![]() ![]() These categories of assumptions are the most common ones that Harper has observed and are not necessarily the only ones that exist. These are: one‐size‐fits‐all, management by lobotomy, act now think later, magic of the marquee, roller coaster, tin ear and lighthouse. She groups these assumptions into seven categories, which she calls hidden roadblocks. ![]() In developing her ideas for this book, Harper started to see her role as parallel to that of a traffic reporter, helping leaders to see the less apparent sources of problems, and partnering with them to plan the detours so they can achieve high performance results.Īccording to Harper, mistaken assumptions about organizational reality show up long before the visible signs of strategic gridlock. Harper began to see more and more parallels between traffic jams and the situations in organizations where the source of organizational jams is often far from where the problems occur. For example, in the New York City Metro area, where Harper lives, traffic reporters will frequently announce to listeners that “today is a gridlock alert day”, and signs on the expressway will post “gridlock alert” warnings so that drivers can plan detours before they get stuck in traffic jams. The “gridlock” metaphor came about from Harper's experiences with traffic gridlock, where the source of a jam is frequently miles away from the problem that is causing it to happen. In her book, Preventing strategic gridlock: leading over, under and around organizational jams to achieve high performance results, Harper shows why strategies and initiatives that looked good during planning end up mysteriously snarled in a tangled web of persistent organizational problems (“strategic gridlock”) during execution. Organizations often call for new strategies and initiatives when they face a crisis thereby acknowledging that those assumptions that once led them to growth and success are no longer in harmony with the reality of their changing environment. Organizations are built and run on assumptions that determine their behaviour, dictate their decisions and define what they consider to be meaningful results. Copyright © 2004, Emerald Group Publishing Limited ![]()
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