I'm glad Jeff Marchek continued to write about his thoughts on ISO and
TQM. He's the one, you recall, who wrote about pushing his company from
TQM toward an LO.
It's impossible for me to imagine a company which reaches a "station" and
doesn't move forward. Now wait, I realize I've said "impossible." Let me
state it differently:
I find it impossible to imagine a growing organization on our planet which
does NOT build upon accumulated knowledge and experience like ISO and TQ
and Continuous Improvement often provide.
Let's laugh at ourselves more. Look in the mirror: we are sometimes chefs
and diners who, having tasted and ingested one "-ism" or another, begin a
search for new tastes. At worst and with an UNCONSCIOUS air of snobbery,
we make others who have not yet tasted feel that some or many such meals
as we've had already can be skipped--better food always awaits us.
Ya know, I've always been one who likes to look behind the theater flats
at the spaces where ropes, wires, frenelles, and loose script pages lie
dormant in the near black. Sure, suspend my disbelief with the concept of
Learning Organization as theorized on the bleeding edge by all of us. But
let me stop careening forward every once and a while to catch my breath
and take stock of the moment, the nasty, customer-driven moment.
How many companies have you visited where the same organizational problems
as you have are rife. And how many of these companies are considered
brand-name places in their respective fields, places where you think
everything works so smoothly?
'Nuf for now. The curtain is rising. The play goes on.
Best regards,
-- Barry Mallis bmallis@markem.com Total Quality Resource Manager MARKEM Corporation Keene, NHLearning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>