Guides and Rules of the Road 131at a higher level – the good of the company. He said he ap-
preciated David’s intention of caution and seeing how the
software sold, but he also had the good of the company at
heart in a different way. David agreed, but didn’t change.
Becoming increasingly desperate, Phil tried to go over
David’s head to a senior management level, but that did not
turn out at all well. David found out and relations deterio-
rated. David then started passing some of Phil’s ideas to a
friend in another department. His friend presented them to
his manager, who was much more open to innovation, but
politics did not allow Phil to take the credit, so his friend’s de-
partment flourished and Phil became increasingly unhappy.
All Phil’s actions were attempts to solve the problem in
single loop learning. He was not in a Roman law organiza-
tion, but David effectively held him in a Roman law trap. He
still felt boxed in.
Any of these strategies might have worked, but when
they did not, Phil started to question some of his assump-
tions. Could he be wrong? Were his ideas any good? They
seemed to be well received when put for ward in another
department. Was he hitting his head against a brick wall?
Phil was a very determined person and that determination
was his greatest resource in coming up with new ideas for
products – he would never give up until he could tweak
something to improve the software. Giving up seemed like
a failure of what he stood for. More thought brought him
to the conclusion that his greatest strength in the area of
software redesign was what was keeping him from moving
on. Determination had shifted to stubbornness while he
wasn’t looking. There are few if any good qualities that can-
not be a liability in the wrong context. Push a quality too
far and it turns sour.
Phil applied to transfer to another department. No luck.
Finally, he reluctantly resigned and joined another company
where his innovative talents were more highly valued. So
there was a happy ending, not before considerable wasted
effort. But you do not know an effort is wasted until you have
tried it, and usually you have to go around the single loop