P., A. Kleiner, C. Roberts, et al. The Dance of Change: The Challenges to Sustaining Momentum in Learning Organizations. (New York: Currency Doubleday, 1999): 319–334.
Schutz, W. The Human Element: Productivity, Self-esteem, and the Bottom Line (San Francisco, CA:
Jossey-Bass, 1994): 27–71.
Tuckman, B.W. “Developmental Sequence in Small Groups.” Psychological Bulletin 63 (1965): 384–399.
Weisbord, M.R. Productive Workplaces: Organizing and Managing for Dignity, Meaning, and Community (San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler, 1987): 88–89.
Weisbord, M.R. and S. Janoff (interview, Gainesville, FL: November 1991).
Weisbord, M.R. and S. Janoff. Future Search: An Action Guide to Finding Common Ground in Organizations and Communities (San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler, 1995).
White, J.B. “Next Big Thing: Re-engineering Gurus Take Steps to Remodel Their Stalling Vehicles.”Wall Street Journal (November 26, 1996): 1.
Zand, D.E. “Collateral Organization: A New Change Strategy.” Journal of Applied Behavioral Science
10 (1974): 63–89.

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REFLECTIONS, Volume 2, Number 3

FEATURE

Why Management
Research Findings
Are Unimplementable:
An Action Science Perspective
Michael Beer

T

Michael Beer
Cahners-Rabb Professor of Business
Administration
Harvard Business School

58© 2001 by the Society for Organizational Learning and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

he demands of the competitive environment make it essential that companies adapt
their organization and their management practices to many fronts. Since organizationand management practices are the means for responding to new market realities, corporations are faced with the problem of rapidly adopting innovations in management practices suitable to their circumstances.
The fast growth of the consulting industry, schools of business, and the executive
education industry can be traced to the demand for new knowledge. There is considerable evidence, however, that short of “rare events”—bankruptcy, mergers, or a new
CEO, for example—new management knowledge and practices do not take root easily.
Yet, awaiting a “rare event,” typically a crisis, brings with it economic and humancosts—losses to shareholders, disruptions for customers, and loss of jobs for employees. Moreover, a crisis may lead to change, but not to the organization’s sophisticationin adopting and implementing new knowledge in the future. To avoid these costs, academics and consultants have to take greater responsibility for ensuring that conditions
and processes for implementation are researched, specified, and communicated to practitioners. Academics and consultants are increasingly being criticized for failing to doso. Too often, expensive executive education or consulting engagements do not resultin effective implementation of ideas that, at the time they were first presented, seemedvalid and needed. For example, 120 executives who were asked to grade recent consulting firm engagements in their companies assigned them a “C”—just satisfactory (Beerand Skoler, in preparation). They gave implementability as their chief concern. Though
we know of no study that has asked executives to grade the usability of knowledge produced by academics, we suspect that grade would be even lower.
Consider the following example of a company’s efforts to apply excellent, relevant
research. In 1985, Becton Dickinson (BD), a global medical technology company, foundit needed new organizational arrangements to implement its global strategy. Dissatisfied
with the recommendations of a consulting firm, it turned to a highly regarded academic
who was just completing research on how global companies organized and managed
their enterprises. The researcher used the clinical case method and therefore his recommendation was grounded in what the companies studied actually did (Bartlett andGhoshal, 1989). It was not theoretical but focused on a real management problem.
Moreover, the researcher became involved in implementing the research. He designed
and taught an extremely well-conceived workshop in all parts of BD’s worldwide operations. The workshop engaged managers in applying an analytic framework for deciding on alternative organizational designs for each worldwide business. Moreover, top
managers’ enthusiasm for launching the new organization was reflected in their attendance at the workshop sessions.
Despite these efforts, the corporation’s vice president of strategic management reported, at an academic conference on designing global organizations, that, although theframework for “transnational management” was useful, it was not usable (Biggadike,1990). The research had provided little or no guidance for implementing change in the
new organization. Indeed, the company went back to the researcher on several occa-

Volume 2, Number 3, REFLECTIONSFew management scholars specify theconditions and processes thatmanagers might use to implement
their theories, concepts, and methods.

