> Date: Wed, 7 Feb 1996 10:12:23 -0700
> From: vshafer@AZStarNet.com (Virginia I. Shafer)
>
> 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 problem I see with this is that what is rwarded in the
military may not be even desirable in corporations. For instance, when an
officer lands one of those short-term assignments, knowing that he or she
is on his or her way to better things, then they tend to do nothing.
There is a lot of gatekeeping and extablishment holding. If you try to
stir things too much, then you may not get the best posts in the puture
because the guys at the top might think that you are too weird or even
dangerous! I don't know if one can always produce desirable results in
the short-term assignments in the corporation. The situation there mighht
be a little bit more complicated than in the military.
Ivan
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