Replying to LO29297 --
This is a wonderful passage Fred. Without it, I would certainly have
continued my ignorance and assumed that Taylor was one of the hard guys
gone bad.
Where you say at the end you wonder why we still don't know much about
knowledge worker being productive, these two exercises (from this extract
I was writing elsewhere today) illustrate my best guess. (Anyone got a
different best guess?)
WHY 21st C Business Must Change
We are at a Coming of Age - variously described as a post-industrial era
of Service, Knowledge, Global Markets & Local Societies, Networks and
Webs, Real & Virtual. What's organisationally new is that more and more
productivity is INTANGIBLE - 85% of the total worth made by Leading
Companies ( Source: European Union & Brookings Institute in Washington DC,
Spring 2001)
Exercise 1 Picture you own list of intangibles ( community, learning,
brand, culture, people, trust.) by editing the left of The Map. What are
the natural characteristics of Intangibles which need producing? What do
you see? Examples:
A) Intangibles interconnect - each needs to flow to produce the best of
another; co-workers of all expertises need to understand each other;
usability of knowledge is as strong as its weakest link; service is as
motivating as what we truly know we do well
B) The whole flow and value is activated by people
C) Communally it grows: stronger the more people give, weaker the more
people take
D) Over time the nature of the 21st C organisational system is to
compounds truths or lies
Exercise 2 :Next, picture how organisations traditionally rule and measure
by numbers (quarterly reports, time sheets, budgets framed by business
cases, people rewarded/punished for performance by numbers). What does
this do to people and their behaviours? What do you see? Examples:
1) Rule by numbers separates people from each other and from relationships
over time
2) Makes static records look precise; celebrates yesterday regardless of
consequence tomorrow
3) Transactions reward people for taking, even as they make the whole
communally weaker
4) Dynamics of system become full of lies, people are afraid and
distrustful politics increases; true knowledge is hidden; harder to see or
believe in direction of organisation; leadership is lost and over time
every honest person starts losing more and more
PREDICTION AS RESULT OF THESE EXERCISES The risks to all of us due to
global companies being governed only by numbers is now increasing with
alarming impacts. It is time to Map a second governance system to live
alongside that of numbers reporting. We invite people to join in at the
starting place mapped at www.valuetrue.com
chris macrae
> Ditto for Frederick Winslow Taylor. He and Deming had much in common.
> Consider the following excerpt from Taylor's testimony before Congress in
> 1912 --
--"Chris Macrae" <wcbn007@easynet.co.uk>
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