John writes:
> Rol Fessenden and Joan Pomo were talking about
> whether there should be a commitment to outcomes or
> process. If I understand the way life works and how we
> have projected that onto our understanding of
> organizations, I would say a focus on a process would be
> what you want to foster, along with an emphasis on
> continuous improvement of process operation and the
> delivery of outputs that satisfy and even delight
> customers (nothing original there).
This morning I had breakfast with a good friend and the
conversation wondered onto this topic. We began playing
around with the relationship between the means and the
ends. After talking for a couple of minutes we developed
the following theory:
It is common for people to become so inordinately
attached to the "means" they have chosen to achieve a
specific "end" that they fail to recognize emerging
performance/behavioral patterns that suggest the means
will not produce the desired result.
When the "means" have run their course and the "end" is
still unachieved, these same people often celebrate how
well they employed the "means" -- as if that constitutes
some form of success -- and pretend that the "end" was
merely a secondary objective.
John makes a good point: The process (or how people
apply the process) determines whether an "end" is
achieved. However, loyalty to the process, and not the
result, is usually counterproductive.
Why don't people recognize (or admit) that their "means"
or "process" is not working? Fear? -- fear of failure, fear of
being terminated? It seems to me that the most successful
businesses are the ones that can recognize early on in the
process that their "means" are not achieving the result
sought, and then make real-time adjustments.
Hence the need for systemic thought and a constant,
objective evaluation of how well the "means" are bringing
about the desired result. Isn't a Learning Organization one
in which the people, individually and collectively, within an
organization seek to produce the results they truly want?
Processes can (and often do) come and go, but the result
is usually pretty static . . . except when it has been
achieved and a new objective has been defined.
--Benjamin B. Compton ("Ben") | email: bcompton@novell.com Novell GroupWare Technical Engineer | fax: (801) 222-6991
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>