Replying to LO25003 --
Blake Norby said:
>My situation: we have retail offices all around the US, and we are
>starting (finally) to incorporate computers and technology. We have
>office staff (each office has at least 2 people) that have never talked
>to other offices and we have an opportunity to establish a virtual
>learning organization. We have just initiated an intranet that is
>under-used.
>
>As I've analyzed the needs towards performance improvement, I see a great
>opportunity to create a foundation of a LO, not just the old training
>model.
I can only add a bit of personal experience here...
Once upon a time, as Sr. VP - Operations of a 120+ store chain, we had all
sorts of performance and personnel problems, with our manager turnover
higher than 250% a year. LOTS of causes, too, as one might imagine.
My focus, as the top ops guy and the entire training department was to
generate lots of change and ownership and create an environment for
performance. This was back in the early 80's and we had a pretty obvious
negative corporate environment as viewed by "The Field."
Guess my only recourse was to transform the administratively-oriented
District Managers into a powerful and effective communications tool. They
became my training and consulting team. They helped me design the
training programs (I did the typing, cutting and pasting and photocopying)
and we went out to the managers searching for Best Practices and looking
for ways to communicate better ideas and provide recognition.
>From the viewpoint of today, there was a good bit of Learning Organization
going on. These District Managers were pushed to find out what could be
done differently and to communicate that in an effective way to their
managers and store personnel. Since the DMs were compensated by the
results of their stores, there were some natural reinforcers and feedback
systems in place. (And I remember the day when our VP-Accounting got
Visi-Calc to work so we could actually play with some financial
possibilities and see the results immediately. W-O-W!!)
By adding modern technology (as I recall, we did have telephones back
then!), one can quite effectively build on the quest for improvement and
communicate the kinds of ideas and knowledge that starts the continuous
continuous improvement process. When you can get the management team to
recognize that there are a lot of potential high-impact NEW answers to
organizational improvement coming from the people who are actually doing
the job, then one can begin to apply some of the LO tools more
systematically.
In my experience, the systems and processes for operations need a lot of
improvement to enable the people to perform and excel. But a good bit of
resistance to change will be observed among the management team itself.
My suggestion would be teach the tools to those who can teach the tools to
those who can teach the tools. Use the corporate communications system as
a reinforcement tool. And strive to create an attitude of success among
all the players, even the ones that are in the bottom half of the curve.
Hope this helps a little,
--For the FUN of It!
Scott J. Simmerman, Ph.D. Performance Management Company - 800-659-1466 mailto:Scott@SquareWheels.com
Designer of Square Wheels training tools and other team products <http://www.squarewheels.com/>
"Help design better systems -- not making mud or throwing rocks."
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