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From my experience, the opposite is true. Managers want to change, and most of the people they manage are extremely reluctant to changing anything, and if they

From my experience, the opposite is true. Managers want to change, and most of the people they manage are extremely reluctant to changing anything, and if they do change it's often random and undisciplined. Tools like strategic planning and OKRs are how managers and executives implement change at scale.

mjburgess 3y ago
I think my analysis needs some more depth then. I'd say most people are adverse to change. Probably key people at c-level and some people across the hierarchy are not. I'm talking about when there's been a plan established, and when that plan needs to change. Since managers are the implementers, in my sense of the term, not the planners -- they are highly change-adverse. Whereas plans are implemented "on" the people who are best placed to say change is needed, and managers are typically unable to incorporate this feedback. Perhaps because they cannot persuade the planner c-suite above that change is required. My underlying point was more about how organisations need to be analysed in terms of these incentive structures, say, in more Machiavellian terms -- and what happens with "Manifesto types" is they have no analysis of this, and instead come up with various dogmas that just become corrupted to align with organisational practice.
- intellectronica 3y ago
  Thanks, I understand what you mean better now. I think it's indeed the case that the higher up the hierarchy you go people actually tend to be less averse to change. But also that they do not receive feedback from the people doing the work that can be extremely useful for directing that change, and so they end up sticking to plans that are suboptimal. At the extreme, people in management can be dogmatic and deaf. But often, they do understand the need to listen and update their plans, and that's just not easy to achieve. The best orgs and managers find creative ways to enable this bi-directional exchange and let their planning benefit from the input of the people who engage with the work day-in-day-out and have the domain expertise and fast feedback loop.

mjburgess 3y ago

I think my analysis needs some more depth then. I'd say most people are adverse to change. Probably key people at c-level and some people across the hierarchy are not. I'm talking about when there's been a plan established, and when that plan needs to change. Since managers are the implementers, in my sense of the term, not the planners -- they are highly change-adverse. Whereas plans are implemented "on" the people who are best placed to say change is needed, and managers are typically unable to incorporate this feedback. Perhaps because they cannot persuade the planner c-suite above that change is required. My underlying point was more about how organisations need to be analysed in terms of these incentive structures, say, in more Machiavellian terms -- and what happens with "Manifesto types" is they have no analysis of this, and instead come up with various dogmas that just become corrupted to align with organisational practice.

intellectronica 3y ago
Thanks, I understand what you mean better now. I think it's indeed the case that the higher up the hierarchy you go people actually tend to be less averse to change. But also that they do not receive feedback from the people doing the work that can be extremely useful for directing that change, and so they end up sticking to plans that are suboptimal. At the extreme, people in management can be dogmatic and deaf. But often, they do understand the need to listen and update their plans, and that's just not easy to achieve. The best orgs and managers find creative ways to enable this bi-directional exchange and let their planning benefit from the input of the people who engage with the work day-in-day-out and have the domain expertise and fast feedback loop.