Re: Pay for Knowledge Schemes LO330

Michael McMaster (Michael@kbddean.demon.co.uk)
Sat, 04 Mar 1995 19:46:03 GMT

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Host's Note: I'm inserting these prior quotes for context:

In LO273: Michael McMaster writes about his consulting job for
Arco on pay-per-performance:

I was there five years into the scheme to consider the motivation problems
of staff who had learned all of the available "paying skills" and who were
now too highly paid to quit and had no (external) incentive to learn.

In LO311, Art Kleiner asks:

... Michael... What happened next?

Don't leave us hanging! Was there anything valuable to suggest?
Topeka's famous Gaines Dog Food experimental plant ran into the
same problem.
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Art, I wasn't around for much of the follow-up but the reports are
interesting. I don't know if it was resolved by normal control processes
which ignored the possibility of self responsibility and self organisation
but I do have a bet in the matter.

The reports for some time were of problems requiring great inputs of
energy and remaining unresolved for long periods of time because they were
the only entertaining things left. The turnover did not go up - at least
for some time - but what was called motivation went down and productivity
was reported to drop. (I'm not sure thay had measures that would validate
the drop.) Energetic input seemed to decrease. Worse, because the
circumstances were such that a community had been created (isolated for
long periods together as well as working together) that the conflicts,
fights and disputes increased dramatically. The solution to that was to
bring in more support services to counsel, arbitrate, etc.

The viable alternative from my perspective would be dialogue devloted to
bringing the community present and engaging it in its own condition with
no hope of resolution "from the outside or on high". If this included a
development process in dialogue and ..... then I think it would have a
chance. At least one of the regular conversations that were missing and
that I would start and maintain are converastions for the development of
possibility. Without that present, not much can be expected IMHO.

The comparison the Topeka is too tempting to pass up. Were you around in
the good old "Quality of Work Life" movement back then when Topeka was the
whole story? Anyway, the other problem in Topeka that I find fascinating
for its insights and possible interpretations is that the executives who
ran or were transferred to Topeka never made it back into the systems of
the parent companies. (Does anybody out there know if this is true?)
Related to that is the number of times the highly successful plant has
changed ownership without infecting the owning companies.

Something like NUMMI not infecting GM. The report I heard about that one
was that the Gm executives confronted with the physcial evidence on a trip
to NUMMI in California declared that "it isn't a real car plant."

I have some friends and will see if they know if any interesting
resolution occurred. Thanks for the question.

-- 
Mike McMaster      <Michael@kbddean.demon.co.uk>
    "Postmodern society is the society of computers, information, scientific
knowledge, advanced technology, and rapid change due to new advances in
science and technology."          Postmodern Theory, Best & Kellner