Management causality mapping

Disciplines > Change Management > Creating change > Management causality mapping

Method | Discussion | See also

Method

Get a management team to understand the effect that it is having on itself and the organization by linking together causes and effects, in particular how thoughts and choices lead to visible behaviors and consequent results.

Here is a basic mapping that can be used. You can also get more complex (depending on what the team is ready to accept). A good sequence that minimizes resistance is as follows:

1. What the organization and my people say and do.
2. What thinking and choosing leads them to this.
3. What we as a management team say and do (is this the same as our people?)
4. Our methods of thinking and choosing that lead to our actions and words.

Pause here to reflect on discuss how what we say and do affects what the people in the organization say and do.

Next it is time to get personal:

5. What I say and do.
6. How I think and choose that leads to what I say and do.

When it is realized how dysfunctional current thinking and behavior is, you can then move to discussing how these should change.

Discussion

This process is based first on the following simple model, that what people say and do is based on what they think and choose.

The extension to this (in the dotted lines in the first diagram) is that what people think and choose is based on what other people say and do, in particular significant others such as managers, friends and social leaders.

If this pattern of cause and effect can be identified, then plans can be made to change it. This has a circular effect, as in the Betari Box, where we all change how we think and choose based on what others say and do. However, in organizations, this is more linear in the way that What management teams think and choose has a significant and causal effect on what others in the organisation think and choose and hence say and do. By changing at a deep level themselves first, managers can change the culture of the organization.

See also

The Betari Box, Values, Preferences, Beliefs, Schema, Culture