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BEERWhy Management Research Findings Are Unimplementablesions and reported these difficulties. The researcher renewed his efforts to educate management on several occasions. Finally growing tired of the project, he told management“to just do it.” Still unable to implement, management once again approached the researcher for help. This time he referred executives to an expert in organization development and change. Implicit in this referral was the recognition that implementation oftechnical or structural solutions depends on organizational and human factors that the
research and theory do not incorporate. This is not an isolated incident; few management scholars specify the conditions and processes that managers might use to
implement their theories, concepts, and methods. Fewer
still consider issues of implementation when choosing
their research method.
It took BD a full decade to make significant progress
in its efforts to implement transnational management. The
opportunity costs of this long delay in implementation are
incalculable but undoubtedly large. Fortunately for thecompany, its competitors were less agile. That will not, however, be true for this company
and others as competitive pressures increase the cost and risks of slow implementation.
There are few managers, consultants, and academics concerned about implementation who have not experienced the same wide gulf between ideas and action. Approximately 70% of corporations are disappointed with the effectiveness of total quality
management (Spector and Beer, 1994). A similar percentage of companies are disappointed in the results of reengineering efforts (Hall, Rosenthal, and Wade, 1993). It cannot be said that inadequate theory or lack of rigorous research is the cause of
implementation failures. Hackman and Oldham’s (1980) research on work redesign was
not widely or effectively implemented in the 1980s. Kaplan (1994) reports significant
implementation difficulties in introducing the “balanced scorecard,” an innovation in
management control rooted in academic research and theory. The gap between social
science research and the formulation and implementation of public policy illustrates thesame problem in another field (Lindbloom and Cohen, 1979).
Unless management researchers want to risk being dismissed as irrelevant, even
unethical, they will have to take responsibility for specifying how the knowledge they
produce and disseminate might be implemented. With attention to implementation, researchers can make a real difference in the affairs of management while at the same timedeveloping more valid theories and contributing to a much needed theory of implementation. Churchman and Mitroff argue that “truth is that which makes a significant difference in human affairs” (Churchman and Mitroff, 1995). They contend that knowledge
produced without the intention of making a difference in human affairs is not valid. Following William James, they argue that truth has a strong process component and therefore does not happen all at once. The truth of a scientific proposition is not static,
Churchman and Mitroff suggest: “Truth happens as a result of the management of human affairs. It becomes true, it is discovered and made true by actions. . . . Or put differently, truth occurs only as a result of human activities for the purpose of solving animportant problem” (Churchman and Mitroff, 1995: 5).
It could be argued that some management scholars, notably those in the field of organization development and change, already focus their research on implementation. I
would argue, however, that the split between those developing substantive management
theory and those who practice and study how knowledge can be implemented and organizations changed prevents us from developing usable knowledge. That is because wefail to learn about the interaction between substantive management theory and process
theories, create confusion for the consumers of management research—managers—andignore the type of failures in implementing research described above.
In sum, there are serious questions about the validity and implementability of mostknowledge produced by management scholars and about the ethics of the knowledge
production enterprise of which academics and consultants are a part. The following key
ideas and research findings bear on the debate.
Research into corporate transformation reveals that such efforts often fail when new
management practices are injected into the organization from the top (Beer, Eisenstat,

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60

and Spector, 1990; Schaffer, 1988). Instead, the most successful corporate transformations occur when an ever larger circle of sub-unit managers take responsibility forchange. Under these circumstances, new management practices are connected inthought and action to the organization’s strategic task and to local organizational realities. Local managers experience the change as a discovery process, not an injection of
new knowledge and practices brought in by staff groups, academics, or consultants. Corporate transformation occurs when top management plays an active role in spreading
innovations to other sub-units, but in a way that puts the responsibility for diagnosing
and changing the status quo on local managers.
It seems clear that for knowledge to be implementable, the root causes of the status
quo must be understood and broken down (Beer, 1991; Lewin, 1947). Organizations resist innovations due to mutually reinforcing norms, rules, values, behaviors, and skillsof organizational members (Argyris, Putnam, and McLain Smith, 1985). Those members
learn which behaviors and skills will be accepted within the status quo and which will
not. New behaviors and skills that work enhance self-esteem. The more they elevate selfesteem, the more new behaviors and skills are imbued with meaning. As shared beliefs
and values emerge, they demand conformity. Since questioning these values may bethreatening or embarrassing to those in power, the status quo is rarely challenged. In
short, the factors most critical to implementation of new knowledge are undiscussable,
and their undiscussabilty is itself undiscussable (Argyris, 1990).
Despite the universality of this pattern and its consequences for implementation, few
management scholars consider organizational defensive routines when they choose theirresearch methods or when they disseminate their knowledge. The most pervasive reason
has to do with our conception of management science. Most academics have appropriated the model of natural science in ways that have maintained the separation of scienceand practice. Following the tradition of logical positivism (Popper, 1959; Hempel 1965;
Nagel 1979), management scientists must subject their propositions to disconfirmation.
While disconfirmability of propositions is an essential quality of scientific inquiry, it hascome to be associated with controlled or quasi-controlled experimentation and/or “hard”
data that can be checked by different observers (Campbell and Stanley, 1963; Cook andCampbell, 1979).
In practice, these assumptions about science have led academics and consultants tovalue research designs in which the researcher is distanced from the subject being researched and in which data are quantifiable. Even in the most applied field-based research, the researcher or consultant maintains the distance prescribed by normal science(Beer, 1982). The researcher collects and interprets the data. Managers are not engaged
collaboratively in an open discussion of hidden norms, values, or barriers to implementation. Distance between the research and the subject, it has been argued,causes the researcher to miss important aspects of the phenomena being studied, in particular, managers’ real purpose and their tacit knowledge about why
and how they do what they do. That knowledge, according to Schoen (1983),
guides the practice of professionals and is accessible to them only through reflection. Researchers and consultants who remain distanced and do not engage
research subjects are, therefore, unlikely to have access to this knowledge(Argyris, Putnam, and McLain Smith, 1985; Schoen, 1983).
Consider a report given at a recent research conference. The researcher had
used a questionnaire survey of human resource executives to find regularity inthe relationship between human resource policies and practices, as reported bythem, and company performance. Not surprisingly, correlation coefficients,
while statistically significant, were extremely low. It never occurred to the researcher that similar policies in two firms can have very different meanings andeffects depending on top management’s tacit assumptions about the purposeof the firm and the management philosophy. A questionnaire cannot accessthese assumptions, and, therefore, the validity and implementability of any
theory emerging from this research is in question. Similarly, consultants whointerview managers to identify problems and the solutions they recommend to
top management are disconnected from tacit or undiscussable knowledge
about skills, values, and politics that will prevent implementation. Uninvolved

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Action science . . . requires
professionals who have theintervention and interpersonal skills
that most academic institutions andconsulting firms do not value. . . .

