Ambiguity and Action LO6938

Keith Cowan (72212.51@CompuServe.COM)
23 Apr 96 21:22:58 EDT

Replying to LO6840 --

>.. Would it not be advisable to consider these the
>minimal level of goals and then move on to more comprehensive and
>creative goals as soon as possible? While this requires dealing with
>ambiguity directly rather than avoiding it, I would think
>that "the broadest level of support and commitment by stakeholders" would
>come in these areas of (forgive me) vision and values rather than survival...
>Tobin Quereau - Austin Community College - quereau@austin.cc.tx.us

Naturally, there are tons of more complex goals. Yet, in comparing the
vision statements of many dissimilar organizations, there is remarkable
similarity and relatively few themes. Let's take each goal:

Cashflow - with inadequate cash any organization goes bankrupt regardless
of how much their assets may be worth

ROI - investors demand a fair return on their money and expect it to be
comensurate with their risk. When it drops down, they will sell and
reinvest in other growth areas. The unloading will establish a fair ROI
based on the lower price commanded from the buyer.

Profit - If costs exceed revenues, then value is eroded by running the
business and borrowing power for new initiatives is constrained

If the above are all in good shape, then executives can have some fun
investing in worthwhile causes and make the value proposition more
interesting...BTW in a production environment the three can be restated in
terms of maximizing throughput, while minimizing both inventory and
operating expense. Most companies only focus on the last measure and the
others suffer as a result. Accountants even consider inventory to be an
asset!! IMHO...Keith

-- 

Keith Cowan <72212.51@CompuServe.COM>

Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>