e-book

Leading Strategic Change: Breaking Through The Brain Barrier

---

Theories are predictive statements of what causes what, and why. Many managers view themselves as practical men and women and don’t view their actions as being guided by theory. But every plan that a manager makes and every action that a manager takes are, in fact, predicated on some theory in his or her mind—a belief that certain events or actions will result in particular outcomes. “If we cut price, more people will buy more” is an action predicated on a theory. “If I give her a performance-based financial incentive, she will work harder and more productively” is another. “If I out source this subsystem to a supplier that does the job more cost-effectively than we can do it in-house, we’ll be more competitive” is a third. These theories serve as mental maps guiding the everyday actions managers take.

Too often, though, managers aren’t even aware of these powerful mental maps—beliefs about cause and effect—that they employ when making plans and taking actions. Still, the maps are there, somewhere in the managers’ minds. Like it or not, every manager is, therefore, a theory-driven manager.

Most theories that managers use were formulated through experience—and because members of management teams experience many things in common, they end up employing similar theories, consciously or unconsciously, as they make decisions. Edgar Schein, Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s noted scholar of organizations, has shown how these shared theories develop and come to comprise an organization’s culture. He notes that, in the earliest days of every organization’s history, there came a point when a group of people had to get something done. Confronted with that task, they put their heads together and figured out how they would approach the challenge. If their efforts failed, then the next time that task arose, they would be inclined to devise another way to get the job done. If that method proved successful, then the next time the task arose, the group would be inclined to use the same method to get the job done. If that method proved successful again when the same task arose, they would be even more likely to address the task with the same approach when it arose again, and so on.

Ultimately, if a group of people have successfully worked together in particular ways to address recurrent tasks again and again, they come simply to assume that this is the way they should do things. When this happens—when people begin adopting ways of working by assumption, rather than by explicit debate and decision—that process becomes part of the organization’s culture. This is what an organization’s culture is: ways of
getting things done that a group of people have used so successfully for so long that they simply come to assume that doing things the same way is the only way to get the needed result. As a consequence, the more successful the organization is, the stronger will this unconscious consensus about cause and effect become. Another way to put it is that, because theories are statements of what causes what and why, an organization’s culture is actually a collection of theories in use. These theories provide valuable guidance to managers as they make plans and take actions, because they build on what individuals in the organization have learned from their collective experience. In fact, orga-nizations with strong cultures or theories in use become in many ways self-managing, because managers in disparate parts of the company can be trusted to make decisions autonomously that are consistent with what the company has learned will work.

---

Ketersediaan

Tidak ada salinan data

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

-

No. Panggil

-

Penerbit

New Jersey : Pearson Education, Inc.., 2003

Deskripsi Fisik

xxi, 194 Hlm.

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

0-13-130319-8

Klasifikasi

-

Tipe Isi

-

Tipe Media

-

Tipe Pembawa

-

Edisi

-

Subjek

PSIKOLOGI

Info Detail Spesifik

-

Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

agus

Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

Komentar

---

Anda harus masuk sebelum memberikan komentar