Practical Constraints—Resistance is?Futile

A lit-tle change, reor-ga-ni-za-tion and opti-miza-tion has not been enough for a long time now. Today, trans-for-ma-tion is the name of the game. Trans-for-ma-tions are there-fore every-where, in many forms and shades. A dig-i-tal trans-for-ma-tion for the busi-ness mod-el, because data is sup-posed to be the new oil. An agile trans-for-ma-tion for the orga-ni-za-tion because of its flex-i-bil-i-ty and speed in times of great com-plex-i-ty and uncer-tain-ty. A cul-tur-al trans-for-ma-tion, because self-orga-ni-za-tion and cre-ativ-i-ty sim-ply won’t thrive in stale cor-po-rate cul-tures.

How-ev-er, there are worlds between the equal-ly jus-ti-fied and rad-i-cal aspi-ra-tions of these endeav-ors and the drea-ry real-i-ty. Instead of the grace-ful but-ter-fly that was hoped for after the trans-for-ma-tion, the unat-trac-tive cater-pil-lar turns into a some-what more col-or-ful cater-pil-lar, dis-ori-ent-ed and exhaust-ed by the unsuc-cess-ful the-ater of trans-for-ma-tion.

After all, we are not Spo-ti-fy, they say, when the lofty aspi-ra-tions of trans-for-ma-tion meet the dull every-day life of a cor-po-ra-tion. Exact-ly! And that is pre-cise-ly the point. But the objec-tion actu-al-ly means some-thing com-plete-ly dif-fer-ent: We will nev-er be Spo-ti-fy, we don’t even want to be, and we have a thou-sand good rea-sons for that.

Fric-tion with these prac-ti-cal con-straints is nec-es-sar-i-ly part of every trans-for-ma-tion. The ques-tion is there-fore only who will be exhaust-ed first and what will wear out first. In most cas-es, it is not the con-straints. The word alone sug-gests immutabil-i-ty. A prac-ti-cal con-straint is log-i-cal-ly found-ed in the mat-ter at hand, was always this way and will always remain this way. There is no doubt about it.

Of course, the Man-i-festo for Agile Soft-ware Devel-op-ment says “Work-ing soft-ware over com-pre-hen-sive doc-u-men-ta-tion”, but we absolute-ly must have these hun-dred dif-fer-ent arti-facts for our devel-op-ment process. After all, we are not Spo-ti-fy! And “Indi-vid-u-als and inter-ac-tions over process-es and tools” is some-thing we have under-stood in prin-ci-ple, but weabsolute-ly require these 42 roles and are there-fore glad that we can map them so well in SAFe. After all, we are not Spo-ti-fy! I believe in agili-ty and dig-i-tal-iza-tion, but please do not touch my lit-tle silo and my role as boss. After all, we are not Spo-ti-fy!

We are the Borg. Low-er your shields and sur-ren-der your ships. We will add your bio-log-i-cal and tech-no-log-i-cal dis-tinc-tive-ness to our own. Your cul-ture will adapt to ser-vice us. Resis-tance is futile.

?

Star Trek: First Con-tact

In this way any trans-for-ma-tion can be dilut-ed. The new is sim-ply some-how amal-ga-mat-ed with the col-lec-tive with-out chang-ing very much. The trans-for-ma-tion itself is trans-formed and its pro-tag-o-nists are either assim-i-lat-ed or repelled. Resis-tance is futile.

But with-out fric-tion with the sta-tus quo, there is no real trans-for-ma-tion. It may seem crazy and not very con-ducive to your career to ques-tion or reject con-straints, but that’s what it’s all about. It’s about per-sis-tent-ly pur-su-ing the vision and see-ing and think-ing things dif-fer-ent-ly than the con-straints dic-tate. Every prac-ti-cal con-straint brought into the field is thus an oppor-tu-ni-ty to push the trans-for-ma-tion for-ward a lit-tle. Be brave, be rad-i-cal.

Here’s to the crazy ones.

The mis-fits.

The rebels.

The trou-ble-mak-ers.

The round pegs in the square holes.

The ones who see things dif-fer-ent-ly.

They’re not fond of rules.

And they have no respect for the sta-tus quo.

You can quote them, dis-agree with them, glo-ri-fy or vil-i-fy them.

But the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.

Because they change things.

They push the human race for-ward.

And while some may see them as the crazy ones,

We see genius.

Because the peo-ple who are crazy enough to think

they can change the world,

Are the ones who do.

Think dif-fer-ent, Apple, 1997

Originally published at https://fuehrung-erfahren.de on October 12, 2020.