Stewart Crick said:
> I'm curious as to how practitioners and academics feel about
> this. Do you view LO as an extension of TQM? As a retooled version of
> TQM? Are they two separate entities that shall never cross paths? Or,
> can they exist together? Another possibility, many TQM efforts fail
> because the organizational culture is not adequately addressed...
My view (part practitioner, part theoretician):
In today's rapidly changing world, we need organizations that can change,
not just do the same thing over and over--we need learning organizations
(small l, small o). Various management systems are attempting to address
this need, including TQM, Systems Thinking (Senge), Interactive Management
(Ackoff), "wow management" (Peters), etc. They also all have strengths
and weaknesses. In many cases there also is considerable overlap. Some
of the systems may be more complete or operationalized than the others and
may be better places to start in some instances, augmenting with aspects
of the others as appropriate as one goes along. Any combination that
works well will provide a competitive edge and change the game, requiring
futher evolution of the methods to remain competitive.
-- Dave Walden, 280 Beacon Street, Boston, MA 02116 At home: phone and fax=617-437-7139, email=walden@bbn.com At CQM: phone=617-873-8971, fax=617-873-8980, email=dave_walden@cqm.comLearning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>