I am currently doing research on principle-centred organization and am
wondering if anyone has any thoughts on how to facilitate movement within
an organization away from a bureaucratic, procedure-oriented, rule-based
model to one where decisions are made and day-to-day functioning is
carried out based on principles. My impression is that such a movement is
central to fostering any substantial organizational learning. The issue I
am struggling with is what practical, concrete steps can one take to help
foster such a movement, particularly in departments in which historically
almost everything is done according to rigidly defined procedure. How do
you help people think in terms of principle and be independently able to
make decisions and take initiative on an understanding of principle,
particularly those who, perhaps for their whole career, are used to
performing according to procedure. What structures can be put in place to
reinforce such behavior? What is the balance between principle and
procedure, obviously you can't wholly dispense with it.
Perhaps this issue flows through the whole discussion of learning
organizations. In writing the above paragraph i kept thinking this is
partly what building learning organizations is about, but I am hoping to
be able achieve some focus. Any references to case studies or articles
outlining practical approaches would be most welcome.
Warm regards,
Dan
--dscott@bwc.org (Daniel Scott)
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>