Standardization LO9159

Rachel Silber (rachel@ontos.com)
Thu, 15 Aug 1996 18:14:42 -0400 (EDT)

Replying to LO9114 -- was: "Christianity and the 5th Disc"

J C Howell said:
>
> In any organization we look for the reason it exists ... they "WHY" ...
> the purpose. From that we develop the principles by which the
> organization will operate. I have railed before about over-proceduralized
> organizations. Standardization is a plus. But standardization to the
> point of prescribing every action during a day is excessive and stifles
> the natural creativity and adaptability that is so necessary for success,
> long life, and, yes, developing a LO.
>

Clyde, your comments about standardization made me think of an interesting
experience that I had recently. I am taking an introductory sailing
course, and in intro to sailing, you learn to make a few simple knots.
Our instructor explained that it's important to make the same knot the
same way every time, to coil the ropes in the same direction every time --
standardization to an extreme, I would think. But this is a basic element
of "seamanship" -- and it is what makes a crew able to work together to
sail a boat. So that when you go off watch, and the next person comes on
and -- in the dark, with one hand -- ties and reties those knots, and when
you come back, everything is as you left it, or at least as it would have
been if you had done it yourself.

To some extent, my job is to craft repeatable processes; to the extent
that we can make those processes so smooth, so repeatable that it doesn't
matter which one of us does them (we are a long way from there in my
organization) we will have achieved a level that we can't achieve now of
"basic seamanship". Ok, will that stifle creativity and adaptability?
Only if the environment stays still around us, so that we don't have to
keep creating and changing the process. In which case, I don't have to
worry about that.

Well, just my two cents.

--

Rachel Silber rachel@ontos.com "In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. But in practice, there is."

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