Causing deep, lasting impact requires a fundamentally different perspective...
... based in fundamentally different assumptions – about organizations and about people. Our assumptions emerged over the years from our work with leaders, teams and organizations across industries and across cultures.About organizations, we learned that there is a simple, straightforward structure for causing results – for changing reality:
- Agreeing about reality. We each have a perspective – but it's only by rigorously validating and integrating these views – each valid in some way – that we come to fully see reality.
- Understanding what causes that reality. Reality has a structure – cause and effect – that both explains the past and anticipates the future – that can guide effective decision making.
- Deciding about how to respond to reality. Understanding causality is a powerful beginning – but only by rigorously translating that understanding into action can we intervene to move reality in the right direction.
- Knowing how to make the changes required to shift reality. Reliably and predictably shifting reality calls for both structural (organizational) and behavioral (individual) change – change that must be designed, sequenced and paced to match the reality of the challenge, the organization and its environment.
- Doing all of this sustainably. Only when these changes become organizational and individual habits will you achieve sustainability – institutionalizing the ability to continually perceive, think and act in alignment with the reality you are committed to causing.
- Want to do the right thing – and, in complex systems, that's not always straightforward.
- Want to live lives of meaning and belonging – and we're all trying to relearn how to do that
- Need to be challenged and to learn – and need the two to be closely coupled
- Are designed to collaborate and succeed – we've just been systematically taught not to
- Value being led – and are tired of being misled
