Involvement and Partic LO5195

ToCOLLABR8@aol.com
Mon, 29 Jan 1996 06:08:47 -0500

Replying to LO5167 --

In a message dated 96-01-29 01:19:36 EST, you write:

>>we can use to balance the two extremes of no involvement
>>(authoritarian rule) and too much involvement (democracy?).
>
>Can you describe an exammple of too much involvement and the basis for
>that judgement?

>Seems like your management used representative groups with a
>consultive process thereby enabling participation of all who were
>interested. Do you think the project would have the same degree
>of "buy-in" if the full-time team members hadn't facilitated the
>involvement of other folks such as yourself?

In my mind, "too much" employee involvement is when a large number of
front-line workers, whose jobs are considered a core-competency, are taken
away from those jobs, indefinitely (full-time) to serve on a team. In
some instances, I think this is good. 4 or 5 employees, out of about 400
is a drop in the bucket. However, what if the organization is attempting
to involve 100 of these people on as many as 10 different teams dealing
with work environment issues and process improvement? I see two realistic
alternatives:

1) A user group that (or representative groups) aids a full-time team in
their understanding (exactly as you described) of how things are and how
they can be.

2) A part-time team, that meets weekly for a few hours, with clearly
defined objectives.

Both of these, enables front-line workers, supervisors and managers to
work collaboratively on issues involving all. I am also continuing to
see, as I'm sure the others are, that these are great opportunities to
learn the kind of skills that can be applied in our work where "teams" are
more loosely defined (loose networks). Another added benefit, is that we
are all meeting other workers, other supervisors, other managers, not to
mention other people in various areas of the business, as we track down
information and network. Flattening?????

In reply to your last question: The answer is a definite "NO". I think
we would have been wandering without a clue. Those facilitating had good
knowledge of statistical process control, TQM and whatever other labels
you want to give it. We would have been clueless. It was clearly
educational -- an important aspect of getting "buy-in". When people are
totally unfamiliar with such things, it's easy to be paranoid or
suspicious of "what's going on".

--
Diane Korzeniewski
ToCOLLABR8@aol.com