Robert Bacal wrote:
>That said, when you pay people equally for different productivity,
that
>has side-effects. When you pay people based on some criteria to
>distinguish those more deserving from less, that has side-effects.
>
>It's that simple.
It's that complex: Who knows the side-effects?
In my opinion, we are facing here a typical issue for shared vision (what
is the productivity, we really want to achieve) and team learning (lets
explore ways to enhance that productivity and anticipate possible
side-effects to these suggested ways). In a context, where personal
mastery (comparing todays productivity with the vision does release
creative energy instead of blocking it due to emotional tension) is
supported and where mental models (what restricts todays productivity to
the current level and what would make a significant differerence) may be
questioned in conjunction with some knowledge in systems thinking (which
causal relationships make the system behave the way it does and where are
the levers to change systems behaviour in the required direction), both -
shared vision and team learning - find the ground to flourish.
(This is the briefest summary of Senge's five disciplines I ever wrote.)
For the fun of it, let me contrast such a learning organisation with a
caricature of an ordinary organisation:
Shared Vision -> one mans vision (if any), broken down to local
productivity measures which may or may not relate to the vision - who
knows?
Team learning -> don't think, work according to the given measurements. If
your measurements are in conflict with someone elses measurements, fight
for yours. The other will do so as well. The outcome will be the best
compromise possible. (This is also dynamical systems thinking in action.)
Personal mastery -> Spend your creativity on getting most out of the
system for you. There are always winners and losers.
Mental models -> Education is responsible for correct and comprehensive
know-how. Learning happens at school. How to be productive is taught and
trained. The question, what productivity is, can be answered in generic
ways.
Systems thinking -> the organisation is viewed as a machine. Few design
that machine, most ought to be the machine. If something doesn't work, its
human failures.
At least, I hope, that this is a caricature. Please tell me, that I
haven't discribed reality!
Liebe Gruesse,
Winfried
--"Winfried Dressler" <winfried.dressler@voith.de>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>