I'm an industrial engineer by degree and a Total Quality Control
consultant/trainer by profession. I studied sociotechnical systems as an
undergrad and after getting my MBA, had the good fortune to work at
Florida Power & Light, where I had the chance to learn TQC. This
experience changed my expectatation of what organization life can be like.
Since then, I have been working to create similar experiences with other
organizations.
Learning TQC from Japanese counselors introduced me to the Eastern "Way."
This lead to an interest in Eastern philosophy, Buddhism, and Zen. With
this background, I read the Fifth Discipline about 2-3 years ago. I was
struck by how the ideas expressed described what I had experienced at FPL
and how closely these ideas fit with things I was learning from studying
Buddhism and Zen.
MAQIN, the quality network in the Madison area, began our discussion group
just over 2 years ago. We meet every two weeks with surprisingly few
exceptions. I've also heard Peter Senge speak 3 times and Daniel Kim
present twice and I attended the Systems Thinking in Action conference in
1994. It was an awesome experience!
I've learned a lot and had a lot of fun with my learning community in
Madison and I look forward to the same with each of you.
--esnyder@execpc.com (Kathy Erickson-Snyder)
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>