Dear Vana:
Your comments remind me of a great story told by a previous college
president of mine. He cited a study of playgrounds in Texas. The
researchers were looking at playgrounds that were fenced and playgrounds
that weren't. What they noted was that children in the fenced playgrounds
played all the way out to the edge. Children in the unfenced playgrounds
tended to keep to the center, away from the edges. He used to tell this
story as one way of explaining why it is so important for
managers/leaders, etc., to set parameters with staff -- so people can know
where the "edges" are and work out to them -- or beyond. For him,
parameters were few and simple: a goal and a time line and any
exceptional considerations. After that, he got out of the way!
Another anecdote I like was told by Lew Platt, VP at Hewlett Packard. He
said he used to get very concerned when the London R & D unit's failure
rate dropped BELOW 60%. A dropping failure rate in R & D meant to him
that they weren't pushing the envelope enough. Harriett.
--Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>