Knowledge Worker LO16247

Mariann Jelinek (mxjeli@facstaff.wm.edu)
Wed, 10 Dec 1997 12:28:04 -0600

Replying to LO16168 --

Replying to LO 16168:

Paul wrote:

>Intellectual capital isn't necessarily a good thing (from the point of
>view of some companies). The automotive industry often prefers to staff
>new plants with niave workers because they believe that the knowledge that
>more senior workers possess may be detrimental to its operations. They
>believe, perhaps correctly, that it is more cost effective to
>train/indoctrinate niave workers to the new regime. I believe the case
>can be made that, under some circumstances, niavity is a valuable trait.

My almost-instantaneous response was to wonder out loud why the
automotive industry should be considered a model for LO's: the domestic US
auto industry has lost nearly a third - currently a persistent 30% - to
imports and Japanese transplant factories. US automakers were very slow to
respond to the challenges of quality and const-control, and even slower to
respond to the constant improvement mantra, though there are signs of
progress. Thinking a bit deeper, I found myself considering the
interesting differences between some auto firms and others. For example,
Japanese transplants prefer "naive" workers - witness Marysville OH and
Smyrna, TN, both non-traditional locations for factories, before Honda and
Nissan set up shop. So how come naivity was considered valuable? Because
typical American factory workers are the inheritors of a long tradition of
"learned incompetence" and "learned DISengagement" that disables many of
the natural tendencies that otherwise would help them to improve their
situations as regards productivity, etc. Unions and workers resisted
change because change so very often meant their jobs were eliminated, and
the downsizing and automation of the recent past shows similar results.
The 1980s saw some 100,000 jobs eliminated at GM, for example, even while
Roger Smith's Golden Parachute was nicely inflated.
Please note: unions have had historically excellent reasons for
resisting change and trying to get "everything" specified in their
contract: see a film on "Union Maids," about the 1938 GM strike for one
example, or, more recently, "Roger and Me." The dilemma, it seems to me,
is that each one of us walks into any organization to face that
organization's past learning - good and bad. Or, perhaps more clearly, we
face the need to help create an organization in which people can UNlearn
the bad expectations of the past, which made perfect sense once, but now
simply endanger the organization. This remains extraordinarily difficult
when megabuck salaries reward folks far from the fray, while those who do
the daily work see wages stagnant and jobs disappearing. More jobs WILL
disappear, because it makes no economic sense to do them "by hand," when
they can be done better by machines.
Agruably, Ford (where Deming's methods to "drive out fear" were
apparently taken seriously over a decade ago), has made the most progress.
GM, even in its Saturn division, seems still to struggle (costs are high,
work methods seem not entirely rationalized, according to reports,
staffing is high). Chrysler outsources LOTS, so its cost structure is
different, but despite occasionally inspired design, quality has been an
issue. What benefit naivity here? Ford says they need production skills,
people inculcated with quality ideals, problem solving skills and a deep
commitment to doing the job right, improving over time, and taking
initiative toward constant improvement: doesn't sound naive to me. GM
seems to have a long way to go to get past its historically adversarial
relationship with workers (and vendors): MUCH UNlearning, in other words.
"Insider" accounts underline how bureaucracy continues to loom as a
barrier to learning, and to the needed unlearning. Chrysler, at a guess,
has a bit less to unlearn simply because they have outsourced so much, but
by the same token, has thereby eliminated potential for benefitting under
a culture of quality and learning to improve.
My two cents worth!

Sam

Mariann Jelinek, Ph.D.
Richard C. Kraemer Professor of
Business Administration
Graduate School of Business | The only real, enduring strategic advantage
College of William and Mary |comes from changing the rules of the game.
P.O. Box 8795
Williamsburg, VA 23185-8795

Tel. (757) 221-2882 FAX: (757) 229-6135

-- 

Mariann Jelinek <mxjeli@facstaff.wm.edu>

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