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Whole-Scale Change™: Unleashing the Magic in Organizations

Preface

What you hold in your hands is a very valuable map of the New World of organizational change. For many years, the brave folks at Dannemiller Tyson Associates have been pioneers and explorers. While many of us hovered at the edges of this New World, peering out across its dark and turbulent waters, wondering whether it was possible to change our methods and beliefs, they plunged into the unknown. Now, after many years of experimenting with radically new approaches to organizational change, they are sharing their hard-won maps with us. I'm grateful that they have been so courageous and that they kept such good records.

Dannemiller Tyson Associates set sail from the Old World that had taught us many restricting and pessimistic beliefs about ourselves as human beings. We were told that humans work well together only in small groups, that experts have our answers, that most people lack the ability to think creatively, and that people want to be told what to do by their leaders. These beliefs, and many more, are still discernible in most organizational change strategies. Most change techniques are variations on this basic process: A select few are assumed to know what is best for everyone. Vision, redesign, reward structures - each of these is the work of a few smart people. Small groups of the smart are sent off to do their work. Then they return to the organization and tell people what to do. All these others are eagerly waiting for the results. They gratefully accept the new set of directions and eagerly implement them. Everything works according to plan, and the organization is transformed.

Though this approach to change still predominates, we have a lot of firsthand experience with its failures. Research from several different sources (and, I assume, from your own experience) demonstrates that between 70% and 90% of change initiatives fail to achieve their objectives. The same is true for mergers and acquisitions. Not only do they fail to achieve promised results, they create many more problems with their unintended consequences.

From this abysmal record of failures, we can draw one of two conclusions: Either it is impossible to change human organizations or we're using the wrong approach. Because of our colleagues at Dannemiller Tyson Associates, we now know that it is possible to change, that it is our approaches that have been wrong, and that, with the right methods, true magic is possible.

All those engaged with whole systems approaches are teaching us that when the entire organization or community is engaged in the work of planning its own future, or dealing with a difficult and meaningful issue, wondrous possibilities emerge. Using the term magic is absolutely appropriate. People who engage the whole of a system always use the word miraculous to describe the results. And after all the negative images we've carried for so many years - believing our colleagues were dull, self-serving, greedy, and disinterested - what we observe at a whole system event is miraculous. We quickly notice that our colleagues are engaged, creative, funny, compassionate, and forgiving. We discover one another in our full power, no longer held back by confining beliefs, stereotypes, or roles. We discover that we all care about the organization, that we all want to contribute, and that we're all surprisingly creative.

Now that is a miracle.

And this is a time that requires miracles. We can no longer solve the problems of organizations, communities, or nations by staying apart, leaving it to the experts, or depending on leaders to solve our difficulties. Yet at the very time when we most need to come together, we live with badly fractured relationships. Leaders don't trust workers; we don't trust one another; intractable problems refuse to be solved by piecemeal approaches. Everyone is exhausted by endless meetings, meaningless work, data overload, recurring conflicts, bad behaviors, heroic leaders, and problems that get larger rather than resolved.

I believe that, at its essence, our work is to reweave the world - to call together those we have kept apart, to understand problems in all their rich dimensions, to become sensitive to how systems move and change, to become aware of human potential rather than human problems. We are finding our way past the fragmenting and dehumanizing values of a worldview; we are invited to return to a more humane and traditional way of working together. Our species memory offers us the knowledge of how to work together for the common community - how to develop systems of relationships that sustain not only individuals, but the whole system. This memory and skillfulness is in us because it is in all life. We are remembering not how machines are put together, but how life organizes. It is this deep wisdom that needs to return to our organizational processes.

The wisdom is in each of us and we are blessed that Dannemiller Tyson Associates has given us their maps. They lead us back to the rich and fertile land of human capacity and to a future where people know how to work together in relationships that give birth to new possibilities.

Margaret J. Wheatley
Author, Leadership and the New Science
Co-author, A Simpler Way

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Discovering the Magic: What is Whole-Scale®
Chapter 2 Pointing the Way to the Magic
Chapter 3 Building Momentum: Planning the Whole-Scale® Project
Chapter 4 Unleashing the Magic: Strategic Direction
Chapter 5 Co-Creating: Designing Organizations
Chapter 6 Integrating: Mergers and Acquisitions
Chapter 7 Sustaining the Momentum Systemically
Chapter 8 Truly Living Whole-Scale®: Principles as Foundations
Chapter 9 The Real Secrets of Whole-Scale®: The Heart of Our Work
Deep Dive A Theory and Roots Underlying Whole-Scale®
Deep Dive B Models and Processes that Unleash the Magic
Deep Dive C Strategic Planning Models and Tools
Deep Dive D Resources