And if they lag too far behind they will become immobilized and irrelevant. The secret to success is knowing where the crest is and where you are positioned at any given point in time. In a world characterized by rapid change and increasing complexity this is no small challenge. Keeping up is vital when catching up is impossible. For public leaders, the consequences of falling behind are horrible to contemplate.
Few judgments are as harmful as being labeled outmoded.
The April 2001 Leadership Challenges Program, Reframing Our Thinking and Reshaping Our Organizations, is a course in organizational surfing. The shape of our organizations will always reflect the thinking of those who design them. Therefore, if we want to improve our organization s capacity to produce outcomes desired by society and its leaders, we must begin by examining the way we think. Terry Deal argues that multiframe thinking is challenging and counterintuitive. To see the same organization simultaneously as machine, family, jungle and theater, requires the capacity to think in different ways at the same time about the same thing.