Jeff
I agree wholheartedly with what you say.
I think formal grading systems sap the lifeblood and simply reinforce all
the hierarchical issues. There are good examples, P&G, Toyota, Semco, etc
of teams defining their own performance standards, skill / knowledge
requirements and then doing peer appraisal to determine what level they
are each performing at. these work best when the team can be encouraged to
take responsibility for mentoring their colleagues up the learning /
performance curve.
On the issue of the gap between rehetoric and reality, I always think its
fun (and painful in equal measures!) to ask myself and other people 'what
have you done today to encourage learning/ share knowledge/ make it fun /
etc.' on my darker more cyncial days I feel like shortening the question
to to the first five words! Mypoint is that I bakc what you say about the
BS on LO's - all too often we still focus on measures and a search for the
culprits of underperformance. Such a blame orientation is in diametric
opposition to the LO ethic.
The problem here is that when projects do go wrong, it is very hard to
draw out any meaningful learning if the underlying culture is one of blame
and punishment - few of us will be honest about our contribution to
failure if the result will be a sanction or worse - Turkeys don't vote for
an early Christmas!
I think we are all to blame here - many of us have grown up with a
schoolyard morality that if you do wrong you get punished - sadly all too
many of us carry this through to later life.
I will stop here before I depress myself too much!
Regards
Rohit Talwar
--Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>