The Law of Dynamic Conservatism

[FVoehl@aol.com]

In a message dated 6/5/0 12:43:58 AM, mtribus@home.com wrote:

<< Anyone who has tried to introduce a new idea into practice understands 
what group-think produces.  In my own lifetime I have been associated with 
the introduction of seven new ideas.  In every case, they were opposed by the 
existing "wisdom". >>

Many new ideas, such as the ones Myron describes, fail to account for the 
hard reality of *Dynamic Conservatism* which is a phenomenon labeled in the 
1960s by MIT professor Donald Schon.  His studies, which looked at 
corporations, the military, and civilian bureaucracies, found that the main 
problem was not inertia but a stronger and more pervasive force--the tendency 
to fight vigorously to remain stable.

All established social systems work very hard to survive.  They often, at a 
great cost, maintain their boundaries, work methods, and patterns of 
interaction and involvement.  The more they are pressed from the outside, the 
more they push back.  This need for social equilibrium is very strong and is f
requently self-reinforcing.  For many of us, this parallels the common 
biological perspective on what keeps organizations cohesive:  Namely, any 
tendency towards change is automatically met by the increased effectiveness 
of the factors that resist change.

Many organizational change agents make the mistake of writing off this 
phenomenon as simple resistance to change, which they feel can be overcome 
either by ignoring it and plowing straight ahead, by trying to pacify it with 
several well-crafted motivational speeches, or by a quick hitting series of 
team meetings.  In other words, psychological intelligence is seldom given 
the attention that financial manipulation receives, as evidenced by the 
latest push given the Six Sigma movement.  

CEOs tend to be an optimistic lot.  They have reached their positions of 
power with more successes than failures and feel competent in extrapolating 
from their own experiences to situations occurring around them.  However, few 
guidelines exist for defining how work is to be done, or performance is to be 
measured, and how careers will flow in these minimalist structures.  And 
almost never are ideas fleshed out about how to get from today's bureaucracy 
to tomorrow's hot-wired, information-based organization.  

I have found that there are many stimulating, positive attributes associated 
with the kind of futuristic thinking that abounds today.  Unfortunately, 
practicality is often not one of them.

Frank Voehl (FVoehl@aol.com)
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