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BEERWhy Management Research Findings Are Unimplementablein the investigation and the crafting of solutions, managers distrust the consulting process and do not reveal and/or discover the vital factors that govern implementation.
It has been argued that research designs in which the researcher or consultant is incontrol have the same consequence as autocratic Theory X management: passive and defensive subjects who do not reveal or discover what they are really thinking and feeling(Argyris, 1970). This condition makes it highly unlikely that the managers will implement knowledge produced by the research. They will not learn enough about their own
assumptions, beliefs, and behavior—the culture of the organization—to stimulate realchange (Schein, 1985).
All this suggests that valid information can be acquired and commitment to implementation can be achieved only if the research subjects are “engaged in public reflection on substantive matters of concern to them” (Argyris, Putnam, and McLain Smith, 1985). But,
because organizational members are prone to avoid threatening and embarrassing issues,
valid information surfaces only when managers examine the organization’s norms of communication (Argyris, Putnam, and McLain Smith, 1985; Argyris, 1993). Indeed, for valid data
to emerge from a public inquiry, the researcher may have to confront the research subjects
with the defensive routines they use to overprotect themselves and others from the truth.
Action science, therefore, requires professionals who have theintervention and interpersonal skills that most academic institutions and consulting firms do not value, teach, or evaluate
in promotions.
Academics’ concern with implementation and action
is not new (Argyris, 1970; Kilmann et al., 1983). Kurt
Lewin et al. (1939) and John Dewey (1929) both designed
experiments they intended as alternative models of action
and studied them systematically. Action research, in which
the researcher and the client jointly engage in moving anorganization toward new practices, has been used to develop theories or to make thosetheories developed through normal science actionable (Walton, 1980; Beer, 1992;
Argyris, 1993). Some consulting firms have begun to grapple with this problem, but theirefforts to date have had limited success. Consider McKinsey and Company’s attempts to
respond to criticism that its strategy engagements do not lead to effective implementation. In the mid 1990s, it created a change center aimed at bringing into the firm theprofessional skills needed to engage clients. A few years later, the center was disbanded
and the initiative died. McKinsey’s economic model and the culture that supported it
blocked commitment to the mission of the change center.
Recently, Beer and Eisenstat (1996, 2000) developed a methodology called Organizational Fitness Profiling in which the scholar-consultant and management co-investigate a company’s effectiveness, using data produced by its members. Top managers
define the goals, strategy, and values. They then ask a task force of high-performing
managers one or two levels below them to collect data about strengths for and barriers
to achieving these aspirations. The task force’s data are fed back to the top team under
special conditions to ensure that the unvarnished truth surfaces. Working together, thetop team and the consultant analyze the data and develop an action plan for changeusing heuristics developed from research and theory in organization design and effectiveness. The top team then meets with the task force for a critique of the analysis andaction plan. If the task force disagrees with management’s conclusions, they must resolve their differences. And the task force and the top team continue to meet periodically to review the progress of change and make mid-course corrections. The process
recycles periodically, allowing the truth about success or failure to emerge over time.
Taking a broad societal perspective, Churchman and Mitroff argue that “the distinction between ‘pure’ and applied sciences is unethical” because scientists have a moral
obligation to put science in the service of humanity’s most pressing problems (Churchman and Mitroff, 1995: 22). The knowledge that is produced through the type of processdescribed above is at once useful to academics interested in description, understanding,and theory development and usable to managers. They are able to implement recommendations that reflect an understanding of their own situation, their business, their assumptions, and their skills and values.

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Why Management Research Findings Are Unimplementable

Action science represents the most radical alternative to normal science. Industrial ororganizational psychologists concerned with applying knowledge to organizations have offered somewhat less radical solutions (Hakel et al., 1982). For example, Boehm suggests thatapplied researchers involve the client in defining the problem and planning the investigation, but it is unclear whether the involvement she conceives would reveal tacit orundiscussable knowledge that may block implementation of research findings (Boehm,1980). The clinical inductive case research approach pioneered at the Harvard Business
School proposes to be more practical by starting with a managerial problem, not a theory.
But it is not clear that tacit knowledge about norms and values typically surfaces, nor is thisresearch typically part of a managerial process. Ethnography is likely to reveal more hidden
and undiscussable data relevant to developing a valid and implementable theory. But it is
not obvious how the research can make the knowledge implementable unless the researcher
involves subjects in the inquiry. And unless the ethnographer engages organizational members in an inquiry into their defensive routines, the knowledge the researcher has gained
about these defenses is inaccessible to the subjects and will block implementation. Somehave attempted to deal with implementation issues through the lens of power and politics(Pettigrew, 1982). According to this perspective, a researcher or interventionist interested in
implementation must develop power in the client organization. The power and politics approach consciously plays into norms that support defensive routines, however.
If normal science approaches are inadequate for creating knowledge that is
implementable, what are the alternatives? How might the relative merits of quantitative,
qualitative, and action science approaches be integrated in the context of the epistemological issues raised in this article? Can they be integrated into a single scientific paradigm as suggested by Torbert (1995), and how? The answers to these questions requireconsiderable action research. That is, social scientists working in concert with practitioners will have to experiment with different research designs and forms of relationships
in order to develop an inquiry process that integrates scientific concerns about the findings’ external validity or
disconfirmability with practitioners’ concerns about thefindings’ relevance and implementability.
Professional schools of business or public administration
concerned about developing implementable management
knowledge will have to open their institutional policies to inquiry, particularly those policies that govern promotions. For
example, how do incentives created by the promotion process discourage professional concern for creating knowledge that meets the test of implementability? Such an inquiry would
reveal the underlying assumptions, beliefs, skills, and norms of academics and their institutions that may prove embarrassing and threatening. Only such a process, however, will reveal
the truth; that truth is essential to creating implementable knowledge about how schools of
business and management might reinvent themselves to create implementable knowledge.

