Measurements and Measuring LO15617

Eugene Taurman (ilx@execpc.com)
Mon, 03 Nov 1997 10:16:03

Replying to LO15581 --

At 10:06 AM 10/31/97 +0200, Jeff Blumberg wrote:

>If "it" doesn't know, there can be no affect on behaviour

Comments

I hear us talking about measures being used to develop or affect
attitudes. They do not of course. Attitudes are impacted or caused by the
managements's actions. The measure to the extent that it is used to guide
action is useful in causing attitudes. Most measures used a in a
corporation are simply ignored and therefore serve only to tell employees
that waste is acceptable.

The measure guides the action. The action causes the attitude.

Gene

At 10:06 AM 10/31/97 +0200, you wrote:

>The question I always struggle with is whether a system knows it's being
>measured. Is this your question, Stuart? If "it" doesn't know, there can
>be no affect on behaviour. The famous Hawthorne studies at the Lincoln
>Electric Co. provides some support for the affect of measurement. Yet the
>behaviour emerging from the measurement was unpredictable. Productivity
>increased not because of better lighting, but because people knew they
>were part of an experiment. Do you think we could stretch this a bit to
>support Ben's suggestion that when we measure a system we change it?
>
>Jeff Blumberg
>jeffb@illovo.co.za

Eugene Taurman
interLinx ilx@execpc.com http://www.execpc.com/~ilx

What you are is determined by the thoughts that dominate your mind.
Paraphrase of Proverbs 23 Ch7

-- 

Eugene Taurman <ilx@execpc.com>

Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>