Bill writes about this notion:
>James Autry in his video Love and Profit points out the difficult "call"
>that managers must constantly make:
>
> balancing the rights of the individual with the rights of the group.
When we pose the idea in this way, it makes it seem as if the rights of
the individual and the rights of the group are somehow different from each
other. In the past, I and others have suggested that an individual is
really the sum of his or her perceived relationships with the world.
Further, we can understand that this is true for ourselves and for others
as well. The value of that understanding is that we can learn to
accommodate one another. In other words, we are a part of the group and
help make the group what it is. And the group is part of each of us and
helps make us what we are.
Organizations have the purpose of creating mutually beneficial
relationships between themselves and some group of customers. The
organization may work efficiently or inefficiently (i.e., the members of
the organization may work efficiently or inefficiently together) to
fulfill that purpose. When individuals do not identify their welfare with
this purpose, it is likely that the performance of the group and
organization will be compromised and inefficient. On the other hand, when
management does not create an environment and culture that fosters such
identification, we can only expect inefficient operations.
So, I believe that you look out for the rights of the group by looking out
for the rights of the individual and vice versa. But to do this well,
there has to a heightened sense of the organization as a system and the
understanding that our individual welfare is tied up with the group's.
The whole idea of the systems view is to get away from this need for
managers to weigh individual versus group rights. It is to help us
consciously merge those to the benefit of both.
Finally, let's say there is some group member who always behaves in ways
that are contrary to the needs of the group to fulfill its purpose. In
such cases, I believe that it makes sense to transfer that individual out
of the group or perhaps even terminate him or her. And in so doing, we
may note that this is not only in the best interests of the group but also
in the best interests of the individual (even if it doesn't seem so to the
person at the time).
To reiterate: It is destructive and a misunderstanding of the systems
view to think of the interests and rights of individuals as being separate
from those of the group. And it is a misunderstanding of the systems view
to think of the rights of the group as separate from the rights of the
people who make up the group. The whole purpose of what we might call
"enlightened" management is to help people understand this and take
actions that make it easy for people to work well together, to learn from
each other, and to get better and better at delivering high quality
products and services to customers.
John Woods
jwoods@execpc.com
--John Woods <jwoods@execpc.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>