RE: Intro: Gezinus J. Hidding + question

Rahamim (rahamim@pond.stanford.edu)
10 Nov 1994 09:24:34 -0800

In the latest Fortune Magazine there is a big article about change management
and what 4 organizations are doing. One orgainization took the customer, put
it in the middle of a circle surrounded by the major functions provided to
the customer and expanded from there, bull's eye fashion. The employees are
called coaches and ???(team-mates or something, going on memory here) and the
organization is "so flat it could fint under a door". They are encouraged
and rewarded for efficiency and customer service. This sounded good to me!

Sarah Rahamim
rahamim@pond.stanford.edu

PS Intro time: I am just learning about all this stuff - the Senge books are
on my to-do list. So far I am a lurker, like the person at Ford. I did wnat
to share the Fortune Magazine reference.
_______________________________________________________________________________
From: learning-org@world.std.com on Wed, Nov 9, 1994 8:04 PM
Subject: Intro: Gezinus J. Hidding + question
To: learning-org

My name is Gezinus J. Hidding. I am involved with Andersen Consulting's
Methodology Program at Andersen's World Head Quarters in Chicago and lecture
in
the Executive Education Program at Carnegie Mellon University. I have been
exposed to systems thinking since my graduate studies days back in Holland
now
about 15 years ago, not to mention my Ph.D. degree in Systems Science (and
Strategic Planning) from CMU. Have always been interested in Decision
Support
Systems (which I believe should be tools not only to help people make better
decisions, but also to help them learn better decision making) particularly
for
strategy decision making. For the past several years, I have been involved
in
completely rethinking methodology for Andersen Consulting (starting with
helping them write their Methodology Long Range Plan) and continuing with
implementing new methodology thinking in a "learning organization" paradigm
on
top of an internal electronic information sharing infrastructure.

In the process of working on this, I have done some amount of reading, but am

still looking for answers to the following issue: What does an organization
look like that has adopted (or is adopting, if you will) a "learning
organization" model? The background for this issue is that we started the
learning organization implementation at the bottom, and are working our way
up
the management chain. It is reaching the big guys now. In their effort to
grasp the new paradigm, they would like to see what the learning organization

might look like, in terms of organization chart. I take their request
positively; they are sensing the change, and they would like to be educated.

(Even if the right answer is not an organization chart, they need to start
there in their personal change process. I feel we should start from and work

with their current reality.) I have come up with a few things (probably
specific to Andersen's organization), but would like to find out what other
folks have come up with. Apart from Quinn's spider web organizational
"model",
I have not found much. (Lots of people seem to say, "learning organization
is
good", lots of descriptions of what behaviors are necessary (probably the
most
important part), but I haven't seen a picture of what a learning organization

structure might look like if we bumped into one.) Probably did not look in
the
right places. Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.

Gezinus