Here is a litmus test. Read this link from Bloomberg Businessweek. What do you think when you read:
- “I wanted a happy culture. So I fired all the unhappy people.”
- “If you want an innovative team, you simply can’t include victims. Fire the victims.”
- “You deserve the staff you get. Terminate the nonbelievers.”
- “You don’t want the victims, nonbelievers, or know-it-alls. It is up to you to make sure they take their anti-innovative outlooks elsewhere.”
If ever you’re worried that you haven’t “got” what systems thinking is about, read the above. You’ll know soon enough.
Keep systems thinking, and have a lovely day!
Terminate the non-believers!
Oh dear. Innovative idiots. What a way to treat people.
LikeLike
This is exactly the thinking that lies behind racism, fascism, ethnic cleansing and all those other horrors that demand conformity to a belief or a style. Margaret Thatcher’s “is he one of us?” was the same thing. Purge the non-conformers! The approach is superficially appealing, especially to those who believe in quick fixes, but profoundly stupid and counterproductive.
One of the best books on management I ever read was Robert Townsend’s Up the Organisation. He was told when he became CEO of Avis that the people were rubbish and his first job would have to be a major cull. In fact he took the company from obscurity to world number two using almost everyone he inherited. Same people, different manager, different approach, very different results.
LikeLike