The title of this post really should be "Team Learning and Systems
Thinking and Mental Models on the Factory Floor", but that's the trouble
with headlines - they are inevitably too simple.
I think most of us reading this list believe that the future belongs to
the organizations that can tap the energy, creativity, and synergy that
flow from groups whose individuals have made that "mysterious" connection
that transforms them into high-performance teams. I put mysterious in
quotation marks, because my analysis of what's been happening is that Jay
Forrester, Peter Senge, et al (including Rick, of course, and many of you
on this list) have been busily taking the mystery out of the how we can go
about the deliberate creation of Learning Organizations.
Now, to my questions. I'd like to see the wisdom of this group applied to
what happens at 7, 3, and 11, when the shifts change on the factory floor.
Points for profitable discussion are many, but I'll start with just one
subject. Please suggest more.
Have any of you been involved in a team learning/systems thinking
initiative with the workers who do assembly line work?
I link the two disciplines because they are both directly relevant to a
team working an assembly line. I propose two "mental models" (to bring in
a third discipline) at work in the minds of the members and their managers
and engineers: a station mentality, where "I am responsible for the work
at this station, I do what I'm told, and when the line stops I stand here
waiting"; and a team/system mentality, where "We as a team are responsible
for making this system (the assembly line) function to its full
potential", and members are allowed and encouraged to move up and down the
line, ask for help, identify bottlenecks, admit ignorance, challenge (or
at least question) engineers, etc.
How difficult is it to move from the station mentality to the team
mentality? Any unintended consequences that any of you have experienced?
Does management still believe that a station mentality, with its rigid
work lists and inspection rules, produces higher quality? Does promoting
greater interaction and teamwork produce the potential for greater
conflict between workers, and therefore lower levels of performance? How
great are the rewards in increased job satisfaction and increased output
and quality by initiating a team learning/systems thinking initiative?
Have any of you experienced resistance from either the engineering
profession or the "quality professionals" to a team/systems approach?
Enough questions. I'm looking forward to an interesting discussion.
George Pinckney
pinckney@bellsouth.net
--George Pinckney <pinckney@bellsouth.net>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>