Stone Circles

Nynke June 22nd, 2006

I noticed the following patterns in a multinational mammoth:

Atrophied emotional skills and some mistakes being made over and over again.

The worst case scenario I could come up with for this context was:

• Atrofied emotional skills leading to stifling of self, life and others, resulting in lack of effective communication and unmet expectations from upper management, as upper management sets unattainable objectives, then avoids being challenged with the needs of self, life, and others that were overlooked.
• Executive management will not hold themselves accountable, and as a result, upper management can and will not walk talk and talk walk.
• This then could mean upper management will not take responsibility and the company becomes a headless body and upper management a mad stakeholder, using budgets for powerplays more than for useful resource distribution for moving forward.
• History gets written by conquerers. Retrospectives are not done. Questions not asked. By all means, let’s not include other people’s experiences in history. Our denial wouldn’t work if we do.
• And that’s not where it stops: Middle management experiences lack of influence, and lack of possibilities for career advancement, for the gap between management and upper management becomes too large. Creative and ambitious people wanting to actually solve some problems and enjoy being good at what they do, start voting with their feet.
• For everybody in this system that doesn’t walk away, will end up with low self esteem.

Can this spiral be turned around?

I am using my wild imagination for a best case scenario that might turn this spiral around:

• Upper management makes space for gathering necessary and sufficient data and resources. As in, there are a few bright ones that take responsibility. Retrospectives can be a useful tool for that. Transparent measurements too. Get creative!
• Then more space is made for gathering more useful feedback, like for increasing (potential) customer satisfaction, heading off competition, keeping investors and shareholders happy too, for anticipating changes, and for (more) learning from each other’s mistakes. This is where scenario planning could come in.
• Upper management is now heard and seen in that created space, and learns about the importance of adequate training, offering challenging work to high performers ready to rock, the importance of fair compensation, and about respect. Upper management is heard and seen walking their talk and talking their walk.
• This effectively makes for trust connections between executive management and their bodies, and with joy executives find opportunities for participation and empowerment of others, by which they themselves become less overloaded. A bit of wishful thinking does not truly harm, especially when it is a beautiful wish for expansive professional optimism. :-)))
• The big gain follows: The gestalt of this organization becomes a continuous learner, so do its people, and as a whole, it becomes very attractive to other high performers.
• Everybody in this system can end up with high self esteem. Golly! Let’s make some stories with happy endings!!!

Or something like that. I’m a fool, I know.
Let us not have Mammoths go extinct this time.
Save the Multinational Mammoths!

I made this spiral.
You can also have a look at Sylvia Ho’s spiral
What is the origin of life?
This woman rocks!

Also, there’s this wonderful article
Are You a Fender?
by Rick Brenner

best case, multinational mammoth, rock, spirals, worst case

• cycles and spirals