The Big Picture

iecing lots of smaller pictures together inevitably delivers a big-picture view. And with a bigger picture, dangerous truths become less dangerous and even less true. "Many dangerous truths are just assumption bubbles that, once exposed, can be tested to see if they pop," says one federal official.

"When we don't talk about what we think we see, we build up assumptions that are way off base," says one executive. "We end up constructing a maze-everyone in their own part of the maze, no one going in the same direction, and no one understanding the bigger picture."

The picture here was drawn by one of the employees who report directly to this executive. Prior to the meeting in which the drawing was created, complaints by the participants centered exclusively on territorial maneuverings between organizations within an agency. There were accusations that other organizations were, as one participant put it, "stealing our resources, sabotaging our relationships with top management and downplaying our successes."

Here you see eight "mesas," on which stand different parts of the agency. "We are all so busy in our tug-of-war over resources, responsibilities, access to customers and information that we can't see that it is futile," says the creator of the drawing. "No one is going to win here. In fact, if one of us does win, it pulls the others off their mesas and their weight will pull us all down-we will all lose."

The picture was designed to show that managers who traditionally protected their jobs and their organizations by hoarding resources and hogging recognition are courting disaster. Yet most of them are blindly doing what they've always done. None is willing to take the first step and share resources, for fear the favor won't be returned. They stay trapped in a "you go first" standoff.

Most dangerous truths start out blaming someone else. But as genuine dialogue develops, every truth-teller's "white hat" status invariably fades due to a sobering realization that there is always more than one way to look at things. The villains who obstruct all your efforts at progress usually consider themselves trapped by other villains. Many federal employees believe they are oppressed, but oppression depends on your point of view.