Jeffrey Pfeffer, in his great book “The 7 Rules of Power” declares that “success excuses (almost) everything.” Success also determines which stories about the origins of that success get told and which headlines are buried. This makes it all but impossible to know the real causes for why things worked out the way they did, inhibiting learning.
Rita, again you provide a timely reminder of many lessons we fail to learn from. I greatly worry over the growing reliance on the "business case" within corporations to validate new technologies and their decisions. These take time to "construct", time to validate and are so often, not that relevant to the ones yet to invest
The belief in the decision, the focus on building out gets constrained. So often the executive "hides behind the business case".
It is getting unhealthy and actually defensive? Any thoughts?
Rita, I would say "incomplete lessons" as opposed to "wrong lessons" because even with the above perspectives the decline of Kodak can never be fully explained. Obviously, there is much more to it. As a practitioner with academic inclinations, I find that we are often constrained in seeing the picture in totality because of our positivistic tendencies (in thinking as well as research), which invariably means that we are wedded to a certain point of view in our analyses and interpretations. And because of the context-dependent and complex nature of organisations and management, that is rarely as gainful as we would like to believe.
My 2 cents with due appreciation for all the fantastic work you are doing...
Incomplete is a better nuance - although it doesn't make as good a headline. Thank you for the comment. Warmly, Rita
Rita, again you provide a timely reminder of many lessons we fail to learn from. I greatly worry over the growing reliance on the "business case" within corporations to validate new technologies and their decisions. These take time to "construct", time to validate and are so often, not that relevant to the ones yet to invest
The belief in the decision, the focus on building out gets constrained. So often the executive "hides behind the business case".
It is getting unhealthy and actually defensive? Any thoughts?
Rita, I would say "incomplete lessons" as opposed to "wrong lessons" because even with the above perspectives the decline of Kodak can never be fully explained. Obviously, there is much more to it. As a practitioner with academic inclinations, I find that we are often constrained in seeing the picture in totality because of our positivistic tendencies (in thinking as well as research), which invariably means that we are wedded to a certain point of view in our analyses and interpretations. And because of the context-dependent and complex nature of organisations and management, that is rarely as gainful as we would like to believe.
My 2 cents with due appreciation for all the fantastic work you are doing...