Page 98 - The Resilient Organization

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A standard response to any human or organizational shortcoming is a
clarion call for better leadership. Sure, leadership can always be improved
upon. As leaders, we are particularly susceptible to notions of self-efficacy (“I
can handle this”) and the escalation of commitment (“I cannot be seen mak-
ing a 180-degree turn because it will detract from my credibility as a leader”).
Our thinking on present issues also tends to follow that of prior deci-
sions: The prior meeting’s agenda provides a basis for the current meeting’s
discussion and thus creates tunnel vision. We learn more and more about a
narrower and narrower area, or as Jim March, student emeritus of organi-
zations, says: We improve ourselves to obsolescence. Our past experience
shapes priorities—what we know of and are good at must be (by definition)
important. These familiar, comfortable areas then easily drive out the
exploration of new, potentially emergent, opportunities. Thus the organiza-
tion becomes managed by its leaders’ comfort zones, not by strategic intent
or opportunity discovery, and it can easily find itself stuck in situations that
were not part of any strategic plan.

INCREMENTALLY COMMITTED 1
Strategic Commitment Is Often Less an Act of Leadership than
It Is a Result of Incremental Decision Making

In Stanley Kubrick’s beloved movie Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to
Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, a U.S. Air Force general orders a
nuclear strike against the Soviet Union only to find out that the Soviets
have devised a doomsday device that—if attacked—will end all human life.
This was meant to be the ultimate deterrent. The problem was that the
military had not announced the existence of such a weapon to the world!

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