If normal science approaches are
inadequate for creating knowledge
that is implementable, what are thealternatives?

62

References
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Argyris, C. Knowledge for Action (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1993).
Argyris, C., R. Putnam, and D. McLain Smith. Action Science (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1985).
Bartlett, C. and S. Ghoshal. Managing Across Borders: The Transnational Solution (Boston, MA:
Harvard Business School Press, 1989).
Beer, M. “Research and Implementation: A Case Study,” in Making It Happen: Designing Researchwith Implementation in Mind, eds. M. Hakel, M. Sorcher, M. Beer, and J. Moses (Beverly Hills,
CA: Sage, 1982): 61–95.
Beer, M. “Leading Change” (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School, HBS Note 9-488-037, 1991).
Beer, M. “Strategic Change Research: An Urgent Need for Usable Knowledge Rather Than Useful
Knowledge.” Journal of Management Inquiry 1 (1992):111–116.
Beer, M. and R. Eisenstat. “Developing an Organization Capable of Strategy Implementation andLearning.” Human Relations 49 (1996): 597–619.
Beer, M. and R. Eisenstat. “Silent Killers to Strategy Implementation and Learning.” Sloan Management Review 41 (2000): 29–40.

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Why Management Research Findings Are Unimplementable

Beer, M., R. Eisenstat, and B. Spector. The Critical Path to Corporate Renewal (Boston, MA: Harvard
Business School Press, 1990).
Beer, M. and A. Skoler. “A Study of Consulting Effectiveness” (in preparation).
Biggadike, R. “Research in Managing the Multinational Company: A Practitioner’s Experiences,”in Managing the Global Firm, eds. C. Bartlett, Y. Doz, and G. Hedlund (London: Routledge,1990): 303–325.
Boehm, V. “Research in the Real World: A Conceptual Model.” Personnel Psychology 33 (1980): 495–503.
Campbell, D. and J.C. Stanley. Experimental and Quasi Experimental Design for Research (Chicago,
IL: Rand McNally, 1963).
Churchman, C. and I. Mitroff. “On the Fundamental Importance of Ethical Management: Why Management Is the Most Important of All Human Activities” (unpublished manuscript, 1995).
Cook, T. and D. Campbell. Quasi-Experimentation (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1979).
Dewey, J. The Quest for Certainty (New York: Minton Balch, 1929).
Hackman, R. and G. Oldham. Work Redesign (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1980).
Hakel, M., M. Sorcher, M. Beer, and J. Moses. Designing Research with Implementation in Mind
(Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1982).
Hall, J., J. Rosenthal, and J. Wade. “How to Make Reengineering Really Work.” Harvard Business
Review 71 (1993): 119–131.
Hempel, C. Aspects of Scientific Explanation (New York: Free Press, 1965).
Kaplan, R. “Companies as Laboratories,” in The Relevance of a Decade, ed. P. Duffy (Boston, MA:
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Kilmann, R., K. Thomas, D. Slevin, et al. Producing Useful Knowledge for Organizations (New York,
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Lindbloom, C. and D. Cohen. Useable Knowledge: Social Science and Social Problem Solving (NewHaven, CT: Yale University Press, 1979).
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Pettigrew, A. “Towards a Political Theory of Organizational Intervention,” in Designing Research with
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Popper, K. The Logic of Scientific Discovery (New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1959).
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Spector, B. and M. Beer. “Beyond TQM Programs.” Journal of Organization Change Management 7(1994): 6–14.
Torbert, W. “A Scientific Paradigm That Integrates Quantitative, Qualitative, and Action Research.”
Paper presented at the Academy of Management Symposium, Vancouver, Canada, 1995.
Walton, R. “Establishing and Maintaining High Commitment Work Systems,” in The OrganizationalLife Cycles: Issues in the Creation, Transformation and Decline of Organizations, eds. R. Miles,
J. Kimberly, et al. (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1980): 208–290.

