IS SYSTEMS THINKING A
HOLLOW RITUAL?
The Leader’s New Work: Building
Learning Organizations
Peter Senge
• Current Management System
– Let the leadership do the thinking
– Leadership by control
– Leadership by force of rewards or will
• What is needed is a System which:
– Depends on superior learning
– Can think at all levels not just the highest
LEARNING CATEGORIES
• ADAPTIVE
– Coping by responding to the environment
• GENERATIVE
– Expanding our capability, it is about creating
not just coping.
GENERATIVE LEARNING
• Different ways of looking at known
problems
• Grasping systemic source of problems not
just symptoms
• Leaders responsible for everyone’s learning
• Leader creates tension between where you
are and where you need to be.
NEW ROLES FOR LEADERS
•
DESIGNER
– Clarify visions, values and
purpose
– design policies, strategies
and structures
– Create learning processes
• TEACHER
– Help people gain insight
into current reality
• STEWARD
– Serve first
• Create opportunities for
people to contribute to
organizational purpose
NEW SKILLS
•
•
BUILDING SHARED VISIONS
SURFACING AND TESTING
MENTAL MODELS
– Leaps of abstraction
– balancing inquiry and advocacy
– Distinguishing theory from
application
– Recognizing defensive routines
• SYSTEMS THINKING
– Seeing Relationships, moving
beyond blame, distinguishing
types of complexity, focus on
right areas, and avoiding
symptomatic solutions
The Many Faces of the Corporate Code
Lisa H. Newton
• A code must meet three specifications
– Creation through participation
– Must be consistent with general ethical
principles and dictates of conscience (respect
for individual, commitment to justice, sensitive
to rights of all affected) validity
– Must reflect the actions of senior managers
and leaders. authentic
CODES FAIL WHEN
• They are created in a vacuum
• Do not seem valid to those asked
follow them
• Do not seem authentic
Managing for Organizational Integrity
Lynn Sharp Paine
• CLEAR AND PRESENT NEED FOR CORPORATE
CODE OF ETHICS
– Business is perceived as incapable of ethical
conduct
– Market requires efficiency not ethics
– Board of Directors and top management
responsible for balancing conflicting demands
WHY CODES ARE VIEWED AS
VIABLE
•
•
•
•
Academic skepticism
View as created by a power elite
Subject to bias of senior officers
Rules to not apply to those at the top
CREATION OF CODES THAT
WORK
• PRINCIPLE OF
PARTICIPATION
– Developed through
maximum involvement
• PRINCIPLE OF VALIDITY
– Must be consistent with
accepted dictates of
conscience
• PRINCIPLE OF
AUTHENTICITY
– Code must be followed
by senior management
MANAGING FOR ORGANIZATIONAL
INTEGRITY
Lynn Sharp Paine
• COMPLIANCE BASED CODES OF
ETHICS
– Use legal compliance as the standard. This
mark is to low
– Compliance overemphasizes the threat of
detection and punishment but does not foster
moral discipline
Hallmarks of an Effective Integrity
Strategy
• Guiding values make sense
• Senior leaders are committed, credible and
willing to take action
• Values are integrated into culture
• Company systems and structures reinforce
values
• Managers have the skills and ability to
make ethical daily decisions
• Note Page 538 for difference in
compliance and integrity