This website or its third-party tools use cookies which are necessary to its functioning and required to improve your experience. By clicking the consent button, you agree to allow the site to use, collect and/or store cookies.
Please click the consent button to view this website.
I accept
Deny cookies Go Back

Intelligent Management

Deming and Theory of Constraints for CEOs and Executive Teams for the Age of Complexity. Ess3ntial Critical Chain Project Management

  • Home
  • about us
    • the founders
    • Dr. Domenico Lepore
    • Intelligent Management Success Stories
    • Our Books
    • Clients
    • Expanding Spiral of Positive Systemic Results with Intelligent Management
  • Decalogue Methodology
    • Decalogue Methodology for Whole System Management
      • How to adopt systemic organization management
    • Management Must Evolve Fast – 15 Days to Radically Improve Company Performance
    • 10 Steps for Transformation
    • Systemic Organization Management
    • Resource Library for Systemic Management
    • Our Education Modules for Systemic Management
  • Contact
  • Our Whole System Blog
  • Intelligent Management Italia
You are here: Home / Systems Thinking / Change: Why Do We Find it So Tough?

Mar 15 2017

Change: Why Do We Find it So Tough?

IMG_4666

Spring is in the air (thought it may not feel like it in some places). Even such a welcome change can be hard going on our bodies because when seasons change we have to adapt to new temperatures. In this post, Dr. Domenico Lepore talks about Change, what drives us, and Vision. 

Constant change

It may seem ironic, but change is the most unchanging part of our existence:

• our pancreas replaces most of its cells every 24 hours

• the cells of our stomach lining are reproduced every 3 days

• our white blood cells are renewed in 10 days

• 98% of the protein in our brain is turned over in less than 1 month

• our skin replaces its cells at a rate of 100,000 cells/min

In spite of the constant flux we are in, we resent and resist change as a threat to our happiness. We might go so far as saying that human cognition has a very limited ability to cope with structural changes when it comes to learning. In fact, the ability that humans have to adapt to physical changes is far greater than our ability to adapt to mental changes.

We are all subject to mental models, i.e. the way we think about our world and the assumptions we make about it. Some of these are necessary for our survival. We need to believe that when we open the door of our house there is something solid outside and that we will not step out into an abyss. However, there are other assumptions that, when unchallenged, limit the way we perceive the world around us, and therefore, limit the kind of solutions and progress that we can make.

Conflicting drives and vision

We all have drives that shape how we learn and translate what we learn into consistent actions. These drives shape individuals as well as organizations, and they are responsible for the mental models that limit our perception.

We can only understand these drives if we pierce the outer layer of the self and we connect with the energy within. This energy, we can call it “life”, is what originates all of our faculties. Whether we look at this from a business, scientific, philosophical or religious perspective, the issue of our inner energy is central for any development in how we understand humans and change. These forces can be broadly divided in two main categories:

1)     purely physical drives

2)     the equally strong drive that humans have for meaning (transcendence)

Purely physical drives are connected with the primal fears that any individual brings with them. These forces trigger all those actions aimed at restraining our behaviors and they act on us in a way that makes us develop the need to control the environment we are in. The development of these forces is very heavily influenced by the way we experience the world, by the defining moments of our life and by the social and cultural fabric in which we develop our relationships. We need to harness and refine the forces that shape the fundamental need for control that is common to any person if we want to avoid being dominated by them.

On the other hand, the drive humans have for meaning, or transcendence is an innate desire that we all share to go beyond our current state and see ourselves projected into a different and greater dimension of existence. This is the reflection of an often untapped level of consciousness. This is what many call “soul”, i.e. that part of us that calls for new challenges and yearns for a higher level of spirituality and meaningfulness. We may call this vision. In the very same way in which we need to exert “bodily control” over our environment we also need to project a “soulful vision” of ourselves into the future if we are to live a fulfilling life.

In our next post, we will look further at the fundamental conflict regarding change that we may verbalize as Control vs. Vision.

This post was by Dr. Domenico Lepore and is an extract from his book ‘Sechel: Logic, Language and Tools to Manage Any Organization as a Network’. 

Sign up to our blog here and shift your thinking towards broader, systemic possibilities for yourself and your organization.

About the Author

Angela Montgomery Ph.D. is Partner and Co-founder of Intelligent Management,  founded by Dr. Domenico Lepore.  She is co-author with Dr. Domenico Lepore and Dr. Giovanni Siepe of  ‘Quality, Involvement, Flow: The Systemic Organization’  from CRC Press, New York. Angela’s new business novel+ website  The Human Constraint  looks at how the Deming approach and the Theory of Constraints can create the organization for our complex times, based on collaboration, network and social innovation.

Written by angela montgomery · Categorized: Systems Thinking, systems view of the world, Theory of Constraints · Tagged: change, conflict, control, vision

Search Form

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Sign up for our Blog and receive our White Paper ‘Out of the Crisis – A New Kind of Science for Management’

Sign up for our blog here to receive all our blog posts by e-mail.

Search Form

Recent Posts

  • Physics and Management: What You Must Understand to Lead and Manage Today April 15, 2021
  • Systems Thinking and Quantum Theory – Why We Need Them for Business April 8, 2021
  • How to Cope With Change: Understanding Cause and Effect March 26, 2021
  • Managing Change Effectively with a Systemic Framework and Method March 17, 2021
  • Decisions and Change – Thinking Processes for a Complex World March 10, 2021
  • Effective Decision-Making? Understand Your Driver Needs First March 6, 2021
  • Why Is Managing Change So Hard and How Can We Make it Easier? February 25, 2021
  • Creating Connections Between Company Functions – Back to Deming February 19, 2021
  • Human Resources – a New Perspective for Our Post-Pandemic World February 10, 2021
  • What’s Driving Profitability in Your Business and What Isn’t – How to Find Out February 3, 2021
  • Business, Politics, Wall Street: the Learning Organization and Our Interconnected Future January 29, 2021
  • What Does it Take to Be a Leader in Today’s Complex World? January 21, 2021
  • A New Economics for Sustainable Prosperity – Out of the Crisis Series Part 7 January 13, 2021
  • Identifying Assumptions to Unlock Innovation and Move Beyond the Crisis – Out of the Crisis Series Part 6 January 6, 2021
  • Learning to Think Systemically to Make Informed Decisions and Pre-empt a Crisis – Out of the Crisis Part 5 December 30, 2020

Social Icons

  • Facebook
  • Google+
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Archives

  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011

Recent Posts

  • Physics and Management: What You Must Understand to Lead and Manage Today April 15, 2021
  • Systems Thinking and Quantum Theory – Why We Need Them for Business April 8, 2021
  • How to Cope With Change: Understanding Cause and Effect March 26, 2021
  • Managing Change Effectively with a Systemic Framework and Method March 17, 2021
  • Decisions and Change – Thinking Processes for a Complex World March 10, 2021

Connect with us on LinkedIn and Twitter

  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Sign up for our blog

  • Home
  • Blog Theory of Constraints & Deming
  • Library
  • How to adopt systemic organization management
  • Knowledge Base for ‘The Human Constraint’
  • Contact Us

© 2020 Intelligent Management Inc. Canada

Privacy Policy