On Mon, 20 May 1996 21:58 Sherry Gould wrote -
> Terri Deems said:
>
> >I believe very strongly that changing the status quo of business is vital
> >to changing society, and that the creation of a more just, more humane
> >society cannot come about without fundamental changes in our assumptions
> >concerning paid work (this is not to suggest, though, that this is the
> >only system that must be changed, only that it is one of several critical
> >ones).
>
> This aspect of changing paradigms in business is what first attracted me
> to the LO stuff. I must admit that my first reaction was, "yeah, right"!
> I am still very skeptical that environments free of abuse are conducive to
> the profit motive. I want to believe that people will do the right thing
> because it is the right thing. But this nagging voice deep inside says,
> "why would the big boys want to give up all that power?" I have yet to
> see the evidence that it is more profitable to do business this new way,
> as opposed to same old...
>
> >Brock asked, in essence, how do we make people listen who aren't
> >listening?
>
> >I think we'll be seeing more large
> >congolmerates going belly-up because of their short-sightedness et al.
>
> How so? I mean how does not embracing the concepts we talk about equal
> losing on the open market? What am I missing here?
Sherry - It appears that you are missing experience in a business with a
bottom line and without it you may not be able to understand the
connection between productivity and empowerment or LO. If you had to deal
with costs as well revenues to pay for them, your questions would change
dramatically.
One of our clients has, through improved leadership to empower employees,
increased per person productivity by over 100%. More improvement will
come, possibly beyond 300%. His competitors are feeling the heat as he
gains market share at a steady rate and it appears that one of them will
go out of business soon. In the process, our client has learned how to
handle situations similar to the one you related and to spend the time to
successfully resolve them since he cannot afford not to solve them.
There is no other reason to do LO, BPR, TQM or our Leadership other than a
better bottom line. Business is not some social experiment. Any company
which cannot reduce costs and increase productivity will fail to meet the
expectations of customers for increased quality at lower cost, of
employees for higher compensation for the same number of hours or of
stockholders for a reasonable return on their investments.
In our opinion, abuse and all that goes with it dictates at least a 75%
reduction in productivity per person from potential. Stephen Covey who is
rather well known in the field of management writes that he believes the
possible gain is 500%. My associate was able to prove that at least 300%
was possible in several personal experiences before starting to help
others. IMHO, abuse exists in most companies today making these companies
vulnerable to competitors who learn how to provide outstanding leadership,
being authoritarian or participative as the situation dictates.
Regards, Joan
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joan Pomo The Finest Tools for Managing People
Simonton Associates Based on the book
jpomo@gate.net "How to Unleash the Power of People"
--"jpomo@gate.net" <jpomo@gate.net>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>