How and why markets aren't rational. Navigational tips for successfully charting the Bermuda Triangle of human economic behavior. ™

 
I just love the term "manage," at least when I feel like sneering at someone. I especially love it when applied to concepts like "change," "diversity," "innovation," etc.

I can't decide whether the notion of "managing diversity," for example, is a case of wishful thinking or of plain old hubris....As if anyone could "manage" something they cannot comprehend and do not live; as if anyone could be "in charge" of something over which they neither deserve to nor are capable of having control... As if one small person taking few, if any, personal risks in a massive conglomerate is larger than the forces of nature, evolution, and progress. Martin Luther King once noted that "the arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice." This post is not about justice per se (although I do endorse it), but about the delusion that anyone is such a big shot that they can "manage" (e.g. control) things that are beyond their grasp.

I hate to be a wet blanket, fellas, (term used as gender-neutral in this context) but things just don't work this way. The sooner you accept this, the sooner you will be able to make a real difference.

Wouldn't it be better to cultivate an attitude of curiosity*--to become interested in learning about other people-that is, people from different backgrounds/countries/races/cultures --and/or about those who cannot help but live the concepts of creativity and innovation (hint: they were rarely 'popular' in high school and they are rarely 'popular' with corporate executives)?

On this same topic, I deeply believe that the the true measures of commitment to transformation include: willingness to jettison the safe and familiar; interest in the "other" sufficient to motivate getting inside their experience, learning from it, and incorporating this learning into one's own identity. (Example: "Ich bin ein Berliner"--either its momentous version, wherein JFK asserted that he stood with all Berliners, holding dear the concepts of freedom and justice in the face of communist repression, or in its alternate, more awkwardly translated version, wherein he proclaimed, "I am a jelly doughnut.").

Once, during the Q&A period at a big technology conference, I suggested to the presenters on change management (whose position was: "we mandate openness") that no person could affect change unless they were willing to be changed themselves. I then asked them how they themselves had changed in the course of managing change. I was met with a series of blank stares, a couple of red faces, and a quick change of subject. The social indicators shouted "faux pas!" In summary, I asked the right question.

* See "Einstein," below.
permalink: posted by saraw1 at 11/19/2004 09:44:00 PM