Fred Nickols offers in his recent post a good argument for personal
managerial responsibility in organizations, whether corporations, small
businesses, or government agencies.
When one is hired by an organization (of whatever type), one becomes
instantly susceptible to the whims of persons
(managers/supervisors/co-workers) and policies (old and new, good and
bad, legal or illegal, etc.) When a decision is made by a manager under
the old standard of controlling subordinates, it is often done in the
context of utilizing "the company", or "company policy", or "that's how
it's done here) as justification or defense for the decision. That is
often the reason why it is so important to pursue the discussion of
shared values within the organization, those shared by people, not
things.
Deming and others point out the downside of addressing the problems of
the organization using and relying upon only the "accounting" methods,
those that look to the quarterly reports for ROI, appreciating assets and
impacts on dividends and stock prices. This in place of reliance upon
other factors such as personal growth and mastery of skills by the people
in the organization. Targets, sales goals, etc. are used daily in
creating "rah-rah" speeches to workers. One has only to look at common
retailing practices in the US to see how such speeches are themselves
contradictions in terms, since competition and confict are the primary
results, and not enhanced teamwork and long-range improvements. This does
not even take into account whether there is any justification in the
baseline numbers at all.
Yes, it is true that people, not things, make decisions. But in the
present corporate (or governmental) culture, people too often become
things in order to assert themselves, their control, and their positions
in relation to others. Too often it is the case that reliance upon "the
company" to support decision-making is merely making use of a convenient
scapegoat. In the learning organzation, people would make decisions based
upon their own ethics and morals, in tandem with the shared values of
others in that organization. Otherwise, the responsibility would be to
take the high ground and leave the organization which is not conducive to
growth of that person. As we know, it is one thing to say, another to do,
but ultimately the person, not the organization, which makes things
happen.
--Regards, John Constantine Rainbird Management Consulting http://www.trail.com/~rainbird
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>