Please EVERY leader and manager read this…….. where the ”excuse” is less obvious if you are a part of it……when you work as a consultant as I do and walk into the business from an unbiased outside view, there are many truths/excuses that are very obvious. Great read.
Excerpt………However, around these kernels of truth, managers build concentric circles of excuses that absolve them of accountability for change or improvement. So instead of finding creative ways to deal with regulations or budget cuts, they accept the status quo and blame external conditions for the problems that exist.
This phenomenon — which one of my clients has dubbed “learned helplessness” — has the power to permeate the culture of an organization. Like a spreading infection, managers pass on learned helplessness from group to group and level to level. Eventually the standard response to any initiative is some variation of, “We’d love to do that, but we really can’t.”
Read full article…..via Learned Helplessness in Organizations – Ron Ashkenas – Harvard Business Review.
