Employee retention LO23412, LO23402,...
> I'm sorry John, but I just do not buy that businesses exist to serve. It
> is true that unless they serve, or are seen to be serving, they will not
> succeed over the long term.>>
<< This issue comes up periodically...what would be really neat is if we were
to do a systems diagram of all the pieces and how they interact in
inter-dependent ways. Clearly there is some relationship (however it's
defined) between things like shareholder receipts, service, quality,
costs, etc., and that if one doesn't consider all the inter-relationships
I'm not sure one can aim at ONLY one of them. >>
Another 4 Block instrument was developed by Elias Porter that relates to
rbacal's comment on considering multiple perspectives. I don't always
agree with the concept of categorizing people, but the instrument does
offer an opportunity for introspection, discussion with peers and a degree
of objectivity. The most interesting thing to me in the Strength
Deployment Inventory is Porter's concept of "Weakness" and how it applies
to business, as well as effective teams.
Porter defines a weakness as simply a strength carried to excess. For
example: turn up the heat on dynamic leadership and it can look like -
overbearing, aggressive, not listening, etc.
When we try to state that businesses exist for one primary reason be it
shareholders, profits, customers or whatever, organizations risk taking a
strength a turning it into a weakness. Customer service carried to excess
can cause people to do goofy things. It's great that on occasion the bell
hop grabs the left brief case and goes to the airport to catch the guest
who left without it. It makes for good headlines, inspiration and
camaraderie. But successful organizations also keep other key
perspectives on the radar screen. Otherwise they stumble as recently
exemplified by: First Chicago/Bank One, ITT, Beatrice Foods (Companies),
and a long list of others. GE is probably the best US example of multiple
focus points, it will be interesting to see the transition after Welch
retires.
Michael Bremer
Flow-Works, Inc.
--Michael Bremer
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>