Our improvement effort is called CustomerPerfect! and our intent is to
become a Customer-focused, process-driven organization. Much of our
formal training has the word quality in its title; however there is no
mistaking that this also addresses related issues as well. If you're in
OD, you might relate to Socio-technical systems where we do Environmental,
Technical and Social scans and then attempt to (re)design to minimize
variances. We ARE trying to make learning more a part of daily work and
we ARE working to become more facilitative and less traditional in how we
work with people. And, training is woven throughout. Bottom line - I
trust you are the right audience for this.
Here is what I need from you and will feed back to all via summary:
1. What _proven_ methods do you know for training people to _lead_
an improvement effort such as this?
2. What can you tell us about approaches to developing dramatically
different new skills, foreign to the culture? Note that you
can reference actual successes or actual failures, just please
signify which.
3. Anything else you feel is relevant to our design team.
As is the norm for activities such as this, we will not have the time to
do as much as we would like; when management finally buys in, time always
seems to shrink. I am, however, taking this opportunity to benchmark to
the extent possible. If your data is something that you are uncomfortable
sharing broadly as it perhaps places you or your organization in an
unfavorable light, please so note and send your response directly to me.
Your name and/or your company's/client's name will not appear in the
summary; I simply ask you to provide both to me as a way of giving
credibility to this data with our organization. I will only share what
you said with our organization unless a key leader asks the source; in
that case, I would give that person that specific information.
Please note: Since I read all four of these lists daily, DO know what
a massive reaction this COULD stimulate. You are encouraged
to consider whether your response is best sent to me
directly and shared later with all via summary -- OR --
whether to send to the whole list.
Thank you in advance for your contributions. I would like to think that,
somehow, your inputs will eventually drive some improvement in the speed,
accuracy or cost of your mail service. Yes, that is a faith journey, but
it is the one I signed on for.
Best regards,
Mike Townes
-----
Michael D. 'Mike' Townes | Consider the Postage Stamp. Its
Quality Specialist, USPS | usefulness consists of its ability
mdtownes@iamerica.net | to stick to one thing until it gets
214-819-8797 | there. Henry Wheeler Shaw
P O Box 225459 Dallas, TX 75222-5459
--Mike Townes <mdtownes@iamerica.net>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>