Reply to: RE>Complexity LO9019
Michael McMaster points out a very certain deficiency in the simplistic
concept that just by taking care of the customer, the financials take care
of themselves.
I agree with his insight. The thought I provided comes from the first
quarter of this century. It probably exemplifies the mechanical model of
management which contains these characteristics:
1) cause and effect where relationships don't change
2) function versus purpose, stress on the former (e.g. an automobile has
function, but no purpose until it is used by a human; a machine is a
purposeless system)
3) control-input
4) inability to respond to change- little flexibility
Cost accounting was invented to serve this model, and to serve the owner
of the model.
After the mechanical came the biological model. Its attributes include:
1) management by objective
2) management by exception (local loops)
3) control-output
4) function/purpose
5) response to environmental change, as long as it's not too rapid
In this model, the charge is "Don't tell me how you do it, just do it.
Control by input is no longer the way. Control moves to output. The
organization has a purpose of its own which belongs to the person at the
top of the power hierarchy. The brain is the "head", as in department
head. The top person says "This is your goal", and has little care for
how it is arrived at. Cost accounting is no longer adequate for this
model.
The brain has many feedback loops, though. This model, under which most
people work today, still lacks wholistic power, because the purspoe of
this system belongs to the "brain. It is a uni-purpose system.
The biological model can't survive because employees want to respected,
individual purposes, no longer uni-purpose but multipurpose systems.
The social model looks for alignment without enforcement, collaboration,
not compliance. It is characterized by:
1) purpose/function
2) collective phonemena--ability to change rapidly
3) complexity in interactive management.
The behavior of each element has an effect on the behavior of the whole.
Behavior of the elements and their effects on the whole are
interdependent. However subgroups of the elements are formed, each has an
effect on the behavior of the whole and none has an endependent effect in
it.
The challenge is no longer management by objective, command and control.
Rather, organizations tranform to a system of managing interactions among
people, among organizational components. That's where the best practices
of total quality have made a partial contribution along with other new
designs.
Best regards,
-- Barry Mallis bmallis@markem.comLearning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>