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Commentaryby Lotte Bailyn
Michael Beer wants management and organization research to be more practice oriented. Herightly points out that not only researchers’ but consultants’ recommendations rarely get implemented in organizations. He calls for researchers to work on a theory of implementation and tobuild that into their research designs. He emphasizes, in particular, two necessary conditions to accomplish this goal: reduce the distance between the researcher and the object of research; and engage management in the research process. Taken separately, these are not new ideas. But, as Beerrightly points out, it is the combination of these two aims that is critical.
So how does Beer intend to bring these two aspects together? He implores management re-

REFLECTIONS, Volume 2, Number 3

Lotte Bailyn
Professor
MIT

BEER

Why Management Research Findings Are Unimplementable64

searchers “to take responsibility for specifying how the knowledge they produce and disseminate
might be implemented.” But he has already rightly stated that efforts at corporate transformation“often fail when new management practices are injected into the organization from the top,” andthat change is more likely when “local management experience the change as a discovery process.”
Will researchers telling managers how to implement be any different?
And he accurately describes the Argyris approach as requiring the researcher “to confront the
subject of the research with the defensive routines they use. . . .” But is this the kind of collaboration that is needed? To “confront”? Even to talk about “defensive routines” is a negative characterization, hardly geared to engaging organization members in constructive efforts to change.
And consider the assumptions underlying his and Eisenstat’s Organizational Fitness Profiling,which, based on his own criteria, may not fare much better than the approaches he argues against.
“Top managers define the goals . . . they then ask a task force of high-performing managers . . . tocollect data . . . [which] are fed back to the top team . . . [which] together . . . [with] the consultant
analyze the data and develop an action plan for change” (italics added). Is this less top-down thancurrent efforts at change? Will this provide the local managers who have to implement the changewith the experience of discovery? And what about the front-line employees, where the change will
either succeed or be resisted? How do they get involved? To be fair, this process has many goodthings going for it in terms of ensuring that top management gets accurate information—but thatis not the same as providing the conditions required for successful implementation of change.
I agree completely that if our research is to be useful to organizations in their attempts tochange, then “social scientists working in concert with practitioners will have to experiment withdifferent research designs and different forms of relationships. . . .” But the guidelines for how toforge such a collaborative partnership have still to be established.
In some ways, the work of a group of colleagues (including Joyce K. Fletcher, Bettye Pruitt, Rhona
Rapoport, and me) may help with such guidelines. We are working on a book (to be published by
Jossey-Bass) that codifies the method we use in our action research projects in organizations. Briefly,
we work with organizations to try to experiment with changing their work practices in such a way thatthey become more effective, while at the same time increasing the ability of their employees to makechoices about the integration of work with the rest of their lives. To do this, we combine interactive
collaboration with action research into what we call Collaborative Interactive Action Research (CIAR).
The kind of collaboration we have in mind is based on a continuous interplay with our organizational action partners, where we pool our expertise: research analysis that surfaces mental models fromus; deep local knowledge from our action partners. The kind of interaction we have in mind occurs at
every stage of the process, including the experimental stage where our partners try something new at
the systemic work practice level. But we have learned, also, the importance of interacting across theorganization. We work at the local level, but to achieve the kind of implementation results Beer envisions, middle and upper-level managers need to give solutions-focused input regarding their concerns.
Though we have not always been successful in this larger goal, we have had success in creating local
work practice change that meets the dual agenda of enhancing work-personal life integration and organizational effectiveness. We therefore hope that the book, when it appears, may provide the beginning of guidelines on how to meet Beer’s goal of making management research implementable.

Responseby Michael Beer
Lotte Bailyn questions whether managers will want to collaborate with scholar/consultants whoannounce that they will confront them with their own defensive routines. My use of the phrase“confronted by the researcher” was unfortunate. She is right, of course, that human beings do notreadily embrace the honest and unvarnished truth when directed at them by a third party without
reason or their consent. Through the use of Organizational Fitness Profiling as the intervention in
many organizations, Russell Eisenstat and I have learned that managers are likely to accept, evenseek, feedback about their leadership under the following conditions: Their organization is facing
performance difficulties. The process of feedback is framed as an opportunity to learn what theirown employees think about organizational strengths and barriers to implementing the objectives
and strategy that they and their top teams have created. They think people and organizational capability matter. And an environment of psychological safety is produced.

Volume 2, Number 3, REFLECTIONS

BEER
Why Management Research Findings Are Unimplementable

Bailyn also raises questions about whether Organizational Fitness Profiling is any less top-down
than other current approaches to change. What about local managers who must implementchanges crafted by the top team, even if they are based on feedback from a lower-level task force?
What may not have been clear in the one-paragraph description of the process is the assumptions
about partnership that are designed into the process. The task force that provides the feedback critiques the top team’s plans and partners with them in revising change plans as needed. Moreover,they stay connected with and inform the 100 key people they have interviewed about progress. Finally, the Organizational Fitness Profiling is intended to be a cascading process aimed at each of
several strategic business units in a larger enterprise, each learning about how their organizationand leadership is or is not aligned with espoused goals, strategy, and values.
Bailyn’s description of interactive collaboration with practitioners in the conduct of action research about their work practices is exactly the type of innovation in researcher-practitioner coinvestigation that I advocate in my article. Codifying the process is equally essential and I applaud
this effort. Eisenstat and I are also codifying our own efforts at collaborative inquiry in an effort tomake it more accessible to managers and organizational development practitioners. But we may beable to learn from Bailyn and her colleagues how to deepen our interaction with managers. Our work
has focused principally on researching and specifying the relationship between top teams and lower
levels needed to create a collaborative inquiry. We have done far less in specifying the relationshipbetween us as scholarly consultants and managers needed for a three-way learning process.
Eisenstadt’s and my research may, however, offer some insights to Bailyn and her colleagues in how
to create a collaborative inquiry that encompasses the whole system and involves top management incrafting systemlike solutions. Indeed, profiles conducted in the past several years have shown that too
many initiatives driven from the top overload the system and employees. We have worked with management teams to develop a system for resource allocation and utilization in an effort to alleviate thiscondition—one that is as harmful to work-life balance as it is to organizational performance.

