About This Book

652 PRACTICING ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT, 2ND EDITION
Again, I would invite you to reflect on your own organization. As people
become afraid, they lose the ability to see patterns—to look at the big picture.
People are losing the willingness and ability to look beyond their own work
right now. As we become more overloaded, and more afraid, we drive each
other to some state that is beyond exhaustion. But what people really need to
do is look at problems from many perspectives, and that is simply not possible
when people are overloaded and afraid.
It leads me to reflect on systems thinking. I have been focused on systems
thinking for years. But right now I think that systems thinking is not possible—
or at least not very easy—when people are overloaded, beyond exhaustion, and
afraid.
I have also noticed that it is increasingly difficult to call people together. It
simply takes longer for people to find the time to breathe together, think
together, and then work through fears and a sense of being overwhelmed to
reach creative ideas about how to solve problems or seize opportunities. I am
curious whether you see these problems in your organization.
Another thing that happens is that, when we are afraid, we lose our desire
to integrate with others. It just seems so obvious to me. When we fear, we forget
about participation, we forget about people, and we forget about what people
need. We just do whatever we think we need to do to survive.
I was in Silicon Valley not long ago. The glory days are over, of course. Did
you know that the unemployment rate in Silicon Valley was around 27 percent
mid-year 2003 and that local newspapers refused to publish that fact? And you
can tell because traffic is almost nonexistent.
When they held Comdex, the big computer annual trade show, in Silicon Valley,
they had banners announcing the conference slogan: “Take Charge, Take
Control, Take Command.” When I saw that, I thought to myself, “Now, there is
wishful thinking.” But it does express a deeply held wish by many that, as the
times become more scary, we want to take back control from the events that
seem to overwhelm us. Yet if we’re to truly regain any sense of control, we can
only do that through slowing down, engaging more people, and thinking through
how to develop intelligent solutions. But it seems we are in survival mode in
many places right now. A close friend of mine, who was a very senior executive
at Intel until recently, went back to visit for the funeral of his mentor. His mentor
was a wonderful man who had brought in a number of mavericks and innovators
in Intel’s early years. As this core of pioneers and innovators during the
great days of Intel were all brought together again, they realized that today they
would not be hired at Intel because they were too pioneering and too innovative.
Right now the hiring profile is to find safe people who will say yes.
And so, I ask you, do you see in your organizations—or those you consult
with—that power is being pulled back to the top? Or do you see that participation
is growing and that trust in the people of the organization is on the
increase? Which is it?