I'm responding to a thread on which Ben and a friend had recently looked
at measurement.
While in sympathy with much of the earlier posts, I had wondered what
difference might have been made by greater participation by those people
responsible for the tasks, involvement in the design of their own work,
full enrollment in some vision for their
group, for the company as a whole.
I am very grateful for Ben's reply which eloquently described the
frustrations of the situation. For me this is where the learning
resides, this is where the value to the experience surfaces.
Ben wrote in part
...snip...
> The people who were filling our database with "noise," were, let's see,
> unmotivated and incompetent people.
...snip...
> (I'd
> say 20% of the people in the department) just showed up to work to earn
> money. This feeling, sadly, was confirmed through many face to face
> conversations with these people. They didn't care about Novell, and > found
> computer technology to be boring and laborious work. When I asked them > why
> they came to work, with these feelings, they simply said, "It pays > well.
> That's it."
>
> Second, there was no fundamental purpose to Novell's existence other
> than
> to make a profit. While the business Novell is in is rich in possible
> purposes, the company could only focus on one thing: Money. This had a
> rather demeaning affect on those of us who worked there, as we felt
> like
> we were nothing more than pawns on a chess board, to be moved about my
> mgmt. as they pleased.
Ben's candor points out something that often gets overlooked in learning
or other organizational development schemes: power. There is an effect
produced by what is measured, and there is an effect produced by what is
valued. Those in power may ignore virtue or even business sense of other
ways of working (measuring, valuing, communicating, organizing,
allocating resources, thinking) that make for greater quality, more
shared meaning, etc. This leads to (if I may be so bold) an existential
question for those in the situation: what am I doing here and can I
make a difference? Not every company gets "it"; some march resolutely
in the opposite direction. The result is a situation which tries your
soul and confounds your reason. As Ben wrote:
> Third, management couldn't see how they were rewarding mediocrity and
> punishing excellence.
Given this situation now detailed by Ben and his colleague, I am
wondering what others would have done, what they see. (Ben speaks of
taking a stand and getting his "balls ripped off.") Peeks inside a
company such as this one are to me very, very valuable. I don't know my
own answer to the question above yet (although I've spent my time in
some similar places) but I am very interested in its pursuit.
Thank you, Ben
-- T.J. Elliott Cavanaugh Leahy http://idt.net/~tjell 914 366-7499Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>