What’s Holding Us Back

It’s become painfully obvious to me that a whole raft of unhelpful assumptions and beliefs is holding us back. And has been doing so for at least fifty years.

And by “us”, I’m referring here to the software industry, businesses, and society in general.

In my most recent books (Memeology, Quintessence) I explore these beliefs in detail and at length, but in keeping with my preference for short(er) blog posts, I’ll summarise…

Here’s some of the major assumptions and beliefs I’ve recently seen holding back organisations back from the success they espouse:

• Specialists are desirable. Generalist and generalising specialists offer no value.
• Reorganisations are the way to effect improvements.
• Change, if ever necessary, is better managed, and in large lumps.
• Dialogue is a waste of everyone’s time.
• The only needs that matter are those of the elite (CxOs, managers).
• It’s best not to describe “success” as this would only expose the elite’s agenda.
• Culture is what it is – it’s not amenable to intentional change.
• There’s not other possible organisational structure than hierarchy.
• Change, when it happens, happens in isolation, independent of existing policies and rules.
• We must recruit and retain talent, specialist talent. Talent is indispensable.
• Interpersonal relationships are messy, and have next to no relevance to business results.
• High pay is the (only) way to attract and retain talent.
• Productivity ensues from hiring talent.
• Efficiency is top priority, effectiveness a meaningless and useless term.
• Business problems are always the fault of certain individuals.
• Breaking the organisation into parts and managing these parts separately is the only way to go.
• Extrinsic motivation is much more powerful than intrinsic motivation.
• Evidence and instruction (telling) are the only means to effect changes in people’s behaviours.

…and so on, and so on. 

All the above assumptions are, of course, false, and proven false by decades of research. Yet nobody is listening, nor interested in the science. Our ignorance is humungous.

– Bob