Personal mastery: Toward a learning organization

LAST week we presented five conditions for change to take place, whether related to our personal or work-world. These are, first, there are alternatives to replace what we wish to change. Second, there is the most promising alternative which is doable. The last two conditions, the alternative is beneficial and is non-threatening to those who want to change and to those related to the desired change. High power distance dominant in Filipino culture moved my class to suggest a fifth condition (which I actually find as a refinement of the fourth) that the preferred alternative is welcomed by a significant other/s. These refer to the higher-ups -- the bosses, owners or major stakeholders.

In such cultures, people accept as a fact of life that among them, there are those above the rank and file formally and informally -- who in many ways hold the future of the latter. Similarly applied in one’s personal world, a son accepts the change of degree program he enrols in upon encouragement from his favorite uncle (a significant other). In his Dance of Change, Peter Senge (et al. April 1999, p. 11), quotes what he captions as “the myth of the Hero-CEO” that “nothing will happen without top management buy-in.” In our language, this points to the critical importance of the significant other.