cameron and green making-sense-of-change-management

Complex change• the system is non-reducible. This means that you cannot understandthe system’s behaviour by looking at one part. It is necessary toinstead look at a representative slice of all of the parts.Eric Dent of George Washington University (1999) proposed that ourwhole world view is beginning to shift from a rational world view to anemerging one. It is as if our ‘technical’ rational reactions to political orsocial situations are not working any more. For example, the risingdemand for catalytic converters for cars represents our increased concernfor the environment. However, the effects in parts of Africa where the platinumto produce these converters is mined are very negative. People arebeing moved out of their homelands, health and safety is not being carefullyattended to, and workers are losing their lives through avoidableaccidents due to the commercial drive for production. Our approach isn’tholistic; it’s partial. And we are worried about it. Dent says we have to shiftour thinking if we are to be successful. He produced a helpful chart thatillustrates the shifts required. The highlights are shown in table 9.1.Traditional world viewTable 9.1World view descriptorsEmerging world viewReductionismHolismLinear causalityMutual causalityObjective realityPerspectival realityObserver outside the observation Observer in the observation‘Survival of the fittest’Adaptive self-organizationFocus on discrete entitiesFocus on relationships between entitiesLinear relationshipsNon-linear relationships– marginal increases – critical mass thresholdsEither/or thinkingPolarity thinkingFocus on directivesFocus on feedbackNewtonian physics perspectives Quantum physics perspectives– influence occurs as direct result – influence occurs through iterative,of force exerted from one person non-linear feedbackto another– the world is predictable – the world is novelFocus on paceFocus on patternsFocus on results or outcomesFocus on ongoing behaviour313