Intro -- Virginia I. (Ginger) Shafer LO4907

Virginia I. Shafer (vshafer@AZStarNet.com)
Mon, 15 Jan 1996 23:57:51 -0700

Now that I've entered the discussions officially, I believe it's high time
I introduced myself.

EXPERIENCE WITH LO CONCEPTS...

I was first introduced to the LO concept via _The Fifth Discipline_several
years ago. At that time, I was a "Quality Advisor" to a two-star general
in the US Air Force. My colleague and I had been discovering many things
about TQM the hard way--challenging every thing we read to understand the
foundation of thought and where new thoughts would lead our organization.
The book just hit a resonant chord in me--a feeling as though the words
were within me all along and someone else had succeeded at putting them in
print. The ultimate AHA!

At the same time, I was coaching/facilitating a cross-functional quality
improvement team within the logistics discipline, i.e., there were
aircraft maintenance, supply, transportation, and our number crunchers on
the team. Their purpose was to improve the 'process' of "Logistics
Performance Measurements." Existing measures were stovepiped within a
function. Any interrelationships had to be inferred. Well, it was only
four months into the team process when a collective awareness occurred:
the HUMPs--a term coined by the team to mean Higher Up Management
People--didn't want to _change_ anything, they just wanted to automate and
speed up the data that was already in the system. (My colleague referred
to it as "chrome plating the sewer pipe.") And realizing we were trying to
change a system was an eye opener in and of itself.

To cut to the chase, the team worked diligently for almost a year, learned
much together, including the interrelatedness of each functional area's
actions, and are better people today as a result. They presented a
comprehensive approach to redefining the data collection process to answer
the questions asked, but there was more momentum for the status quo than
the team could overcome--despite support from some senior leaders in the
org. (Most members felt threatened that this would reflect negatively on
their performance evaluations.) The two-star was so threatened by the
suggestion of "radical" change, my colleague and I were replaced. His
loss, our gain. (P.S. We both took advantage of early retirements.)

WHAT I'M CURIOUS ABOUT...

I am a life-long student of organizations, subscribing to the
organizational culture school of thought ala Edgar H.Schein and Tom
Peters. I'm a relatively new student of systems thinking but I now see
systems and archetypes everywhere!! I believe one of the most powerful
messages in Senge's book was the parable of the Sharing of the Commons. I
believe we need to understand this very well, then using a form of
dialogue, we can solve world hunger, begin to heal the environment, and
tackle any problem generated by scarcity--real or perceived--working
together, not at cross purposes. The parable also caused me to realize
the futility of thinking that bigger is always better (more of an American
notion) nor is it in the collective best interest. Now how to convine
everyone else?!

This brings me to my real passion and what I'm MOST curious about. Many
business organizations today are running scared from or charging head
first at their "competition." Americans are obsessed with "competition."
Yet, I believe one elemental instinct we have written deep in our minds is
to survive. And species don't survive when they compete amongst
themselves. But in order to survive, we need to learn the tools of
cooperation. And that's what I see as the potential for learning
organizations. They will move us from competition toward cooperation and
the process must begin with our educational institutions. For the best
piece of work on this subject I've seen to date, check out _No Contest;
The Case Against Competition_ by Alfie Kohn. Well researched and almost
too well thought out. If anyone has additional references, please send
them to me.

JUST ME

My undergraduate degree was in Racial and Ethnic Studies and my masters is
in Public Administration. As I mentioned, I'm retired from the Air Force
and have recently started my own business sharing what I learned and
experienced over the years. I provide personal leadership training, or
coaching, for successful managers who want to discover new dimensions
through leadership skills development. My target or ideal client wants to
lead her/his organization to become a learning organization. I love to
read and think, so these postings have been marvelous for exercising my
brain.

Thank you for getting to know me a bit. As I get around to 'chatting'
with more of you, I'll continue to read your introductions inturn.

--
Ginger Shafer
The Leadership Dimension
"Bringing Leadership to Life"
vshafer@azstarnet.com