Management Fads LO9068

traci.l.hoard (traci.l.hoard@ArthurAndersen.com)
12 Aug 96 20:40:32

Replying to LO8995 --

I haven't yet introduced myself (and haven't followed for long, so will
hold off), but would like to point to a resource that may be of interest
w/r/t the above discussion.

There is a great paper by John Sterman, Nelson Repenning and Fred Kofman
of MIT that might be of interest. The paper is called Unanticipated Side
Effects of Successful Quality Programs: Exploring a Paradox of
Organizational Improvement.

The work, supported by the Organizational Learning Center at MIT,
documents their research and findings that improvement programs like TQM
can "interact with prevailing accounting systems and organizational
routines to create excess capacity, financial stress, and pressures for
layoffs that undercut commitment to continuous improvement." It is a very
interesting study that shows how these programs can create disastrous
unintended results even if management appeared to be (and thought they
were) doing the right thing. This might be a bit outside the current
discussion, but might spark thinking along the lines of good opportunities
to use the discipline on ourselves.

Please direct requests for copies to John Sterman at jsterman@mit.edu.

traci.l.hoard@ArthurAndersen.com

[Host's Note: John presented this work at the Pegasus "Power of Systems
Thinking" conference in June 96. Tapes of the talk (both Audio and Video)
are available from my friends at Pegasus Communications 617-576-1231, fax
576-3114. ...Rick]

-- 

"traci.l.hoard" <traci.l.hoard@ArthurAndersen.com>

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