From Fragmentation to Aligning

“We may not have time to do it right the first time, but we always have time to do it over.”   

This adage neatly makes the point that we rarely take the time to have certain important work conversations.  

Interestingly, while leaders are quite open to look at all sorts of reasons why things go wrong, they tend to avoid the area of actual work interactions.  The reason?  Organizations typically over-emphasize rules and regulations, trying to turn work for everyone into easily grasped routine (read efficient) procedures.  Unfortunately, this doesn’t allow for the generative work of spontaneous action, the emergence of new ideas or the ever-changing arrangement of suppliers, designers, service providers and clients needed to get things done.  People therefore may end up doing a bad job, caught between complying with the rules and what it really takes to get work done.  Easy to complain; difficult to address.

When led to see this dilemma, people ARE willing and able to engage in conversations they hardly ever talk about - how they work, organize, and interact with one another.  These conversations provide the context, processes, and practices to get work right.  In doing so, they ‘learn’ how to work in better alignment with each other.