Traditional Wisdom... LO8966

Elizabeth Reed-Torrence (ereedtorg@seattleu.edu)
Thu, 8 Aug 1996 09:50:38 -0700 (PDT)

Replying to LO8898 --

I attended a workshop on Continuous Quality Improvement in Hopsitals and
Jonathan Lord, M.D. provided the "Bad Apples" example and is perhaps
appropos here...
If you have an organization that fits the "so -called" bell curve
with a small percent of outstanding performers, many average performers
and a small percent of "bad" performers, The focus should not be on the
individuals but on the process. His Idea is that no one wants to be weeded
out as a Marginal or Bad performer...But if given the opportunity to
improve... most average folks will follow the lead of the outstanding
performers, improving their performance as they move the curve to the
right. The "bad" performers will quickly see that they are "sticking" out
and being recognized as "bad". They will quickly move their performance
towards the average in the bell curve once again continuing on the left
side of the curve BUT better than they were. This is true of everyone in
an organization. Lord was using Physicians as an example. This group
usually does not want anyone to notice that their performance may not be
excellent...and when singled out often retaliate... in less than positive
ways. Physicians are people just like the rest of in organizations. We all
want folks to think good things about us and our work...
The basic assumption is that all people want to do good work and
be recognized and will continue to do better work if moved to do so.

On Tue, 6 Aug 1996, Robert Bacal wrote:

> On 5 Aug 96 at 17:30, Cherry Vanderbeke wrote:
>
> > I think Joan has hit a big nail on the head here. I have a quote
> > posted over my desk which says, "There are no bad people in
> > companies - just good people being asked to do the wrong thing."
> > (source unknown...
>
> snipped.
>
> I agree to some extent, but the interesting thing about systems thinking
> is that we must also apply it to management. So by the same logic, there
> is also no such thing as bad managers, only managers that are working in
> bad systems, or who are, themselves asked to do the wrong things.
>
> If this is so, then it brings us to a very odd, and to me disconcerting
> state of affairs. No bad managers, no bad employees, only bad systems.
[Quote of prev msg snipped by your host...]

Peace,
ET
eLIZabeth Reed-Torrence

-- 

Elizabeth Reed-Torrence <ereedtor@seattleu.edu>

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