Eugene wrote:
> It is near impossible to change an organization from the bottom. That is
> why Deming the precursor to all these other partial philosophies, would
> not deal with a company unless the man in charge agreed to be the driver.
It seems to me that this is an open question. I've heard Senge make the
comment that commitment by upper management hasn't made the difference in
his studies (e.g., the AutoCo learning history). I've also heard the
quote attributed to Margaret Mead that all great things in the world
_were_ created by a small group of dedicated people. The examples have
always been people like Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and others who
were (at the outset) relatively powerless.
OTOH, I do buy into the change management notion that you need sponsorship
at high levels and a cascading chain of reinforcing sponsorship throughout
the organization to be successful.
Paradoxical? Yep.
Anyone got a way to make sense of this, preferably with data?
Bill
-- Bill Harris Year 2000 Program Office mailto: bill_harris@am.exch.hp.com Hewlett-Packard Company phone: (425) 335-2200 M/S 330C fax: (425) 335-2483 8600 Soper Hill Road web: http://hpweb.lsid.hp.com:8080/~billh/ Everett, WA 98205-1298 cupertino: (408) 447-0452 (no voicemail)Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>