>Forgive me but it sounds like a return to Peter
>Drucker and the archeology of MBO. There is no "magic bullet", or
>superguru who will solve all problems in any given organization, other
>than what might appear to be so after the fact.
Absolutely right. I totally believe that there can even in principle be
no magic bullets, let alone in practice. What I meant was that yes, we
need a vision and values ( my favourite is the Japanese high tech
company whose is 'to promote World Peace through Communications
Technology' ), which inform our medium term and long term business goals
and strategies, but it is up to individuals and groups at lower levels
in the organisation to interpret those values and goals in their own
daily work, in ways which the executive may not have conceived of. This
is scary stuff precisely because it does not assume that management or
consultants know the right way to achieve the goals, but rely on people
to develop their own way forward within the vision/values parameters.
Working in this way, people bring up solutions and approaches which we
would not have used; they may not be the 'best' solution, whatever that
means, but if it is their solution it stands one hell of a lot better
chance of working. I remember Shigeo Shingo, developer of the Toyota
Production System, telling me that if I thought an idea (he was talking
about enginering solutions) had a 40% chance of working then let people
go ahead and try - even if it doesn't work they will have learnt
something. I don't think this is patronising if understood in the way
it is meant, but I recognise the danger.
In practice what this comes down to is that we don't choose the means
teams use to reach theirs and the company's ends. We will give training
in techniques as requested, and obviously provide guidance in what
techniques are around - my friends at the Japan Management Association
list 130 different basic approaches and over 700 techniques - but we
refuse to mandate the means, because there is no magic bullet.
Our own dream by the way is 'Learn, Grow and Have Fun', and the
interesting thing is that it is very easy for us to identify when we've
stopped having fun and that really pulls us up short.
In the spirit of enquiry
Malcolm Jones
Learner and Guide
Productivity Europe Ltd
UK
prodeuro@atlas.co.uk (Malcolm Jones)
--prodeuro@atlas.co.uk (Malcolm Jones)
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>