Gerard wrote" According to Henry Mintzberg in times of change a machine
bureaucracy may require a radical shift in direction, which can be occur
in two ways. Either a visionary leader emerges to both formulate and
implement the new direction or a bottom-up process, where the implementors
of the previous strategy are allowed to formulate the new direction,
occurs. Thus those with the pertinent information are allowed set the new
direction for the company, using the knowledge embedded at the lower
levels of an organisation. Mintzberg calls this learning as the dichotomy
between formulation and implenemtation is collapsed. However this is far
removed from the concepts of learning espoused by Senge, Argyris, Schon,
Slocum,Lei among others. They have an all-encompassing view of learning
as it relates to the higher order needs of mankind. Is it possible to
reconcile these together or are their outlooks totally different?
"Ideally i wish to examine a bureaucracy where radical change has occured
and see whether people at the bottom had an impact on the new direction.
Bureaucracies are constructed to work from the top down, is it possible to
work from the bottom up?"
Gerard,
Have you read or considered Peter Block's 'Empowered Manager' and
'Stewardship', Berrett Koehler Pub? I think a desire to shift from
paternalistic to partnership culture would be a precondition to the
changes you wish to have. The desire may be lacking because of cultural
factors or the shift may not be seen as feasible. I believe, if there is a
shift in culture, there would be structural changes within the
bureaucratic structure to enable it to function in a bottom up fashion.
Thomas P Benjamin benjamin@fac.irm.ernet.in
--"Thomas Benjamin" <BENJAMIN@fac.irm.ernet.in>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>