Not surprisingly, our current organizations exercise authority in a way that undermines our intrinsic drive to learn. Many managers believe that management is simply problem solving . The authors argue that it is more, that it is related to creation. The problem solver tries to make something go away. A creator tries to bring something new into being.
Most leaders believe that people are willing to change only in times of crisis.
Yet the wellspring of real learning is aspiration, imagination, and experimentation, i.e., continuous change is needed. The triumph of reductionism and mechanical thinking has given rise to a set of conditions for which they are no longer suited. The very same skills of separation, analysis, and control that gave us the power to shape our environment are producing ecological and social crises in our outer world, and psychological and spiritual crises in our inner world. Both these crises grow out of our success in separating ourselves from the larger fabric of life. Throughout our history as a species, the primary threats to our survival came as sudden dramatic events.