Ben,
I can't answer with precision so can I offer a few thoughts.
I want to take you back to one of your own postings, which I found
valuable, around CHristmas.
It related to competence in are work (competence being solving the
customers problems) related to having a wide undstanding of things rather
than a narrow yet more detailed knowledge. People (in you example those
who had been around for a while) were better able to answer customer
problems because they had lots of background knowledge that enabled them
to problem solve more effectively.
This seems so in many jobs. Knowledge and manufacturing. It raises the
issue, for me, how do we continually get people to be sufficiently aware
of foundation information so that they can solve/overcome problems and get
to the causes.
What is often missing, and I think that this goes some way to answering
your fundemental question, is the need to develop people's skills in
working with others. Their questionning, listening, reflecting, building
on etc etc skills.
If you do not listen but go straight into suggested ansers them you may
(only may) solve the problem and quite likley won't ever discover the
cause. Often people are under pressure to do things fast and this goes
against the above in the short term. Not in the long term (as your
CHristmas message stated) because the problem does not recur. I am in the
middle of some computer problems and my dealer is hunting problems rather
than doing a good diagnostic and clearning it up in one go!
A second thought to how do you get the wider understanding, I mentioned
ealier in this message? The only way that I know of is to have people talk
to each other about their problems, how they overcome them with the
specific intention of LEARNING. So often we talk, and not because we want
to learn.
THese two things, better interpersonal skills and greater emphasise on
learning require a corporate culture (or at least a departmental culture)
that supports and encourages with activity. It is here that we begin to
see the difficulties. How many companies do you know (I know very few)
that encourage poeple skills amongst all employees and encourage learning
for the sake of it!!!!!
Please keep thes good questions coming. They realy help me to clarify my
own thoughts and ideas. Hope my responses hlp you.
Ian
Ian Saunders
Transition Partnerships - Harnessing change for business advantage
tpians@cix.compulink.co.uk
--tpians@cix.compulink.co.uk (Ian Saunders)
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>