Practicing Organization Development: A Guide for Leading Change: A Third Edition

FROM SYSTEM BLINDNESS TO SYSTEM SIGHT

Back in the 1980s, I had been experimenting with a variety of organizational simulations as part of management education programs; the model I used most frequently had an organization composed of Tops, Middles, and Bottoms interacting with Customers and potential Customers (see Figure 32.1). In these exercises, people were randomly assigned to their positions. This random assignment is a key point.

As part of each exercise, we would ask people to describe what life was like for them in their parts of the system—what issues they were dealing with, what feelings they had—and to describe how they saw other parts of the system.

At the time I was less focused on theory development than on creating engaging ...