Commentaryby Karen Ayas
I will never forget the conversation I had with Mike Beer more than two years ago, while sitting at
the Harvard Faculty Club. It was my first year in the US, and I was struggling to understand the realities of the corporate world and academia in the States. I had many questions to which I could
find no plausible answers. I had spent five years in Europe where one could easily choose an academic and consulting career and, in many ways, was encouraged to. Besides creating a very intenseschedule, such a combination was beneficial to all parties: students, teachers, and companies. I usedboth theory and practice to teach my classes; students could work on and contribute to real cases.
In our conversation, I told Mike that I was a proponent of action research. “Great” he said. “Metoo.” Then I told him that I had used action research for my dissertation. “Ooh,” he said, “you could
never get away with that here.” His words shocked me at first. When I inquired further, I discoveredthat action research was an accepted methodology, but only once you had a tenured faculty position. In fact, you could get away with almost anything once you had tenure. We continued to discuss the pros and cons of action research, and he offered me the paper published here.
To hear him speak as passionately as he did was inspirational to me. Yet I still couldn’t understand
why there was no way to change the system. In fact, not much has changed since then. There still
seems to be a huge disconnect between theory and practice. The belief that academic knowledge issuperior to that of a manager or consultant still prevails. If the pursuit of “significant” knowledge isthe goal of academic research, genuine collaboration between academics and practicing managers
might be a beginning. There is typically little academic influence on the resolution of real and important issues in organizations. One might also argue that there would be fewer management fads ifthey were derived from sound theory.
In practice, joint knowledge creation or developing effective knowledge sharing among academics,
consultants, and managers is extremely difficult. It is constrained by deeply embedded assumptions
and attitudes in each community and absence of an institutional infrastructure to support and enablelong-term partnerships between them. Research models that emphasize the researchers’ detachment
will continue to interfere with meaningful partnerships. Pressing business needs will always constrain
practitioners’ time for reflection or analysis. Working to understand the current reality through thelenses of each community, as Beer proposes, may be a first step in attempting to change the system.

REFLECTIONS, Volume 2, Number 3

Karen Ayas
Associate Editor
Reflections
Research Fellow,
Erasmus University
Partner, The Ripples Group

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FEATURE

Management Gurus
and Educators
Russell L. Ackoff

guru n : an influential or revered teacher.
educate v : to train the mind and abilities of a person.
train v : to bring to a desired standard of efficiency or condition or behavior by instruction and practice.

A
Russell L. Ackoff
Professor Emeritus
The Wharton School66© 2001 by the Society for Organizational Learning and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

s usual, a dictionary fails to reveal the nuances of meaning involved in current usage. There are no pejorative implications in calling someone an educator, but there
are frequently (but not always) derogatory implications in calling someone a guru. Thisis certainly the case, for example, when Micklethwaite and Wooldridge (1996) refer to gurus as “witch doctors.” The term guru has become more popular in management circles
than educator. Witness four recent books: The Ultimate Book of Business Gurus (Crainer,
1998), Management Gurus (Huczynski, 1996), The Witch Doctors (Micklethwaite and
Wooldridge, 1996), and The Guru Guide (Boyett and Boyett, 1998).
In management circles, guru, in its widely used, pejorative sense, is someone who
promotes a panacea or fad and, in some cases, founds a cult. Gurus produce doctrinesthat attract disciples. The doctrine defines which problems are meaningful and what are
the acceptable solutions to them, and discards everything else as irrelevant. Thus, gurus
put thinking to rest; they provide all the relevant questions and answers, and their coverage pretends to be comprehensive. What they expect from followers or disciples is loyalty, no questioning of their outputs or manipulation of them. They expect their followers
to proselytize and, at most, to expand, extend, and illuminate their outpourings.
The appeal of gurus lies to a large extent in the simplicity of their doctrines. They
are simple no matter how complex are the problems at which they are directed. They
provide a life raft to those managers who are incapable of handling complexity.
In other than managerial circles—for example, politics and religion—the guru’s disciples not only tend to form a cult but also become fanatics, treating non-believers as
enemies, often ones to eliminate. Terrorism is the most extreme form of adherence to aguru.
In the political and religious arena, gurus tend to be aggressive against “the enemy.”
But in business circles, this is rarely the case, largely because there are so many guruscompeting for followers that no one can dominate the minds, let alone the emotions, ofpotential followers. In politics and religion, the number of competing gurus is seldom
more than two or three.
Educators stand in sharp contrast to gurus. Educators do not try to halt thinking but
to initiate it. They want their students to carry the ideas they present beyond their current generality and application; they encourage students to question and modify without constraint. They want students to treat their solutions as beginnings, not ends. Gurus
lead into; educators lead out of. Gurus provide ready-made solutions, but educators provide ways that one can find solutions for oneself. This is reflected in an old Chinese proverb that says if a fish is given to a starving man, he will soon be hungry again, but if heis taught to fish, he will never be hungry again. The former is the guru’s way; the latteris the educator’s. The output of a guru is a closed system of thought, closed to external
influences and not subject to change; the output of an educator is an open system ofVolume 2, Number 3, REFLECTIONSACKOFFManagement Gurus and Educators 

