Rol wrote.
>I heard anecdotal stories about this in Bangkok and Hong Kong where people
>referred to Japanese and American managers being sent out from the home
>office to gain experience. In this "temporary" job, the dominant
>operating philosophies of these managers has been, "No problems on my
>shift" which is not exactly in the spirit of continuous improvement.
In the military, where assignments averaged 3 years for "middle managers"
and 2 years for commanders, the "Not on my watch" mindset was rampant.
But I attribute it less to the "temporary" nature of the position and more
directly to the reward/promotion system. I can see the potential for the
same circumstance in management training programs for large corporations.
It's very probably the reward process (what branch office you get rewarded
with) rather than the transience that drives short-term thinking and
behavior. You only get those two years or six months to make an impact,
get results. I ask you to consider this.
-- Ginger Shafer The Leadership Dimension "Bringing Leadership to Life" vshafer@azstarnet.comLearning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>