The Path to Perspective

A world of constant change demands constant re-appraisal.  Yet this desire to challenge existing practices and priorities, which is similar to the search for “something better” I talked about in the Introduction, is almost completely absent from the majority of our organisations. We need to be honest about the fact that we don’t necessarily have all of the answers.  Past experience can provide us with fantastic guidelines and a store of successful and unsuccessful ways of dealing with problems from the past.  We need to be extremely careful, however, of applying our past experience to the present without first checking that our view of reality is as clear as possible.  Finding ways forward or solutions to the problems we face is ALWAYS a ‘tentative’, ‘open’ and ‘continuous’ endeavor which requires us to have an open mind and a learning attitude.  It’s frightening when we look at the picture of business reality which we’ve created, as we did in Chapter 1, and realise how much of it is based on assumptions.

Somewhere along the line we’ve stopped questioning what we’re doing, why we’re doing it and what’s most important to us.  We desperately need to think again!  It’s true that traditional management practices have helped us immensely in achieving great things within our organisations and we shouldn’t disregard history as a source of guidance for the present, huge amounts of change or not!  Yet in contrast to the fast-moving and dynamic business context, the modern day organisation seems to be stubbornly clinging onto practices that may no longer be serving their best interests.  What seems to be happening is that holding onto our assumptions has become more important than questioning their validity.  And banning the questioning of assumptions is extremely dangerous in any situation.  The tenets of business wisdom really need re-appraising and measuring against the only true yardstick that we have available to us – the efficacy of any organisation, idea or practice in fulfilling human needs and bringing value to human beings. 

       In the face of significant changes to the business environment it is surprising that the general feeling within the majority of our organisations does not seem to be one of urgency or concern.  The climate in the corridors, offices, and meeting rooms of many of the country’s finest organisations might be summed up by the word ‘comfortable’.  In fact, I’m pretty confident that the majority of organisations in the developed world fall into the category of “we’re fine as we are, thank you very much”.  More often than not, the act of questioning established business practices and priorities is met with nothing short of absolute indignation.  And yet questioning things is exactly what businesses need.