thought, open to external influences and subject tochange. A student can have many educators, but a disciple can generally have only one guru.
Educators try to transmit a way of thinking and a wayof conducting inquiries. And they do not pretend thatthese are the only ways. Among other things, they recognize that differences in personality lead people to selectdifferent ways of thinking and behaving. Some try tobridge the differences between the outputs of different
educators. There is no bridging to be done between gurus.
Effective educators do not teach. Teaching usually obstructs learning. Managers learn what they use to manage
while on the job, not in school. Experience is a bettersource of learning than others, even teachers. However,good educators facilitate the learning process, enable thestudent to learn more rapidly and effectively, and motivate the student. To a large extent, they do so by making
learning fun. Gurus do not consider fun to be a necessary
condition to progress; educators do. In this regard, mostteachers are more like gurus than effective educators.

References
Boyett, J.H. and J.T. Boyett. The Guru Guide (New York: John
Wiley & Sons, 1998).
Crainer, S. The Ultimate Book of Business Gurus (New York:AMACOM, 1998).
Huczynski, A.A. Management Gurus (London: InternationalThomson Business Press, 1996).
Micklethwaite, J. and A. Wooldridge. The Witch Doctors (NewYork: Times Books, 1996).

© Emily Sper

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REFLECTIONS, Volume 2, Number 3

VIEWSThe Social Life of Information, John Seely Brown andPaul Duguid, Harvard Business School Press, 2000
Review by Etienne Wenger

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Some books just had to be written.
And The Social Life of Information is one of them. The
promises and proph ecies of what the book calls the“infoenthusiasts” range from overoptimistic (technology cansolve all social ills) to apocalyptic (this ends the world as weknow it). Such “tunnel vision” results in an “infocentric”
design approach, which ignores the broader social context inwhich information “lives.”
Someone had to publish a strong reminder that even if
technology is to transform the world, for better or for worse,the processes by which this transformation takes place are
not merely, or even primarily, technological. From this perspective, the concerns of a good designer go beyond a focus
on information: “The ends of information, after all, are human ends. The logic of information must ultimately be thelogic of humanity” (page 18).
I can think of few people better qualified to drive thispoint home than John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid. They
understand the subtleties and breadth of the issues, and justas importantly, they are not anti-technologists themselves.
This is key. Their own interest in the technology, whichcomes through as you read, gives credibility to their call for abroader perspective. They are not afraid of the technology andare not putting it down or minimizing its importance. They
appreciate the profound transformations that technology in
general and information technology in particular can bringabout, and their appreciation for this potential allows them tobe skeptical without appearing nostalgic or pessimistic.
Central to the whole argument is the concept of social
practice as a source of meaningful engagement in the world
and the fact that social practices belong to specific communities. By practice here, they do not mean repetitious exercise
as in “piano practice” but socially defined ways of approaching a set of problems as in “medical practice.” This focus onpractices and communities allows the authors to make a series of insightful comments about how information operates
in social context.
Organizations cannot be understood merely as mechanistic systems based on information processing. The authors
contrast social practices, which people create to get a job
done, with processes, which organizations can prescribe. A
successful design from this perspective is a dance between
practice and process.
Documents are not merely containers for information,
but must be considered in terms of the communities where
they help shape social practices. The value of many documents, the authors argue, lies not merely in the information
they contain, but in their ability to be a vehicle for the formation of communities, as the newspapers were in the formation of nations.
That practices are the properties of specific communities
also helps explain why knowledge can be so difficult to share

Book Reviews
across a given organization and yet so difficult to keep withinthat same organization. Knowledge is “sticky” because it does
not easily move from one practice to another, even within an
organization. Yet knowledge is also “leaky” because practices
expand across organizational boundaries and thus provide“rails” by which knowledge can easily move around. When
researchers at Xerox PARC had invented the modern PC, they
could not convince their own management of the importanceof their invention. And, yet, fellow practitioners from Apple
needed only one visit to realize that they had seen the futureand needed to build their next computer with these features.
The Mac was born out of “sticky” knowledge that had become “leaky.” These social characteristics of knowledge provide an insightful framework for analyzing the functioning
and staying power of industrial clusters like Silicon Valley.
The main idea of the book is simple: Information has asocial life, which designers and commentators ignore at their(and our) peril. If you already agree, you may feel that you
get the point after the first chapter. You may even feel that attimes, the book falls prey to its own focus on information,
calling for designers to pay attention to the “social periphery” and viewing the social world as “context” rather than as
the central phenomenon. As a result, you may find the conclusion overly limited to an exhortation that designers include the social perspect ive in their efforts, rather thanpointing to a broader analysis of the potential of an information-rich society. But these are unfair expectations because
they assume that the argument of the book has been made.
As I said when I started, this book had to be written. It had
to show the limitations of an “infocentric” perspective. It
had, therefore, to start with that perspective and open it up.
And this it does well. It is fun to read. It sparkles withanecdotes and historical references, which bring the argument to life. It also covers a vast territory, as the authors set
out to debunk one myth after another. The topics range fromsoftware agents, to the home office, to the circulation ofknowledge in industrial clusters, to the role of the university.
Because of that, the book sometimes feels more like a seriesof essays than a single text. Yet as the authors weave their
theme through these different topics, they progressively build
a multidimensional case for a social perspective on information. Whether you need to be convinced or are already convinced, you will find gems and insights in every chapter.

