Jim's response triggers something about which I have strong feelings
and concerns. There is a sentiment that he expresses that I am in
complete agreement with. Namely, that we have compartmentalised and
separated what should be much more integrated as part of the job. Of
course, somebody other than specialists should be doing HR. I don't
happen to think it's managers because I don't have much expectation
that function will survive the coming transformations. I think we
will want to locate the HR function in teams - but that's another
story.
What I'm passionate about, however, is that there is a place for
mastery and for masters and that those who are doing other things -
hopefully purusing mastery in their own field (such as production) -
are not going to be "masters of everything". I quite happy to have
HR masters. I am quite happy to say "its learning" rather than HR.
But I still want masters available to me for their own value and for
the contribution they make to the pursuit of mastery in others.
Now, if we were really "pure", we might have these masters be people
who hold other accountabilities and function as the masters at the
same time. Unipart is not a bad example of this. The professors at
Unipart U are also employees - some managers, some welders, some etc.
-- Michael McMaster Michael@kbddean.demon.co.uk