Replying to Ben Compton's thoughts on evaluation, management's role and
employee's responses as shown below:
>I've expressed this idea more than once at Novell, and every time I get
>frowned at by the managers. They always ask: "Now what would our role be
>again?" I've mentioned it to the employees in my department, and they say,
>"You want us to do what? That's why we have managers. Managers tell us
>what do to."
>
You have expressed something that I have struggled with as a manager in
two organizations. In the past, the definition of a successful manager is
one who "fixes things." Consequently managers got used to solving all of
the organization's problems and employees got used to letting
them...except when they didn't like the solutions. I think we need to
appreciate that both employees and managers are struggling to define new
responsibilities in the workplace. In a sense, each group is enabling the
other to perform in exactly the same manner and it takes a lot of courage
to jump into another way of doing business.
How do you create the type of change as suggested by Ben's ideas? I think
in part he is on the right track with his assumption lunches. If you can
get people in an organization to start thinking and challenging assumptions
in a safe environment, they are more likely to embrace and create new ideas.
I would be interested in hearing about methods that other folks have used to
facilitate discussion and shifts in organizational thinking.
--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/>