On 5 Aug 96 at 17:30, Cherry Vanderbeke wrote:
> I think Joan has hit a big nail on the head here. I have a quote
> posted over my desk which says, "There are no bad people in
> companies - just good people being asked to do the wrong thing."
> (source unknown...
snipped.
I agree to some extent, but the interesting thing about systems thinking
is that we must also apply it to management. So by the same logic, there
is also no such thing as bad managers, only managers that are working in
bad systems, or who are, themselves asked to do the wrong things.
If this is so, then it brings us to a very odd, and to me disconcerting
state of affairs. No bad managers, no bad employees, only bad systems.
This has some serious implications regarding issues of personal
responsibility and accountability, and has the potential for allowing
almost everyone to blame the system. Come to think of it, isn't that the
case in society in general?
) I see a link with the philosophies of Peter
> Scholtes who opposes individual performance appraisal because it
> supports the (mis)concept that the company's problems or successes
> are attributable to the individual performance of individual
> employees. Focusing on the individuals ignores the existence of
> _systems_, which the likes of Deming, Scholtes, Senge et al define
> as the source of an organisation's performance.
Focusing only on the system has its own problems. Let us not forget that
individual PEOPLE do the work...the system doesn't do the work, but acts
to structure, coordinate, etc. The system isn't accountable, people are
accountable. I think a focus on one or the other is a fast track to a
mess.
Robert Bacal, CEO, Institute For Cooperative Communication
dbt359@freenet.mb.ca, Located in Winnipeg,Canada.
*For articles on management, change, training,communication, etc,
visit our home page at: http://www.winnipeg.freenet.mb.ca/~dbt359
--"Robert Bacal" <dbt359@freenet.mb.ca>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>