Richard Goodale wrote:
...snip...
> TJ, let me add an historical observation. When Walsh took over the 49ers,
> one of the very first things he did was trade his one and only "$600,000"
> player (OJ Simpson--I wonder whatever happened to him?) for ~10 "$60,000"
> players (draft picks).
I love this story which I did not remember. I find that in LO or OD work
(or whatever we choose to call it) we often migrate to types of
interpretations (and interventions). My colleague Marty Leahy worked with
a group that roughly characterized them as Thinking ("I"), Communication
"We"), Structure ("Organize") , and Pay and Power ("Resource"). It's a
meta-model and therefore no intended to be original but useful for
checking oneself. When Walsh made the resource move, he likley made some
very important moves in other sector. Would one have failed without the
other? Do you go to one area because that's what the company calls for or
strive to balance efforts?
later in your pose you state
...snip...
> On the other hand, I think the Gates story will be of
> tremendous fascination to future historians, strategists and OD
> practitioners, when MSFT finally falls. (Any of you out there who don't
> think that MSFT will eventually fall, please look at GM and IBM or re-read
> Gibbon, or the Chapter in Catch-22 where the dirty old man in the Roman
> bordello debates with Nately the question of whether or not America will
> have as long and glorious a history as the frog.)
I wonder. Is a bad end for MS preordained? By hubris? By inattention to
the environment in ways other than finances, regulation, etc. I don't
know what MS looks at in the way of OD. What sort of help do they get in
steering the ship? My reason for asking is that increasingly I want to
know what difference our efforts make. I do not circumscribe the kinds of
differences. I just want to know any differences at all. I'd like to know
if anyone is reading Gibbon or Heller At MS?
All the best,
-- T.J. Elliott Cavanaugh Leahy http://idt.net/~tjell 914 366-7499Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>