Learning Industries? LO19293

BARAK ROSENBLOOM (BROSENBLOOM@doleta.gov)
Thu, 17 Sep 1998 17:01:18 -0400

Replying to LO19256 --

I had the odd pleasure of briefly meeting Dr. Deming a few years back. I
was in a class looking at new organizational forms as they relate to
government, and we all piled into a van and headed to a monthly gathering
of people interested in Deming's thinking in Detroit. Doug Ross (our
teacher) told Dr. Deming that we were looking at TQM in government. Dr.
Deming said "TQM? TQM? What's TQM?" Doug replied that we were looking
at how to make government more efficient. Dr. Deming shot back that
government isn't about efficiency, it's about equality. That was the end
of that.

>From what I've seen in my agency (we fund and work with state and local
workforce development programs - job training and career services for the
homeless, welfare recipients, youth, disadvantaged adults, laid-off
workers), we have had to become more of a catalyst for information flow.
Our staffing has fallen from 3600 nationwide in 1986 to 1400 today, and we
are working with programs serving more people in more ways. We have
learned that to influence quality we have to focus on creating
opportunities to unlock information and ideas, create self-sustaining
support and training systems within state and local areas, and focus
efforts on helping low performers become more effective not by focusing on
rules and regs, but on organizational culture, systems, vision, etc.

I see similar stories in the news. The IRS, theForest and Park services,
the military, all are changing what they are, and are using some the the
lo tools to do so. The old organisms are struggling to stay alive, but as
lo parasites moves into their systems, they slowly transform into agencies
with collaborating and communicating and innovating as the core of how
they achieve their missions. I expect that it will be another generation
at least before the the new organisms have taken strong hold throughout
government, but looking at the very long term, it is inevitable that the
old ways of doing business in government will die.

-- 

"BARAK ROSENBLOOM" <BROSENBLOOM@doleta.gov>

Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>