I was encouraged to de-cloak by Alison's post (LO10736), although I have
occassionally dropped a message to the list prior to this.
Alison asks about LO in small business. Are there other small business
people out there who would like to share their experiences of LO in their
business?
I am also involved with my life partner in a (very) small business
managing the computer systems for SMEs - essentially they outsource their
MIS department to us. We have mainly worked with a particular proprietary
system until now, when we are slowly introducing PCs to our clients. This
means that we are undergoing a very fast learning curve in not just using
PCs, but understanding how to best support them.
I was introduced to LO concepts through the Master of Innovation and
Service Management that I am studying at RMIT in Melbourne, Australia.
As an organisation, we struggle with putting the LO concepts to work. Not
because we don't believe in them, but because we are still consciously
incompetent in their use. Dialogue, ladders of inference, left hand
columns, espoused theory and theory in use - we know about these, but
using them is a different matter.
But the struggle is very rewarding - I am beginning to see us work as a
team of three, rather than one big boss, the next boss and an employee.
And we are sharing many more things about the organisation than I believe
is traditional in small business (in any size business).
It is interesting to see how organisational cultures differ. We believe
strongly in modelling our values through our behaviour - and this can
cause some anxiety for our clients, particularly those with a strong
control culture, with strict hierarchical rules.
This raises an issue that is of interest to me. In endeavouring to
satisfy our client's need for control and hierarchical management, we run
the risk of compromising our own values. Is this just one of the
complexities that we have to live with in the current world? Should we be
trying to 'do' anything about this, other than understand it?
Enough of my musings. If you have read this far, thank you for
perservering, and I look forward to contributing more to the list as time
goes by.
Regards,
Pamela
--Pamela McGillivray <pmcg@acslink.aone.net.au>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>