John:
What you say rings truth for me. I couldn't agree more.
Management-by-numbers still prevails in most organisations. The notion
that what you measure is what you manage; or you get what you measure, is
humorous at best but misses the point entirely. I'm sure managers don't
want defects because they went ahead and measured them. Besides, the most
important "measures" are impossible to measure anyway. You simply can't
measure the warmth of a smile with a thermometer; but it's often that
smile that warms the customer and closes the sale.
The problem with measurement, is that management use measures to control,
not to learn. When used for control, management-by-the-numbers is nothing
more than management-by-inspection. And we all know that control (whether
for quality, or for cost) is built into the process, not inspected at the
end of the process. Managers are asking the wrong questions. They're
looking for better measurements when that isn't the problem at all. Like
Rus Ackoff said: we've got a lot of good solutions for the wrong problems.
And I say, the problem is not measurement, the problem is management. We
keep confusing measurement with management. Managers today need more
ideas to balance the management system, not more metrics to balance the
scorecard. (oh, and I know Balanced Scorecard advocates are now going to
jump down my throat, but they miss the point, as did Richard Goodale miss
yours).
Regards
Jeff Blumberg
jeffb@illovo.co.za
--"Jeff Blumberg" <jeffb@illovo.co.za>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>