Michael, and the list,
This is an interesting cultural issue for me. The idea of
micro-management of time is the belief that Newtonian reality can be
extended to time on a micro-level. This linear view is what I have called
the "idiocy" of the local company. Science contributes to this idiocy by
projecting a singular telescopic view on the universe and supposing that
everything else is as they see in their keyhole.
Let me think on the worker for a moment. Is it because they have such a
boring job that companies cannot engage the whole person's enthusiasm in
his work time? For some reason they seem to have a need to make the
worker the enemy.
Of course when the worker obliges by doing the same in a Union, management
wants to know why they would be considered not to have the worker's best
interest in mind. Why is management not recognized for doing the most for
the worker that they can possibly do? Why is the opposite not true? That
the worker must be micro-managed because they are not trustworthy to have
the best interests of the company in mind?
Of course they often don't and neither do the management as well. Whether
we like it or not, this idea of the "sleazy Boss" that the Union must
protect the worker from, and the "lazy worker" who is ripping off the
company, is a model that runs the economy. We need enemies to give us a
reason for our accomplishments.
Let me put another idea out into the air. That this need is really a
matter of incorrect evaluations of the task being accomplished and what
the necessities are to do it.
The paradox that was mentioned in Slamet Hendry's earlier post about
Matsushita, that he must put out a product that everyone can own and that
is as cheap as water with a good profit as well is something that every
body seems to put on their best wish list. But the truth is that we buy
our water and use the tap water only to wash with, because the tax cost of
keeping the purity of the tap water is believed more expensive than paying
a private company a monthly fee for spring water. But IMHO Economies of
Scale, or mass productions, do not enhance creativity in the work place
but diminishes it. What enhances creativity is a lack of sales due to a
diminishing quality.
I believe that all of this has to do with the inability to understand and
fit within time and its cycles. When, as John Zavacki notes, do people
work hard to raise productivity and when do they not? When, not why, but
when are they the most creative? What is necessary, information wise, for
creativity and when does the muse strike?
Anyone that has done any research at all knows that creativity is
incredibly expensive and non-productive because it is holistic. It needs
total attention and total environmental input. So how do you stir your
workers, your managers, etc. to that?
Why doesn't it seem insane to consider that all workers must be creative,
committed and focused all the time? A while ago I was asked about the Art
of Leadership. Well anyone that knows anything about Art knows that
different individuals mature and evolve at different rates. The issue is
how do you know when and how to set up the environment to take advantage
of that, when it happens.
To compare the human organism to a steel machine, or even a micro-chip
that is a stable state rather than an evolving organism, is to mix up
potato chips with airplanes. Potato chips last less time. But humans can
turn potato chips into energy, airplanes can't. You have to have the
right rules for the right system.
Leave it up to the local pedant to try to do what the village idiot never
would. To try to manage time. Everyone was so thrilled when the children
imprinted on that factory whistle and started the industrial revolution in
England. The projection off of that was that humans can be automated.
Little did they know that the simple tasks of running a machine or an
assembly line meant that the workers would leave their minds at home. The
new workplace asks that it return but it treats the mind as if it was a
hand to be hired. Dumb!
All the managers should have had orchestra in high school and imprinted on
Georg Solti instead of on Vince Lombardi. In orchestra, productivity is
not tied to playing all the time no matter what. It is knowing when to
play at the proper time in the most expert manner.
Knowing when to have them play is the Art of it. That's the really hard
part and it is the part that all of this "Newtonian drive into Quantum
reality" is covering up. Inadaquate business leadership.
Ray Evans Harrell, artistic director
The Magic Circle Chamber Opera of New York
mcore@idt.net
--Ray Evans Harrell <mcore@IDT.NET>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>