The salesman responded, "If we do we'll lose 30 percent of our
booking next month. In this business none of our competitors are
honest when they tell a customer when a new computer system will
arrive. If we tell the truth, our delivery times will be 50 percent
longer than what customers believe they will get from competitors."
"I don't care," was the president's response. "I simply don't
want to be part of an organization that sanctions lying, to our customers,
our vendors, or anyone else. Moreover, I believe that, over
time, we'll establish a reputation for reliability with our customers
that will win us more customers than we'll lose."
The exchange continued for more than an hour. At the end, the
group was together in support of telling the truth. The salesperson
knew that if bookings dropped off in the next month or two, the
other members of the team would not come screaming for his head.
And he and the rest had begun to develop a vision of building a new
reputation for honesty and reliability among their customers. This
session took place six years ago. In the intervening period, the firm
has prospered and established a preeminent position in its niche
market.
Once a shared vision starts to take root, you might think that game
playing and politics would take care of themselves, dissolved by the
mutual commitment behind the vision. Sadly, this view often turns out
to be naive. No matter how committed people are to a shared vision,
they still are steeped in the habits of game playing and still are
immersed in a highly politicized organizational climate. (Just because a
few people start to build a shared vision, the larger organization
does not immediately change.) If a vision is put into a highly
political environment it can easily get ground up into a political
objective: "Whose vision is this anyhow?" becomes more important
than the intrinsic merit of a vision. Openness is needed to "unlearn"
the habits of game playing that perpetuates internal politics.
But openness is a complex and subtle concept, which can be
understood only in light of the disciplines of working with mental
models and team learning.