Sometimes the target moves or changes, because it too is subject to influences from the system. In fact, discovering or creating new targets is often the key to overcoming the resistance that confronts you.

Look at the performance involved with your worst current problem. If there are small triumphs and long troughs, there may be a “Fixes That Backfire” structure involved.

The point of this exercise is not to settle on any of these statements as “right” or “wrong.” In fact, you should try to refrain from criticizing any of them

Archetype 3: “Shifting the Burden”

PURPOSE An alternative method for telling your story, by hunting backward for the root cause of pernicious, recurring problems.* *This exercise is partly based on an established Japanese quality technique and its description by quality consultant Peter Scholtes. OVERVIEW Asking “Why,” five times, in a team setting, with discussion.

To practice a discipline is to be a lifelong learner on a never-ending developmental path.

Finally, as you consider the overall situation, how do the graphs relate to each other? What’s the basic story, in words, that combines these graphs?

Generalizing your story—omitting some details to simplify it and look at it from a more distant…

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ask yourselves: “How would they see this if they were here? What would be their most important graph?”