Page 141 - Managing Change in Organizations

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Chapter 8 ■ Sustaining organizational effectiveness
■ Value learning from mistakes.
■ Focus on the good aspects of an idea.
■ Share the risks.
■ Suspend disbelief.
■ Build on ideas.
■ Do not evaluate too early.
The following actions seem to discourage creativity:
■ Interrupt, criticize.
■ Be competitive.
■ Mock people.
■ Be dominant.
■ Disagree, argue, challenge.
■ Be pessimistic.
■ Point out flaws.
■ Inattention, do not listen, use silence against people.
■ React negatively.
■ Insist on ‘the facts’.
■ Give no feedback, act in a non-committal fashion.
■ Pull rank.
■ Become angry.
■ Be distant.

Limits to problem solving

Still more limits or ‘blocks’ can be listed. At the individual level people may
engage in ‘satisficing’ or ‘incrementalism’, accepting satisfactory solutions and/or
making only incremental or limited changes to previous policies. At the group

level we have ‘group think’ and ‘risky shift’. ‘Group think’ is characterized by
complacency and lack of critical evaluation of ideas (Janis, 1972). ‘Risky shift’ is
a condition observed in experimental groups, where groups seem likely to take
more risky decisions than the individuals involved might have gone for (diffu-
sion of responsibility perhaps) but still without critical examination. At the orga-
nizational level various typical limits can be identified. Some we have already
seen. People seem to ‘distance’ themselves from problems. Where organizations
are highly centralized, responsible managers may be ‘out of touch’. There can
exist an ‘illusion of reliability’ in existing techniques or people (the Greeks had a
word for this, hubris, which means overbearing arrogance). Highly specialized
organizations can lead to parochialism, the tendency to conceal dissent or dis-
agreement and to problems of communication (Wilensky, 1967). Solutions to all
these limits involve opening up the problem-solving process, being willing to
change and allowing the ‘block busters’ to operate. Our assumption is that the
ideas are there, among the people – the challenge is to encourage them, to help

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