Degeneration and Transition
Stage-6: Imaginist
The EMPIRICIST →IMAGINIST transition involves a personalization of work activity. The new way of thinking is commonly mislabeled as feminine, and misconceived or even mocked by pragmatic managers oriented solely to the bottom-line.
The imaginist ethos can degenerate: the biggest difficulty being to separate and find a balance between the person and the organization.
Harness aspirations degenerates into Cloud-cuckoo land.
i.e. ►
Shared aspirations can neglect or even negate crucial individual qualities, while personal aspirations can deny or run counter to organizational realities; both forms can be no more than a path to an unreal land of infinite possibilities.
Activate potential degenerates into Idiosyncrasy.
i.e. ►
The activation of inner potential can all too easily produce idiosyncratic visions that can never coalesce to form a shared vision. Small groups, especially if they contain a visionary leader, may form a counter-culture, or cohere by defining enemies elsewhere in the organization, or plan to secede.
Deepen relationships degenerates into Inappropriate intimacy.
i.e. ►
A focus on deepening relationships may lead to inappropriate intimacy and intrusions into privacy. Engagement with emotional complexes and psychological difficulties can inappropriately intrude into meetings and spill over into work.
Adapt to needs degenerates into Over-involvement.
i.e. ►
The emphasis on adapting to needs may produce psychological enmeshment and over-tolerance. Sometimes managers recruit clones so that relating and adapting in teams is easy: but then both inquiry and creativity are weakened.
Sensitize to feelings degenerates into Emotional quagmires.
i.e. ►
The directed inner exploration and sensitivity to feelings, instead of releasing creative potential and commitment, can deteriorate into wallowing in quagmires of emotion.
Foster self-actualization degenerates into Malignant narcissism.
i.e. ►
The encouragement of personal growth is all too easily distorted into narcissistic self-aggrandizement and self-absorption, to the neglect of the real work
Become self-aware degenerates into Smug arrogance.
i.e. ►
The person who has become self-aware can recognize what others are feeling and thinking rather easily, and is therefore in danger of smug arrogance and superiority, or inappropriate hypersensitivity.
Which Mode Next?
Activation of awareness and the imagination will heighten sensitivity to significant forces (technological, demographic, political &c.) that exist within the organization and without. The Systemicist Mode claims to take such things, indeed . In any case, systemicist is the last mode, and so it is the only move possible.
But it is a big move: Why?
Till now, the transition empiricist mode → imaginist mode has been the biggest leap so far on the Y-axis, moving from the impersonal zone to the personal zone. The imaginist mode → systemicist mode requires a similarly large move, but on the X-axis: from the assistance zone to the transformation zone.
There are two pressures encouraging this leap.
Validation of Innovative Proposals
Creative solutions often go beyond existing data and may require changes that extend or challenge the organization's identity. These demand additional reality testing of the type only provided by systems thinking. «Modelling scenarios» is to future identity as «getting information» is to developing plans.
Social Integration
Society penetrates all organizations, because employees also have roles as consumers, tax-payers, citizens, parents &c. So, at this Stage, it will seem no more than common sense to respond to and to shape the social environment fairly. Wider society is, after all, the source of customers, creditors, resources, investors, future employees, new ideas and everything else.
Prepare for a Radical Shift in Thinking
Managing the inter-connection between the organization and its environment requires a systems perspective, with a focus on the interaction of relevant forces and factors within and without the organization.
This is a radical shift in thinking because it moves from linear cause-effect links (A → B) to systemic or circular causation (A ↔ B), where every cause is an effect and every effect is a cause. e.g.
even if the source of difficulties seems quite disconnected—foreign dumping, high interest rates, fickle consumers—the most constructive way forward is to examine how the organization plays a part in the situation taken as a whole.
System solutions and strategic intervention are absolutely essential to deal with seemingly impossible situations, where whatever is done seems to perpetuate or worsen the mess.
We must know that reality is systemic, because we explain recurrent, unholy messes by saying: "it's the system." But it still feels strange to recognize and accept that you are responsible for whatever happens to you.
Fortunately, reflective intuition is naturally systemic, if we give it the chance.
► If you are a systemicist—and even if you are not—continue here.
Originally posted: 17-Jun-2011