MESSING  UP  CHANGE

The effort to introduce something new into a complex organisational context can be undermined for a variety of reasons, of which two are prominent:

• there are those that will find an excuse for not being able to introduce it (e.g. not following procedure). Henry Ford described experts as people who find a reason why something cannot be done.
• there is lack of top management commitment to support the new venture (e.g. providing leadership). So when the status quo collapses in on itself, who is there to prevent desertion?

Change is an intrinsic feature of organisational success. Complacency the route to extinction.

read my working paper "ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE REVISITED" written in 2003.

Communities of collaboration

'Communities of collaboration' offers a useful metaphor to explain the manner in which people with, perhaps not obvious commonality, can organise themselves to achieve, not only a goal, but by sustaining their ongoing viability, achieve a succession of goals. A good example is a destination marketing organisation, of which, a good exemplar is HolidayMull.