This hits very close to home for my office environment:
http://www.agilemanagement.net/Articles/Weblog/LessonsLearnedfromEli2.html
Resistance to Change
Eli Goldratt described some of the reasons why people resist change and what it is about the culture of an organization which create the environment which molds such people. I realized as he was describing it that he was talking about what Jerry Weinberg has described as Level 1 and Level 2 organizations - the hero developer level and the hero manager level. The hero is cast in the role of firefighter and they are the hero because they deliver. They deliver by putting out fires. As a result they are rewarded for putting out fires and praised and admired by their colleagues as a champion firefighter. The more fires, the better practiced they become at putting them out and the more admired they become for putting them out. As a result, they measure their self-esteem by the prowess at putting out fires.
Hence, the hero firefighter learns to thrive on chaos. Chaos is the norm in the organization and the hero is the master of chaos. The one who parts the seas and delivers the team from the perils of chaos and delivery of non-conformant quality.
A hero does not want to move to a controlled state because their self-esteem will drop as they are no longer praised for being a hero. A controlled organization is one that no longer needs heroes!
What is the injection which solves the core conflict here? The senior management must start to reward people for behavior which is congruent with controlled performance and they must build self-esteem around that behavior. The heroes must be coached and assisted to adapt to a new pattern of behavior - one which anticipates and absorbs uncertainty rather than one which heroically reacts to it.
3:35:16 PM 
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