Some years ago I read what I thought was a very interesting book by Michael
McGill called, "American Business and the Quick Fix." In it Michael
essentially profiled 4 decades of management fads--quite appropriately
labeled it seemed:
the formula fifties
the sensitive sixties
the strategic seventies
the excellent eighties
Then, with the advent of Tom Peters's "Liberation Management," Time Based
Competition, and all the current ruckus about BPR, it seems we find ourselves
in:
the nanosecond ninties
There seems to be an apparent penchant for taking concepts of considerable
merit and reducing them to formulas; formulas which we then quite often
inappropriately apply (one might say misapply). Then, when the formula
doesn't produce the expected result, we blame the formula.. It's the old,
"See, I told you it wouldn't work syndrome."
The question is, "Is there a way to preclude the concepts of The Learning
Organization from being reduced to a formula, and then a fad?" I am
personally not looking forward to the next decade being
the lo o's
If history has anything to teach, it is that we apparently have an umlimited
capacity to corrupt almost anything.
Gene Bellinger...
From: CrbnBlu@aol.com