Transforming Social Inquiry, Transforming Social Action: New Paradigms for Crossing the Theory/Practice
Divide in Universities and Communities, Francine T.
Sherman and William R. Torbert, eds., Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000
Review by Richard Karash
Torbert and Sherman provide a framework that positions thevarying paradigms for social science research and illustratethem through cases. In everyday terms, they offer a framework for the sources and methods of knowing.1 Most directly,

Volume 2, Number 3, REFLECTIONSREFLECTIONS, Volume 2, Number 3tion, experience, data, objectivity, and theory building. Why
would such a dialogue be important? Managers with whom I
work are confused about the ways of obtaining knowledge. For
example, it would not be remarkable to hear someone demand,“Show me the data that prove you are right!” Such a request
comes from a naïve mental model of the scientific method and,of course, can never be satisfied. That same person, in a different setting, might distrust a data-intensive approach and place
greater weight on creativity, instinct, and other sources ofknowing. I think we are, as a society, poorly informed about
the paradigms for knowing. I see misunderstandings, inconsistencies, and non-robust approaches all the time.
What if leaders and managers internalized Torbert’s
seven paradigms for knowing? What if they could spot behaviorism and know when it might be appropriate? What if theyknew when detached observation, data, and hypothesis testing would be effective? And when to call for involved actor/
observers, multiple perspectives, reflection into one’s own
framing, and all the richer tools Torbert describes?
This, in my view, would be the kind of increase in capacity that we are seeking in SoL. The problem is that this is the
stuff of philosophy, and I’ve always found philosophy to bevery tough reading! Torbert’s chapters require difficult language to address these challenging concepts; the book is nota light or quick read, but the examples and illustrations arevery helpful, as are the cases.
The main part of the book, 12 case studies by academicians connected to Boston College, documents admirable efforts to do effective action inquiry in real-world settings,
including: a “Leadership for Change” executive program,community organizing, university education, community
schools, professional communities of practice, teacher education, training psychologists for new professional roles, juvenile justice, and developing ethical guidelines for social
science research. Because the cases’ primary focus is action
inquiry and because the researchers show themselves as human, with aspirations, successes, frustrations, and sincere
reflection, the cases are engaging.
If knowledge is the capacity for effective action, thenknowledge stands on two legs: theory and practice. In thisbook, Torbert contributes to the theory side by framing theparadigms for social science research, and the cases provide
good examples of the practice of action inquiry. I recommend
this book for anyone serious about understanding the varying paradigms for knowing in social science research.

Note
1. William Torbert is professor of management at Boston
College’s Carroll School of Management, a founding researchmember of SoL, and a stimulating friend. Francine Sherman
is a faculty member at BC’s Law School. Because of my own
interests and the SoL audience (and with apologies toSherman), I emphasize here Torbert’s contributions. For more
by Bill Torbert, see http://www2.bc.edu/~torbert.

Book Reviews

the book is about how universities and academicians connect
to the real world, joining theory building more immediately
with practice.
The territory is action inquiry, which Torbert describes
as seeking “not just knowledge of what is generally true inthe world outside ourselves, but also what is uniquely trueat the present time about ourselves-in-action-with-others.”
This territory comes under the terms action science, action
research, and, in this book, research/practice (the different
terms may reflect variations in emphasis). To me, what distinguishes this field from science in general is: (1) the researcher is involved in, not apart from, the system being
studied; (2) the research considers real actions, taken toachieve real results, not artificial experimental treatments;(3) the research aims to influence the further course of
events, not just to satisfy a future academic reader; and (4)the time frame for inquiry is immediate, not separated intime from the action.
For me, the book’s value is in what it says about the practice of action inquiry, and the most interesting parts are aframing chapter (chapter 5) and a later essay on “The Call to
Bridge Knowledge and Action” (chapter 13), both by Torbert.
In chapter 5, Torbert distinguishes seven social science
paradigms, each with distinctive aims and points of view. For
example, the dominant paradigm for scholarly research has
the distinctive aim of predictive certainty (valid, certainly)
and usually emphasizes “randomized sample, experimental,
hypothesis testing studies.” This paradigm often separates
the research from actual actions (for “cleanliness”) andstresses the value of an objective observer who does not influence the system under study. I recognize in Torbert’s description the layperson’s understanding of the “scientificmethod.” Its limitations are obvious.
Torbert then explains four richer paradigms for action
inquiry that aim to produce theory through investigation of
actual experience in ways that rise above these limitations.
The richer paradigms assume that the researcher influences
the system and is affected by it, recognize the necessity ofacting in the moment, involve the people being studied, andaim for learning from real-world actions (rather than from
artificial experiments separated from the pressures of the
moment). The richest of the paradigms is “Developmental
Action Inquiry.” Torbert articulates ways of creating knowledge that are academically valid and also available to thepeople in the midst of the action.
Further, he describes first-, second-, and third-person
action inquiry. The conventional scientific method is third
person in the sense that researchers consider them (somegroup under study). First-person action inquiry occurs when
I consider my own actions, thinking, and results. Second-person, in Torbert’s language, is when we (members of a group)
consider together our actions, thinking, and results. He encourages us to add first- and second-person elements to theusual third-person research practices.
Torbert’s frame clarifies distinctions that will support amore effective dialogue about obtaining knowledge from ac-

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