Practicing a discipline is different from emulating “a model.” All too often, new management innovations are described in terms of the “best practices” of so-called leading firms. While interesting, I believe such descriptions can often do more harm than good, leading to piecemeal copying and playing catch-up. I do not believe great’ organizations have ever been built by trying to emulate another, any more than individual greatness is achieved by trying to copy another great person.”

The Learning Disabilities and Our Ways of Thinking

Ÿ  Because they “become their position,” people do not see how their actions affect the other positions.

Ÿ  Consequently, when problems arise, they quickly blame each other—“the enemy” becomes the players at the other positions, or even the customers.

Ÿ  When they get “proactive” and place more orders, they make matters worse.

Ÿ  Because their overordering builds up gradually, they don’t realize the direness of their situation until it’s too late.

Ÿ  By and large, they don’t learn from their experience because the most important consequences of their actions occur elsewhere in the system, eventually coming back to create the very problems they blame on others.”

Ÿ  The “teams” running the different positions (usually there are two or three individuals at each position) become consumed with blaming the other players for their problems, precluding any opportunity to learn from each others’ experience.

1. Structure Influences Behavior

Different people in the same structure tend to produce qualitatively similar results. When there are problems, or performance fails to live up to what is intended, it is easy to find someone or something to blame. But, more often than we realize, systems cause their own crises, not external forces or individuals’ mistakes.

2. Structure in Human Systems is Subtle

We tend to think of “structure” as external constraints on the individual. But, structure in complex living systems, such as the “structure” of the multiple “systems” in a human body (for example, the cardiovascular and neuromuscular) means the basic interrelationships that control behavior. In human systems, structure includes how people make decisions-the “operating policies” whereby we translate perceptions, goals, rules, and norms into actions.

3. Leverage Often Comes from New Ways of Thinking

In human systems, people often have potential leverage that they do not exercise because they focus only on their own decisions and ignore how their decisions affect others. In the beer game, players have it in their power to eliminate the extreme instabilities that invariably occur, but they fail to do so because they do not understand how they are creating the instability in the first place.