Sublime

“circle organization,” re-conceiving traditional top management roles in terms of three overlapping circles of activity: “create demand,” “produce product,” and “provide support.”

The widespread lack of motivation we witness in many organizations is a devastating side effect of the unequal distribution of power.

you’ll see that what started as a “Fix That Backfired” was in fact a “Shifting the Burden” system. This revealed the need to focus efforts on the fundamental problem-correcting process (the left-hand side of the diagram).

read about them in Systems Archetypes: Diagnosing Systemic Issues and Designing High-Leverage Interventions by Daniel H. Kim (1993, Cambridge, Mass.: Pegasus Communications). Or see The Fifth Discipline, pp. 378-90; issues of The Systems Thinker;

TYPICAL “FIXES THAT BACKFIRE” SITUATIONS “Downsizing to improve profits:” a company reduces staff (the fix) to reduce costs and raise profitability (the problem symptom).

There are portions of organizations, and even of economies, that are chain-linked. When each link is managed somewhat separately, the system can get stuck in a low-effectiveness state. The problem arises because of quality matching.1 That is, if you are in charge of one link of the chain, there is no point in investing resources in making your link

This question eventually led O’Brien to Chris Argyris, whose writings resonated with Hanover’s managers’ experience. Argyris’s “action science,” offered theory and method for examining “the reasoning that underlies our actions.”9 Teams and organizations trap themselves, he says, in “defensive routines” that insulate our mental models from examinati