Root Cause LO8178

Barry Mallis (bmallis@ns.markem.com)
27 Jun 1996 08:17:31 -0400

Replying to LO8121 --

Mike Townes asks for reaction to his thoughts about:

"...focusing on the broad band of folks
in the middle and on what drives/causes them to do what they do should
lead to some 'root causes' of current organiza- tional conditons. Would
not interventions focused in those areas be, by definition, systemic?
Need that be a lengthly process? I think not. Comments?"

Here is my comment, Mike.

I work in a manufacturing company location of about 700 people. The
company is 85 years old, located in a small New England town, has one cse
where 3 generations are currently at work "side by side", but serves
customers throghout the world. It's privately held and run by a very
forward looking family.

For a year now we have been deploying TQ practices. Middle management is
like its counterpart anywhere else, more or less. These are the people
who were placed in their positions because they worked really hard, did
good jobs, and followed the "specification". Many of them are into
problem solving and process improvement as a result of the ISO
certification. But down deep, it's still hard for some of them to let go
of command and control.

The interventions your typed about in your note have occurred here:
education, classes, seminars, forced marches, boot camp, harangues,
pizza--over many years. Flavor of the month for some, but now, we are in
the midst of a careful, really hands-on-as-never-before application of
tools which provide more "bio-feedback" to practitioners.

My point is that it takes time to break through to the heart of the
matter, to the heart of the individual. Success is directly dependent on
Deming's principle of driving out fear. THAT FEAR IS, in my humble
opinion, A HUGE ICEBERG which must be guide "southward" toward more
temperate climes where it will melt more quickly.

In the meantime, the wind and waves shape the ice into beguiling blue and
white curves which deflect as much as possible the true "elements" at work
for improvement.

And, as an itty-bitty footnote to the metaphor, the Classical Greeks, I am
led to understand, viewed one of the four elements as the strongest: wind.
As we can see in the classic literature, they believed that Wind was
affected by the activitiees of humankind. Fascinating.

Best regards,

-- 
Barry Mallis
bmallis@markem.com
 

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