Adaptive Leadership: The Heifetz Collection (3 Items)

18 Introduction: Purpose and Possibility

Suppose you take it upon yourself to regularly point out the gap

between the company’s stated value of transparency and the reality

that most people in the organization tightly control the flow of infor-

mation. You are not likely to be rewarded or greeted with applause for

identifying this disconnect, particularly by those who benefit from con-

trolling information. Clearly, the system as a whole has decided to live

with the gap between the espoused value and the current reality, the

value-in-practice. Closing that gap would be more painful to the domi-

nant coalition than living with it.

The importance of this idea lies in the impact it has on the tech-

niques for trying to address the problem. Embarrassing ...