Pulled Peter Senge’s The Dance of Change off my bookshelf for a quick review, and a passage I had highlighted when I bought the book back in September of 1999 jumped back out at me:
“Deep changes — in how people think, what they believe, how they see the world — are difficult, if not impossible, to achieve through compliance.” Reflecting on twenty years of leading change toward more value-based work environments, retired Hanover Insurance CEO Bill O’Brien says,
“What people pressuring for management to ‘drive’ cultural change don’t understand is this: A value is only a value when it is voluntarily chosen.”
Senge goes on to ask, “If the power of top management is in fact limited, why then do people in organizations continue to cling to the belief that only the top can drive change?”
What do you think? What is the true Why in your organization?
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