The Path of Least Resistance for Managers

"Successful and unsuccessful organizations both follow a path of least resistance."

"The consequences of success in an advancing organization are radically different from success in an oscillating organization."

"This principle of structural tension?knowing what we want to create and knowing where we are in relationship to our goals?is the most powerful force an organization can have. "

"Tension, as a dynamic force, seeks resolution."

"The more consciously an organization can use structural tension, the more it can control its own destiny."

"Goals, Current Reality, Action Steps."

"We will divide and think."

"In structural conflicts, as one competing tension-resolution system moves toward resolution, the other tension-resolution system becomes dominant."

"It's better to rethink and redesign the organization than try to problem solve it."

"An increased workload does not often lead to new and inventive procedures for two reasons."

"Most organizations haphazardly set up their sales growth goals independently from their capacity to serve their customers."

"Investment conflicts with cutting costs."

"The structural conflict between decentralization and centralization determine an organization's behavior more than all the words and good thoughts in the world."

"Either change or continuity can predominate, but they cannot be equal."

"The difficulty with talking about the organization's purpose is that it mostly exists on some level that's beyond words."

"The business strategy answers the question, How does the organization generate wealth or its own viability?"

"Seeing patterns and trends provides us with insight about cause and effect and about the consequences of the actions we have taken, are taking, or might take in the future."

"An organization with a shared vision is a power to be reckoned with."

"We know great teams by the spirit they express, the level of aspirations they have, and the values they live by."