>To my simple mind, "dramatically improved results" applies to resource use
>(money, people), and peoples' satisfaction, whether customer-type people,
>employee-type people, or other stakeholder-type people. There are
>numerous devices to measure customer and employee satisfaction, but no
>standards that I am aware of. Stakeholder satisfaction for others than
>customers and employees is hardly recognized in any business literature.
>Resource use can be measured by return on sales ( work productivity),
>return on equity (investment productivity), return on employee (people
>productivity), and return on assets (asset productivity). No single
>measure will be effective. Short term measurement is not valid. Stock
>price is universally available, and so it is appealing. Unfortunately, it
>is heavily influenced by market issues that have little to do with
>learning. Witness the dither over Viagara. Of course, there is research
>there, but that is not corporate learning. They just have a
>market-beating idea, and it is having a big influence on stock price.
>
>Rol Fessenden
LO Colleagues -
What T.J. and Rol have to say makes sense to me. Thanks for your ideas.
Three tools seem likely to be helpful for measuring to see if LO works:
Open Book Management, Balanced Scorecard, and Visual Workplace.
Open Book Mgmnt., according to Jack Stack, one of its gurus, works when
ALL company members (too often called "employees," as if managers and
executives were not employees):
1) Learn business fundamentals, including how to read and build income
statements and balance sheets.
2) Are encouraged to think in terms of overall profitability, including
revenues, associated costs and expenses, and "the bottom line."
3) Receive full and frequent financial and operating information.
4) Are included in major financial decisions.
Useful references include:
Case, John. "Open-book management: The coming business revolution." 1995,
Harper Business. Describes the hows and whys of this approach to informing
the company's employees and other stakeholders about results and prospects.
[Host's Note: These book links in association with Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0887308023/learningorg
...Rick]
McCoy, Thomas J. "Creating an open book organization: Where employees
think & act like business partners." 1996, Amacom. A workbook of proven
practices, principles and ideas to accomplish this complex yet rewarding
organizational change. Key elements are education, engagement, enabling,
and empowerment. When these are done correctly all company members can
undertake new roles and responsibilities, while understanding the risks and
rewards involved with working to accomplish the company's goals and
objectives, e.g. profitability, growth, satisfied customers, adequate cash
position, and serving members' interests.
[Host's Note:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0814402933/learningorg
...Rick]
Schuster, John P. III, Jill Carpenter & M. Patricia Kane. "Power of
open-book management, The: Releasing the true potential of people's minds,
hearts & hands." 1996, John Wiley. A practical guidebook to help every
member of the company learn where the money comes from and where it goes.
Presents a strategy for total employee involvement, with how-to-do-it
guidelines for work group members and leaders. Covers "what it is, getting
started, and keeping it going." Presents evidence that the more people
know about the company's performance the stronger and more durable their
contributions. Includes guidelines for starting to use open-book
management as the basis for improved performance.
[Host's Note:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/047113287X/learningorg
...Rick]
Stack, Jack. "Great game of business, The." 1992, Doubleday/Currency.
When all members of the company understand how cost reports and financial
statements affect them, large changes can occur more quickly and more
easily. Performance and financial results improve.
[Host's Note:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/038547525X/learningorg
...Rick]
Balanced S'card (the abbreviation B.S. seems not appropriate) considers
four key areas in choosing and recording a series of measurements that
allow managers to quantify and measure the results of plans (strategic or
tactical), programs, projects, and processes: financial results, customer
knowledge (including satisfaction), internal processes, and the learning
and growth demonstrated by individuals and work groups. A guiding
principle is "what gets measured gets attention." (And someone added:
"what gets rewarded gets done."
Key reference: Kaplan, Robert S. & David P. Norton. "Balanced scorecard,
The: Translating strategy into action." 19??, HBS Press.
Visual workplace is described in:
Hirano, Hiroyuki. "5 pillars of the visual workplace: The sourcebook for
5S implementation." 1995, Productivity Press. Guidelines for placing
information at job sites to inform all stakeholders of continuous
improvement efforts. Displaying production and other performance
information makes goals and progress visible to all. Results include
improved communication and increased participation in improvement actions.
The "5S's" used in manufacturing settings are seiso (cleanliness), shitsuke
(discipline), seiton (neatness), seiri (organization), and seiketsu
(standardization). Emphasizes that any company must successfully and
continuously improve the 5S basics if they plan to implement quality
improvement, reengineering, or any other larger-scale change program.
[Host's Note:
Five Pillars of the Visual Workplace
Hiroyuki Hirano, Bruce Talbot (Translator) / Hardcover / $85
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1563270471/learningorg
...Rick]
Perhaps other LO network readers have additional resources for these three
tools, or can report experience in using them for gathering evidence of LO
performance and effectiveness. What has worked for you?
Dick Webster
Richard S. Webster, Ph.D. - President
Personal Resources Management Institute
709 Wesley Court - Worthington OH 43085-3558
e-mail <webster.1@osu.edu>, fax 614-433-71-88, tel 614-433-7144
PRMI is a 501(c)3 non-profit research, development and consulting company,
founded in 1978. The Institute's work relates primarily to the paradigm
shift from "training, instruction, and teaching" to "learning." Learning
is a key strategy for improving leadership, performance, processes,
quality, results -- and the teams' work that creates outstanding
organizations.
***
"Things are getting better and better and worse and worse faster and
faster" says Tom Atlee. Challenges: (1) Finding the "betters" and building
on them, in time. (2) Learning -- each person's responsibility and
opportunity.
--"Richard S. Webster" <webster.1@osu.edu>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>