Conversations: Change the Conversation - Change the Culture

hese strengths cannot take root and flourish within a management strategy committed to control, consistency and compliance as the "primary" way to run things. The heavy hand of demand simply will not create an organization marked by resourcefulness, inventiveness or imagination. Conversations that direct, mandate, caretake and prescribe discourage people from choosing personal accountability. A few deciding for the many while holding people accountable, mandating programs, doing performance reviews and crafting corporate visions � all come up short. They fail to invite people to offer the passion, artistry and dexterity necessary to succeed.

If we want to give birth to a workplace marked by imagination, inventiveness and accountability in serving customers we must, at the very least, do three things. First, we must engage people in radically different ways; second, forsake our utilitarian thinking about managing in favor of inviting engagement as the means of creating change; and finally, let loose the reins of power committing to a broader and deeper distribution of business literacy, choice and accountability throughout the workplace.

To move in this direction requires that we change our conversations. Changing the conversations is the single most powerful tool we have to take concrete action.

(continue) Commitments