The Master’s Tools

The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.

- Audre Lorde

If the bosses genuinely wanted [insert aspirational slogan here] they would make it so.

If the bosses genuinely wanted to change their organisation - they would have done it.

Unless they were recruited from outside (which poses its own obstacles to change - see below) - the bosses became bosses by exploiting the organisation as it is.

The outfit is the way it is - good or bad - because the bosses want it that way.

The outfit rewarded the bosses by promoting them based on their contribution to the culture the organisation claims to want to change. The outfit recruited the external candidate thought best to make a change or maintain the status quo.

Having built careers that pay for their lifestyles and status on managing an organisation into whatever exceptionalism or malaise now afflict it, the bosses lack the skills and experience and tools to change it, even if they wanted to. So they maintain the status quo they inherited, affirmed them, and learned and profit from.

The new boss from outside will be opposed and undermined by the overlooked and aspirational and often bitter unsuccessful candidates for her job. Their future depends on them protecting the status quo because their ‘corporate knowledge’ is the only advantage they have. If the new boss changes the culture as the new boss intends to, they’ll be left with nothing. Some will switch sides. Others will white ant.

Sure, let’s look innovative and agile by saying we’re innovative and agile.

But at the end of the day - which was the same as yesterday and the day before that - the outfit is exactly the way the bosses want it to be.