Richard Goodale wrote:
>Assume that there are two modern, efficient enterprises producing the
>same product and located in close proximity. Enterprise A is suddenly
>afflicted by a rare virus that kills all the "worker" workers but leaves
>the "knowlege" workers alive and well. Enterprise B is simultaneously
>afflicted by another virus that kills all the "knowledge" workers, but
>leaves the "worker" workers alive and well. Assuming all other things are
>equal, which enterprise do you think would be most likely to recover most
>quickly from their tragedy?
..snip..
>I, at least, would put my money on the enterprise with the "worker"
>workers.
Interessting - it would be worth a (virtual) experiment. I bet, you would
loose your money, Richard.
What will happen to your enterprise, when it becomes known, that the
knowledge-worker enterprise made a very good offer to buy the
worker-worker? Of course not all, lets say, 30% (those with high
working-knowledge including those who are willing to change). For them it
would be the chance of their career. But first, all would fear to loose
their job when they visualise that their factory will shut down very
shortly. Not to mention the marketing program and action plan for the
investors which would be quite hard for the worker-workers.
Are you still willing to invest in the worker-worker enterprise?
Of course, there is still a chance, that charismatic yet unsatisfied
knowledge worker will go to help the worker-workers with their
selforganisation, but would they be accepted and trusted?
In a more friendly setting, I would expect, that the owners of the
enterprises will sit together at a round table to find a common solution.
Best wishes
Winfried
--Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>