Kanban Change Leadership: Creating a Culture of Continuous Improvement

9 ENVIRONMENTS AND SYSTEMS

So it seems that the failure of change is a part of daily business. What can be done against this? How can you best deal with the overwhelming number of change impulses? What will prevent your successful change management from becoming pure fate?

Let us take a little time to answer these questions. Ultimately, well-founded answers are not possible without the appropriate research. “There is nothing more practical than a good theory,” said change pioneer Kurt Lewin [1], so let us try to establish our change management on a solid basis. In the systemic worldview, the crucial question concerning successful change management points to your own perception of the organization. What is my understanding of what I want to change? What is an organization, anyway?

When we talk about organizations on a day-to-day basis, we seem to know precisely what we mean: we think of a political institution such as a ministry or the headquarters of a political party, of companies such as Shell or BMW, or of social profit organizations such as Caritas and Greenpeace. According to the consultancy duo Königswieser and Hillebrand [2], we have understood very little about organizations if we reduce them to buildings or brands. Can an organization be perceived so simply? Are we in an organization when we go through the building’s door or when we sign an employment contract? What about when all the employees have gone home in the evening? Have they taken the organization with ...