Consultants & "complexity stuff" LO11060

John Constantine (Rainbird@TRAIL.COM)
Tue, 19 Nov 1996 08:56:28 -0800

Replying to LO11053 --

Valdis makes several excellent points as his response to the relationships
of consultants and all this "stuff" staring at us almost daily.

Matrix-like organizations, project-oriented organizations, technically
trained specialists, government contracting - all lend themselves to
developing relationships which are appropriate to the purpose, as defined
by the participants themselves.

I too (and I'm sure many others can say the same thing) have been dealing
with such things as are the "natural" fallout of skilled groups of people.
To use a sports analogy (because much is team-based), you rely on certain
individuals whose skills in particular areas are known to all, and are
respected enough by all to feel perfectly comfortable in "yielding" to
that individual. This is very similar to the organization whose members
respect each other sufficiently to both cooperate and contribute to the
enterprise (project, program, product, process, etc.)and respond to a
colleague whose skill they are familiar with.

The PERT Chart is an example of a system such as Valdis describes; I
believe that its origin was in the military contracting area, and it is
commonly used today. Such relationships don't have to be friendly, just
respectful, and ultimately productive. The ship must be built with these
specs, etc.

The "Michael Jordan" gets to shoot the MIS (most important shot) in a
critical moment. The surgeon with the most skill gets to do the most
delicate part of the operation. The whole orchestra yields to the drummer
at important moments. Of course life is not perfect, and things can go
wrong or fail, but the process continues.

Sadly, Val points out the scarcity of examples of line workers in such a
scenario. Why is that? Doesn't the line worker have a degree to work with?
That's easily solved, but would the place take on a new golden glow?
Probably not, for the reason that Val mentioned, that being the need for
management "hierarchy", as opposed to relational diplomacy.

It may not be possible much longer for the US to maintain its hierarchical
mode, as long as we keep turning (churning) out non-automatons from
universities and colleges. Some way will perhaps have to be found to
release people from artificial restraints imposed by such formal
hierarchies and free them to contribute where they feel most productive
and useful, perhaps with a time-frame and PERT chart to work with, and a
place at the table. Hmmm, maybe I'd better stop before I get called
anti-managerial or something.

Nicely done, Val.

-- 

Regards, John Constantine rainbird@trail.com Rainbird Management Consulting PO Box 23554 Santa Fe, NM 87502 http://www.trail.com/~rainbird "Dealing in Essentials"

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