Status Quo or Change?

Doing things in the same (old) way appeals to organisations and their managers because it’s predictable. But for those organisations that want different outcomes (lower costs, faster delivery, better quality, or whatever) there arises a conflict between predictability and change. Learning (and improving) demands we try different approaches, experiment with new ways of working. But that impacts predictability. Or does it? Is this a real dilemma or just an imagined one?

Here’s a Conflict Resolution Diagram (also know as an Evaporating Cloud):



Aside: Maybe box A would read better as “Have a successful business in changing times”?

Evaporating the Cloud

Could we conceivably try different approaches without impacting predictability? Or maybe predictability is not as important as we lead ourselves to believe (whom amongst the people that matter hold it as a key need of theirs?) Or maybe we can achieve predictability by mean other than “using the old, established, tried and tested ways of doing things?” Maybe, even, the demand for predictability is what’s holding us back from “a successful business” and we just have to let go of that comforter in order to find real success?

What intervention would you favour, which assumption(s) would you challenge, in order to “evaporate” this cloud?

– Bob

Further Reading

Evaporating Cloud ~Wikipedia entry