Sublime

How are you experienced by the various groups and subgroups? What role do you play in them? What perspectives on the adaptive issues do you embody for them? Because they are comfortable with the way you usually act, they are probably quite proficient at managing you in that role to ensure that you do not disturb their equilibrium. Consistency is a

The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization BY PETER M. SENGE

When we put on our clothes, we also put on a distinct identity, a social mask. We internalize behaviors that are expected of people with our rank and in our line of work.

a. What policies, events, or aspects of behavior in this new organization help it thrive and succeed? b. How do people behave inside the organization? How do they interact with the outside world? c. What are some of the differences between this ideal organization and the organization for which you work now?

plus the information you have about the organization

successful firms I know, all of the individual partners act as if they have personal strategic plans for their own careers—they have each thought through what their special value on the marketplace will be, what will make them more than just one more practitioner in their specialty, how they plan to achieve this vision of personal career progress.

To see people’s development as a means toward the organization’s ends subtly devalues the relationship that can exist between individual and organization. Max de Pree, retired CEO of Herman Miller, speaks of a “covenant” between organization and individual, in contrast to the traditional “contract” (“an honest day’s pay in exchange for an honest da

When you have applied an archetype, turn back to the archetype description and check the patterns of behavior you would expect to see. Does it match the patterns you have seen in your own history?

See Charlie Kiefer’s cameo “Executive Team Leadership,” (page 435).