> Christian:
>
> I was intrigued by your description and that of Jim Dawson describing how
> you went about surfacing your organization's core values and principles.
> Both of you described WHAT you were doing and HOW you were doing it. What
> baffles me is WHY would you start such an enterprise? Maybe you mentioned
> this earlier in the thread. What was it that led your organizations to the
> conclusion that this exercise had to be entered into? Were the
> organizations going through some sort of crisis that required a
> fundamental re-thinking of how to do business/serve the customer/treat
> people, etc.I would like to hear your thoughts on this.
>
> Regards,
> Roy Lyford-Pike
Hi Roy,
To be perfectly honest, the management team here did not go through an
extensive questionning exercise before launching this Values/Principle
effort. However, in hindsight, I can see some points that clearly
influenced us in the direction we took (in the order they come to my
mind).
1- We simply believed it would be helpful. We did not know how. A leap of
faith ?
2- We felt the process of discussing these issues would open some minds,
regardless of what the output could be.
3- The director was appointed about 6 months before we started. Coming
from another country (we are in Montreal, and he's coming from another
subsidiary in Australia), I believe he had to feel connected with the
culture in the group here. It seems to me that clarifying
values/principles is an excellent way to do it.
4- We are undergoing major change efforts in our core business processes.
These efforts being company-wide, our representatives to the meetings
could, in time, hold a more focussed, more consistent point of view on the
subjects being discussed.
5- The nature of our work (servicing major telecommunication networks)
requires from us that we often work on or own, at strange times of the
night, or on site at the customer premises. We thought we could present
again a more consistent image to our customers, through real-time
decisions based on common grounds (what A did it this situation is most
likely similar to what B would have done - our customers can recognize our
behaviour, and if we have to fix it, we might have a chance to identify
why, what and how faster).
I guess I can still continue and find other stuff to say, but these seem
to be the essential factors as I see the situation. I have asked my boss
for his contribution (I'll see if I can forward it when I get it...).
Christian
--Christian Giroux lmccgir@lmc.ericsson.se System Support Manager, Technical Assistance Center Ericsson Research Inc. Montreal
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>