But, truth be told, maintaining the right kind of managerial control requires balance. Managers won't always be able to set goals, provide information, and sit back. ... Too often, for example, a successful, smart, and polite organization will procrastinate when making a final decision because its managers enjoy debating the issues and have lost track of the need to actually make a decision. In such circumstances, a leader may have to "call the question" or make a unilateral decision. Such action should be the exception, though, not the rule.

OLD TENET: Manage change as an event and appeal to intellect.
NEW TENENT: Manage change as a campaign and appeal to feelings.
A metaphor for X-engineering may be a political campaign, one in which you must appeal to two populations: the intellectuals and the populists. Remember, X-engineering will involve work and business practice changes for thousands of people in many organizations. You may be able to convince a small number of managers within your own company and those of potential partner companies of the case for change - let's call this group the intellectuals. Your approach with this group will be to present the facts (the brutal reality I described earlier), set the business objectives, and achieve a balance of the partners' interests. But ... you have only just begun; you have not yet improved business performance. That will happen only as work changes.

The challenge here is to understand the concerns and even prejudices of the people who will be doing the real work involved in the change. For example, when faced with the necessity to communicate primarily through electronic processes, they may argue that only face-to-face contact works with customers. Or they may feel that their work is a craft, requiring their personal ... attention and not susceptible to automation. All this requires that you be very public about what you are doing and sensitive to broadly held beliefs. You can change these beliefs over time, but that may not come until people have experienced the new ways of doing work. If your X-engineering is properly focused, they will eventually see both the need for and the benefits of the changes.