Sufi metaphor
Some blind men found an elephant:
The first, holding onto one leg, said: "It's like a column."
"It's a big thing, rough and long like a carpet," said the second while touching his ear.
"No, it's like a big barrel" said another, touching his belly.
The last one, grabbing his trunk, shouted: “I have the truth. It is a straight and hollow tube ”.
Each one reasoned according to what he played. Are these blind men very different from the managers of many companies, the administrative director, the marketing director, the production director, the research director…? Neither sees clearly the interplay between problems and company policies. The Sufi story ends with this conclusion:
In this way, these people will never know what an elephant is like. Without a systemic perspective, we will not know how the current crisis process works.
If we cut an elephant into four pieces, we do not have four small elephants, we have a dead elephant in pieces. If we divide a process into parts, there is no systemic Management, systemic Management cannot be performed by perceiving only a fragment of the process, for example the deficit, if we do not face the process in its entirety we will not have growth or job creation that they require, in addition to savings, other stimuli with reforms, regulations and adequate financing.
Purpose of systemic Management and its applications
In 2012, we continue to experience a global systemic crisis. Organizations, especially companies, do not escape this… and within them, a learning crisis has also been generated that causes a lack of productivity and, especially, of sustainability. Crises send us to changes and opportunities. The most advanced techniques of traditional Management have failed to take advantage of the opportunities, especially due to their fragmentation. And, on the other hand, they have destroyed, -something that we have verified experimentally-, many organizations, employment, many people both in education and in industry, services, agriculture and in Public Administrations.
Fortunately, many politicians and managers have become aware that openness to learning about new realities enables us to capitalize on moments of these characteristics.
With systemic management, organizations can reinforce their productivity, find the motivation of the people who constitute them, increase their self-esteem and the joy of learning. Thus, they may be able to face difficulties and, above all, start the process of achieving their personal goals aligned with those shared by the organization. This is the essential prototypical application of Systemic Management.
Systemic Management shows us that personal learning is essential. But not enough for organizations to learn to generate the change they need. Individuals can constantly learn and yet there is no organizational learning. For this it is necessary that the teams learn.
If teams learn, they are like microorganisms that transfer learning throughout the organization. In this way, organizations become agents of their own changes and are capable of managing any type of crisis, recognizing threats, discovering new opportunities, better managing employment both in terms of security and flexibility, and making them more sustainable.
This is the best way to manage the crisis we are experiencing and any other through systemic management and its prototypical applications.
