Systems thinking requires management to “get knowledge” or use measures and context to understand what to do.  Getting to the point where making decisions is a product of both common and uncommon sense.  It is those counter-intuitive moments of uncommon sense that can be breakthroughs for businesses.  But to get there management has to be in the work.

And so fear, anxiety and gnashing of teeth presents a big obstacle.  Sometimes you wonder how these wimps made it into management.  By education?  Or maybe by blood?  After all, by the third generation that acorn becomes a nut.  Well, that is one theory.

Another theory is the need to hide in caves maybe in our ancestry there were cave dwellers.  The closest thing today is the office or meeting room where management hides themselves as they ponder the important decisions.  Arguing over lobster or steak, tennis or golf, or possibly how to manipulate the system to achieve this month’s financial target.

Yet another theory is that management will lose the enigma of being management . . .  that position in the hierarchy.  “I can’t be in the work or I’ll wind up looking stupid like the CEOs in Undercover Boss.”  CEOs always get fired for the inability to do the job in that show.

The funny thing is that wokers are forgiving in as much as management isn’t  The surprise of seeing a manager trying to understand what that entrapping information technology did to them when it was forced down their throat is almost always welcomed by the worker.  With skepticism . . . yes, but only because management showed up last time right before the last RIF, new productivity target or appraisal system.  You can’t help but flinch a little when management shows up.

Management and worker alike have every reason to be nervous.  So, take a “tranqui” as in tranquilizer,  swallow hard and show up.  20 minutes into the work and both manager and worker will be talking about what prevents achieving customer purpose.  All those hand-offs, scripts, IT, etc. (and the list is long), prevent the absorption of variety, wreck culture, increase costs and destroy value.

So, suck it up management.  Your chariot awaits, Cinderella’s slipper and the brass ring aren’t hidden in those mounds of data, the board room or your office.  They are right where customers seek value . . . with the worker and the work.

Leave me a comment. . . share your opinion!  Click on comments below.

Make the new decade a profitable and rewarding one, start a new path here.  Download free from www.newsystemsthinking.com “Understanding Your Organization as a System” and gain knowledge of systems thinking or contact us about how to get started at tripp@newsystemsthinking.com.  Reach him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/TriBabbittor LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/trippbabbitt.

Tripp Babbitt is a columist (Quality Digest and IQPC), speaker, and consultant to private and public service industry.