Intro -- Debbie Broome LO8670

Debbie Broome (debbieb@linux.plano.gov)
Thu, 25 Jul 1996 13:39:37 -0500

I was introduced to Peter Senge's work in 1992 via an organization known
as the Colorado Issues Network. Since moving to Plano, Texas as an
Assistant City Manager this past year, I am in a position where I will be
able to use a number of learning organization concepts and techniques to
effect a transformation of our organization. A little bit about Plano,
Texas. We are an affluent community of 185,000 in the Dallas Metro area.
One of our major employers is EDS, one of MIT's Organizational Learning
Center partners. We are in the processes of contacting EDS and are hoping
that they will share their knowledge with our fledgling team here at the
city. In addition to transforming our own organization, we are interested
in facilitating a "learning community" in Plano. We understand that there
may be a similar group functioning in Dallas. If anyone has any
information on that group, I would appreciate hearing from you.

Plano has 1400 employees and we have been through an organization-wide TQM
effort. While a number of the tools have been helpful, we have found that
our employees are not truly empowered nor have we escaped from the
"program of the month" mentality. I was fortunate enough to work for an
organization in Colorado that did encourage continuous learning. As a
result, a number of far-reaching changes were made over time and I know it
can be done. My goals specifically are to address our current inflexible
structure and to impact culture so that continuous individual and team
learning can occur. In the 1990's cities need to be competitive with other
public and private service providers and we need a high level of
committment and knowledge from our employees.

I'm a little bit stuck with what I think is a chicken and egg question:
Do you change the organizational structure first, using learning
principles, or do you foster an environment where learning can occur out
of which structural change will happen. Does anyone out there have any
experience with this conundrum?

Personally I have a Master's Degree in Public Administration and have held
management positions in various cities from Florida to Colorado to Texas
for the past 15 years. I am continuously learning and and seek
opportunities to broaden my knowledge. I was fortunate enough to
participate in Peter Senge's seminar in Dallas a couple of weeks ago.

-- 


Debbie Broome <debbieb@linux.plano.gov>
 


     Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations
    For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>