 |
 |
|
ANE Home
>
Organization & Management
>
Connections
>
Archive
>
Sp06
| Table of Contents | Spring 2006, Issue 1 |
 |
|
Donna Mellen
Core Faculty
The Organization Development Network National Conference, 2005
It had been a while since I had gone to the national conference of the Organization Development Network, so I decided to attend the November conference in Minneapolis (Minneapolis in November??). I went especially for the keynotes. Margaret Wheatley and Peter Block are old favorites and known to those in the O&M program in recent years. They and the other speakers—Mary O’Hara Devereaux, Glenda Eoyang, Peter Koestenbaum, and Karen Stephenson—stimulated my thinking and often stirred my heart. The keynotes ranged in focus from global trends over centuries to challenges facing individuals today, from seeking understanding through a systems perspective to emphasizing individual responsibility for the effects of our choices on those systems.
Meg Wheatley began the conversation by laying out her deep concerns about the state of the world and our organizations: “There’s a lot going on in our organizations that is just numbingly insane,” she said. “We don’t know how to deal with uncertainty - period! - in this culture.” She noted a disturbing resurgence in reliance on “command and control” leadership and the persistence of seven myths in our organizations:
- Leaders have the answers. (“Actually,” she said, “leaders are scared to death.”)
- High risk requires high control.
- We can draw the right organizational chart, and this will solve our problems.
- People do what they’re told.
- Fear is a good motivator.
- Speed equals productivity.
- Action equals progress.
- Participation is non-productive.
Mary O’Hara Devereaux provided context for Meg Wheatley’s observations by tracing cycles of disruptive innovation over centuries of history. She said that such cycles tend to last about 75 years and that we are now in the midst of disruption unparalleled since the Middle Ages. She said that by the year 2025 the changes will have created a dramatically different landscape and advised, “Beware of conventional wisdom for it is nearly always wrong.” Echoing Wheatley, she noted the rise of “toxic leaders” and the tendency to deal with fear by developing a world view of simplistic dualities. One of the most pressing needs of this era, she said, is growing leaders who can help to co-create the new world that is emerging.
Glenda Eoyang, who shared the stage with Devereaux, explained that understanding the principles of complex adaptive systems, in which order is emergent rather than controlled (Can your organization be “controlled?”), can help us to influence organizations. Change in such systems, theory suggests, is stimulated at the micro level of human interactions. By understanding the dynamics of such a system, each of us can intentionally influence those dynamics. “Really complex situations require simple responses,” she said. She didn’t describe the tools in her talk, but does so in her book, Coping With Chaos: Seven Simple Tools.
Karen Stephenson provided another lens through which to understand organizations. As a research chemist, she had looked down from her office located on a mezzanine and observed over time the interactions of chemists working below. “I saw patterns. I saw explosions. I got interested.” Now she is involved in social network analysis, a methodology for mapping human networks. Such networks, she suggested, contain the genetic code to organizational culture. “If you understand the code, you can rapidly adapt.”
Peter Koestenbaum, who bases his thinking about leadership and organizations in philosophy, addressed issues of character, free will, and responsibility. He would like us to understand "the intrinsic worth of choosing accountability" in the complex world in which we live.
Peter Block, presenting with Koestenbaum, said that his fundamental purpose is to confront people with their freedom. He said, “If I experience my own full freedom, I become accountable for my own behavior and for the results of the whole.” He said that most problems result from a breakdown in community. The job of leadership is to convene people and frame conversations that generate community and the potential for more worthwhile futures. “Every time you enter a room,” he encouraged us, “choose how to influence the conversation. Help people get connected to one another.”
Together, the speakers presented a picture of a world of turbulence and complexity. However, it is not a world in which we are helpless. Through understanding systems and thus gaining new insights into how to use our influence, we can, in community, act as responsible agents to help to move organizations and our world toward the future we desire.
Related Books by ODN Keynoters
Peter Block, The Answer to How Is Yes: Acting On What Matters, Berrett-Koehler, 2002.
Mary O’Hara Devereaux, Navigating the Badlands: Thriving in the Decade of Radical Transformation, Jossey-Bass, 2004.
Glenda H. Eoyang, Coping With Chaos: Seven Simple Tools, Lagumo, 1997.
Glenda H. Eoyang & Edwin E. Olson, Facilitating Organization Change: Lessons From Complexity Science, Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer, 2001.
Peter Koestenbaum, The Philosophic Consultant: Revolutionizing Organizations with Ideas, Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer, 2003.
Karen Stephenson, A Quantum Theory of Trust, to be published in 2006.
Margaret J. Wheatley, Finding Our Way: Leadership for an Uncertain Time, Berrett-Koehler, 2005.
© 2007 Antioch University New England, 40 Avon Street, Keene, NH 03431-3516 800.553.8920