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I'm feeling a stream of consciousness twitter rant coming on. Ruminating about bureaucracy, culture, innovation, organizational change, and such things. Putting it out there because I'm wondering if other people are thinking these things or if I'm losing my mind. 1/
There's something that happens in large bureaucracies that's hard to pin down. There's this strong inertia that almost feels sometimes like a weight on my chest. It seems to relate to what we like to call culture, risk aversion and some other fun names. 2/
It's like a swirling vortex or black hole. It has a strong pull to it and it seems to bend peoples decisions towards a sort of pre-determined place. It's a complex mix of human interactions, emotions, preferences, biases. 3/
We try to simplify it in our minds, make sense of it, by pointing to this or that behaviour, this or that person, this or that rule or process. But it's almost like we're trying to make sense of something that can't be made sense of. 4/
I understand why we do this. If we stop and really think about the sort of complexity we're dealing with, it's easy to get frustrated and wonder if change is really possible. If we can't understand clearly the system in which we work, how can we affect change? 5/
Admittedly, I feel this frustration all the time. Every time I feel like I'm making a significant difference, I simultaneously feel the vortex sucking me back into the status quo. 6/
But interestingly, I'm not really worried about that. I think there are ways to influence positive change and we need to keep going. I think what worries me the most is sometimes the words and language we use doesn't do justice to the complexity of our reality. /7
I think what I'm hoping for most, is that we'll start to see a shift in the way we talk about innovation and organizational change. We'll stop pretending that it's enough to talk about "culture change" and "risk aversion" and pretend we just need this or that thing to change. 8/
I'm hopeful that people will stop and really think deeply about what's happening around them. Let's stop fooling ourselves into thinking we know best, or we have the solution or that it's so simple. It's not. It's messy, it's difficult, it's complex. 9/
Let's be humble and curious and thoughtful. Let's admit we're working in a really big organization where much of what happens is outside of our influence. And let's embrace these challenges honestly so we can start to work together to find real and meaningful solutions. 10/
OK I think I'll stop there. I don't really know where this came from. But if you made it this far, thanks for reading. And please let me know if any of this resonates. 11/11
