At 09:42 PM 6/2/97 -0700, you wrote:
>> construct a situation where IN THEIR MINDS, they
>> perceive the need to learn.
>
>Stever, I have experience doing the latter. My role was that of an Army
>Drill Sergeant at Fort Jackson, SC.
Thank you for a very thought-provoking post. The military is a superb
example of taking potentially nonmotivated people and turning them into
high performing teams.
>I remember appealing to their self-esteem; their pride in home, family,
>neighborhood, ethnic or cultural background; whatever source of pride or
>esteem that they might have. Sometimes it was their refusal to let me
>see them fail.
Do you find yourself using these same kinds of motivators could be used in
a business setting, and to what extent?
>I've fostered an "hands-off" approach that recognizes their right to be
>intransigent.
>Our agreement is that we'll replace those who leave with those who want to
>learn.
This is a graceful way of doing it. It highlights the difference between
BUILDING a learning organization and BECOMING a learning organization.
You can build one from the ground up with careful people selection. If
you start with a different selection of people, though, the task is one of
transition to a LO. It seems to me that the replace-through-attrition
solution is really turning it back into the "easy" problem of building
from the ground up. You could actually change the existing people with
the boot camp solution, but that might not work in a corporate setting.
- Stever
--stever@verstek.com, <http://www.verstek.com/stever/> Protect your electronic privacy! Use PGP: http://www.pgp.com My PGP key: http://www.verstek.com/stever/pgp.html
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>