[Host's Note: this is a msg from James Carrington of HP; James asked Joe
to forward it to the LO list. ...Rick]
reply to Mr. Birren:
"The absence of profit and price as organizational focal points
creates a vacuum that is filled by politics." That is one of the most
thought provoking statements I have read (certain comments on religion as
social and political control not withstanding).
Now try an experiment: Any where in your comment that the word
"resources" appears, replace it with the word "money". It is true that
those in the public sector are not necessarily concerned with profit
margin, except for those with the convoluted idea that the government is a
type of business that should be kept in the black (sorry, that's the
liberal socialist in me getting loose). I would also agree that there are
a good number of genuinely concerned individuals working in the public
sector toward the general good, or at least their interpretation of it.
But to get right to the heart of the matter, We should go back to my
statement that "the wealth of ones bank account means more than the wealth
of ones soul". This can even be seen in Ms. Wheatlys' comment regarding
protecting individuals' status. There appears to be a great deal of
confusion in this society over the difference between status, integrity,
and wealth. The problem is that, except for certain private non-profit
groups, you _cannot_ remove money from the equation. For many people,
money is the only measure of success, regardless of whether they earn it
through a hard days work, invent something that sells millions, or win it
from powerball. The bigger your budget, the more important your department
is. The higher your output, the more valuable an employee you are.
Speaking from 20 years of private sector experience, I have seen over and
over again where the employee with the highest level of quality is not
held in as near high esteem by the department manager as the employee with
the highest quantity.
"Management 102 - Quality is desirable, but not at the expense of missing
a shipment" so says my curmudgeoneous subordinate.
I used to work for a division of Sundstrand Corporation. One of the other
divisions that made stabilizer systems for Black Hawk helicopter rotors.
Sundstrand corporation was slapped with one of the highest contract fraud
fines in U.S. history for falsifying acceptance test data after one of the
Black Hawks crashed and killed all on board. What was the motivation for
the crime? It would have cost to much money, between late delivery/cost
overrun fines and redesign/requalification/retesting, to go back and fix
the problem and that affected, you guessed it, profit margin.
Although some of the dynamics may be different, the end result is the same
for public (government) agencies and private companies: keep your
organization in the black or we will replace you with someone who will.
Did you know that the US Postal service is sponsoring a professional
bicycle racing team in Europe (only about half of their athletes are
Americans)? What many people don't know is that sponsoring a bike team in
Europe has about a 7 to 1 return on investment ratio. PROFIT MARGIN ! The
USPS is also selling stamps with Warner Brothers cartoon characters on
them. James Dean and Marilyn Monroe stamp t-shirts. Actions such as this
can assure that the USPS will be less reliant on government funding in the
future, therefore less susceptible to government cutbacks. Let's not
forget however, that they will still be required to keep running in the
black, to maintain a profit margin.
It appears that you may have taken my cynicism a little to seriously,
though. I am only a cynic, not apathetic.
from James Carrington
via joe_podolsky@hp.com
--JOE_PODOLSKY@HP-PaloAlto-om4.om.hp.com
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>