Meet the New Silo, Same as the Old Silo

Some time ago an organization that I know underwent a drastic and dramatic change. Seems that their local branches became little silos independent of the organization as a whole. Seems that the local managers were running their own mini empires with almost little to no regard for the headquarters and the organization's mission and vision. Thus an immediate need for change was what had to happen.

Seems that with the local managers, taking a few words from Apocalypse Now:

"things get confused out there, power, ideals, the old morality, and practical military necessity. Out there with these natives it must be a temptation to be god. Because there's a conflict in every human heart between the rational and the irrational, between good and evil. The good does not always triumph. Sometimes the dark side overcomes what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature. Every man has got a breaking point. You and I have. Walter Kurtz has reached his. And very obviously, he has gone insane."

You could say that's exactly what happened to the local managers. They loved the power they had at their disposal. Once the command got ahold of this information, they deemed the local managers were "out there operating without any decent restraint. Totally beyond the pale of any acceptable human conduct. And [they are] still in the field commanding his [their] troops." Therefore they decided to terminate their command and "Terminate with extreme prejudice" they did.

After this purge, the organization felt confident that their troubles were over. It was just a matter of time before new silos were built. All that trouble to get rid of people and silos were built all over again. The management brought in new people to fill in the management positions that were vacated. They brought with them a value system that worked someplace else. At times, that value system seemed to be worse than what was being replaced.

Somehow, somewhere, somebody told these replacements that they were going out there to save the world. They were going to save everybody from themselves. Little did anybody know that their task went straight to their heads. No sooner had the past regime had been laid to rest that the new regime began erecting new silos.

Eventually, that regime went the way of the dinosaurs as well. It seems that in an effort to clean house all they were doing was replacing the old insanity with a new insanity.

The point of the story is that sometimes change for the sake of change, while necessary, is no change at all. This is especially so when what is being changed is people and not the value system. Changing the value system is certainly something that can be done with "extreme prejudice" but it has to be done with people that are already living the NEW set of values the organization is demanding.