Why the deepest obstacle to ownership, agency, and change may not be what leaders think it is
A leader is speaking about a change the organisation needs to make. The room is attentive. Nobody is openly obstructive. And yet the conversation begins to move in a familiar way, from the territory of judgment and responsibility toward clarification, process, and sequence.
Those are reasonable questions. But they do not always mean only what they appear to mean. Sometimes they mark the point at which responsibility starts edging back toward safety. The work has not yet become fully mine.
What relationship to work has this organisation actually cultivated in its people, and is that relationship capable of supporting what the organisation now says it needs?Dr Tiffany Gray
Most organisations now need people to exercise more judgment, respond to ambiguity, and take responsibility beyond narrow role descriptions. Yet many remain stuck with stalled transformation, procedural dependence, and the draining experience of restating the same expectations again and again.
The strategy may be sound. The communication may be careful. The structures may all be in place. Still, the work does not take hold. By the time accountability is being invoked, people have already decided how much of this is worth making their own.
How formal control breeds informal discretion. Why the same workaround can mean very different things. And the five tasks leaders must take on to shift their organisation's philosophy of work.
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