Function Barrier
Maintaining the common vision  Lack of awareness of environment
 Too much concern for today
 Resistance to change

Lack of Awareness of Environment
There is a great danger of organisations losing contact with their 'market place'.

Out of touch with the real world, it is difficult for leadership to communicate a unifying vision. Staff become content, contentment leads to complacency and complacency results in profound deafness -they will not hear!

To overcome this barrier we recommend the use of surveys and data collection exercises in which the organisation reviews its environment.

Too Much Concern for Today
Those organisations which have today as their primary focus will also have difficulty in maintaining a common view of the future. When most or all of the energy goes into what we are doing now/have been doing for years, then it is likely that the organisation will begin to fragment. Each individual worker and department gets so concerned about their own limited area that they begin to ignore their colleagues and neglect communication and cooperation.

To overcome this tendency, joint development programmes which bring together groups or individuals who have stopped communicating are useful.

Look back at chart on the previous page and select one interface which you have marked negative. What initiative could you propose which would require these two sections of your organisation to cooperate?

Resistance to Change
For those people in organisations that are resistant to change there are a number of reasons for this, namely that in their mind:

Change = Compromise
Change = Cost
Change = Effort
Change = Criticism of the past/present.

People with these views will attempt to stop their ears to communications which involve change.

To overcome this resistance, there should be a systematic attempt to raise the level of discontent with the present, create an appealing, inspiring vision and point to simple first steps.