John Paul Fullerton wrote:
> Reponding to what John Mosman said in LO5568
>
> I had said
> >> Yesterday and today I was thinking about how one of Dr. Deming's 14
> >> Points for Management - "drive out fear" - would actually work in a
> >> real environment.
>>>>snip>>>>>>>
> Even with this line of reasoning, your question and the sense that it
> brings, may be right. Should events outside the system concern the
> manager?
>
> Please note that I am not a psychologist. I'm not saying what Dr. Deming's
> thoughts were. Though I'm "doing my best", "how could I know"? :)
One of the guys in the factory, normally a happy, concerned, productive,
and creative individual, suddenly went sour. For the first few days, I
chalked it up to a temporary setback somewhere along the line and didn't
question it. After the third day, I did some indirect questioning of his
team mates and found a serious domestic problem ensuing. I was the
Operations Manager of the factory and had "much more important things to
do", but because of my belief system, I put on my chaplain hat and spent
ten or fifteen minutes a day with him until he could let some of it go and
get to healing. It took months for his productivity, sense of humor, and
team spirit to come back to where it had been before his wife left, but
the extended factory family helped him to come around.
Sure events outside the organization affect the group. When every member
of a team is concerned about the welfare of the one, the common goal is
less focussed (in the short term) but the couple of hundred bucks it
causes to miss the bottom line is well worth the excellence the team will
produce when it is whole again.
Other external events which should concern the manager are things like
local taxes (a commuter tax law once upset the apple cart in our factory),
road conditions, etc. (my replacement in the factory in the story above
docked the second shift a sick day for missing work on a day on which all
roads were closed by order of the governor of the state because of a
blizzard). It's all the one suchness.
-- jzavacki@epix.net John Zavacki The Wolff Group 900 James Avenue Scranton, PA 18510 Phone: 717-346-1218 Fax: 717-346-1388Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>