Senge is Close, But... LO25442

From: Jim Vaillancourt (jimv29@hotmail.com)
Date: 10/12/00


Replying to LO25421 --

Russell Kukla" wrote>>
>Peter Senge is close but not quite.
>
>You may be interested in my seminar - Structural Dynamics: Management's
>Absolute Bottom Book.
>
>In my 1 hour introductory seminar I can prove to you why Reengineering The
>Corporation has a 94% failure rate.....
>So, what do you know about structures? I have the bottom brick.

I teach a MBA class called "Creating the 21st Century Company" where we
look at organizational structure, the context/environment the company
works in, and the beliefs held by the people. While I think structure is
important, I believe the beliefs of the people who create the structure
are closer to the truth of organizational success or failure than the
structure itself.

I believe, as does Deming, that most people are reasonable and will try to
do their best within a structure. Many times it is the structure
preventing them for doing the right thing. When I moved to management, my
task became not 'doing the right thing' but HELPING others do the right
thing. The design of the system became very important to me then. And as
I explored the design I found that my beliefs and the beliefs of others
drove the structure. When we surfaced all of our beliefs, we were able to
build a structure we all understood and one that did what we intended and
most importantly, assisted our reasonable employees when they tried to do
the right thing.

I also believe we haven't found the bottom brick yet. We may be
approaching the bottom brick but we are not there yet. When I look at
beliefs I find they are changed by our reference point: that sense of
purpose, lens thru which we see the world, values etc kind of point that
makes me different than you. How does that drive what we do, what we
build, how our organization is shaped? I don't know, I'm searching and
trying to understand.

Thanks Russell for helping me think today!
Jim Vaillancourt
InnerInk
jimv29@hotmail.com

-- 

"Jim Vaillancourt" <jimv29@hotmail.com>

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