Complexity and Values LO8546

Keith Cowan (72212.51@CompuServe.COM)
19 Jul 96 15:48:18 EDT

Replying to LO8342 --

Tobin Quereau <quereau@austin.cc.tx.us> expresses
some difficulty with Joan Pomo said...

[much snipped]
>...when you say the boss is "causing people to change from being externally
>directed followers to being internally directed non-followers", would that
>not be something of a conundrum? If the boss is "causing" this to happen,
>would she or he not be creating "followers" in the process? What if they
>did not follow what the boss was intending for them to do and stayed
>externally directed followers. Would that not then make them also the
>other as well?

This interchange reminds me of the work Jack Welch did to transform GE
into the leadership/empowerment model. He was extremely successful with
some business units, while others did nothing. When I raise this example,
people constantly want to criticize the result because he did not
transform all of GE, and that maybe he was just lucky with the few that
transformed.

A common response was "Why didn't he MAKE the other units transform?" It
is this kind of thinking among educated people that gets us into trouble.
Hopefully the LO participants will have a better track record!
Cheers...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/>