One of the seminal texts of Human Systems Change is The Social Psychology of Organizations by Daniel Katz and Robert Kahn published in 1966 and again in 1978. In short, the book is about Open Systems Theory, which says organizations are open to being affected by their external environments and that the character of every organization is continually in a state of flux. In the sixties when the book was published, this was a fairly revolutionary idea but is taken as a given in organizational literature today.

In class, we discussed the idea that to some extent, all organizations in one way or another are in the business of controlling people’s behavior. Maybe the word “control” isn’t the best. This book was published in 1978, after all, and its language is a little outdated. But the idea remains true: every organization has to ensure people do what they are supposed…