Nearly six years ago I blogged about Gordon MacKenzie's awesome book, Orbiting the Giant Hairball. It is such an amazing book, I wanted to draw attention to it again. The title comes from MacKenzie's idea that organizations and bureaucracies are like giant hairballs. They are messy and confusing and can trap creative souls in their minutiae. This makes us want to break free, but if we break completely free, we end up losing the potential of the power and resources that are trapped in the hairball (and those resources adn that power are both significant). His answer is to maintain a healthy orbit around the hairball. Stay connected enough to be engaged, but disconnected enough (in orbit) not to be consumed by its hairiness.
I think this is an important lesson to remember. We all want change in whatever system we happen to be a part of. And over time, we all develop our answers about what change is needed. So once we articulate that answer, what do we do with it? One choice is to stay completely mired within the system as we work for change, at which point we often modify the details of our answer so it will make more sense to our fellow hairball dwellers. Unfortunately, this leads to our answer turning into the hairball's answer, and the result is typically no more than relatively minor tweaks to the status quo (think traditional strategic planning).
Or, we can rip ourselves away from the hairball and craft an elegant solution to the problem that we then hurl at the hairball hoping the inhabitants will grasp it. We have to develop the answer on our own, mostly, since those ugly hairball-dwellers "don't get it." Typically, these elegant solutions skip off of the outer atmosphere of the hairball and hurtle through space for eternity (think whining on a listserv or an industry blog).
Making points is good, and sharing your thinking and insights are also good. (How could I say otherwise as a blogger!?) But that is not the same as change, and if you want change you are going to have to engage with the people in the system that needs the change. More importantly, you are probably going to have to engage with people who don't see it the way you do–and don't need to. At least not fully. Change is not about everyone agreeing on the right answer. Change is about negotiating and inspiring new behavior, so it's okay for them to come at it from their perspective, as long as we end up with the new behavior.
I am wondering if this skill hasn't been in atrophy in our society–the ability to actually work with people who see things differently (rather than trying to convince them to see it our way first). Personally, I think the organizations that will be successful, even in the short term, will be the ones who figure this one out.