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<FONT FACE="Times New Roman" DEFAULT="FACE"><FONT SIZE="3" POINTSIZE="12" DEFAULT="SIZE">Dear Joelle, Artur and you others,<BR>
I have been reading "Productive Workplaces Revisited" by Marvin Weisbord (delightful fun and learning for me).<BR>
He actually looked up a whole bunch of organizations he has worked with over the last decades.<BR>
Here is a quote from page 484 (the book has 485 pages):<BR>
"Would I plunge again into the projects in this book, knowing that for most the half-life would be an eye blink in human history? Yes, I would do them all again knowing - as should anyone who takes on the awesome task of improving systems - that "outcomes" in a sea on non-stop change are as short lived as butterflies in summer.<BR>
I would do this work again because I believe that:<BR>
-Dialogue and inquiry are good for us<BR>
-Humane workplaces enjoy greater economic success<BR>
-Helping people gain control of their work engenders hope, and we all need hope to bet by<BR>
-It is existentially right to encourage cooperation - social, technical, and economic - across lines of age, class, culture, education, ethnicity, gender, national borders, race, status, and occupation.<BR>
Finally, I would do this again for the sake of future generations. Getting everyone improving the whole is a legacy from the ancestors honored in these pages ( Frederick Winslow Taylor,Kurt Lewin, Douglas McGregor, Eric Trist, Emery, Bion,...add your sources, this is my addition in parantheses). It is a legacy our grandchildren richly deserve from us. More to the point, in the workplace of the future, it is the only one they are likely to find worth inheriting."<BR>
<BR>
This encourages me to continue with my open space-work.<BR>
Of course, I do love to see results, outcome, especially of the kind like a sparkle in someones eyes, or responses like "I never had so much fun working and I am refreshed" but installing a new system of improving the quality of teaching, or redesigned toilets and other tangibles are nice, too.<BR>
<BR>
Greetings from Berlin<BR>
mmp<BR>
(am off tomorrow to the first Future Search Learning Exchange that is taking place outside the US in Sweden...well, yes, OSonOSes have been all over the world for a while)<BR>
<BR>
--Original Message Text---<BR>
<B>From:</B> EVERETT813@aol.com<BR>
<B>Date:</B> Tue, 11 May 2004 00:21:52 EDT<BR>
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<FONT COLOR=000000 DEFAULT="COLOR"><FONT FACE="Geneva"><FONT SIZE="2" POINTSIZE="10">Artur,<BR>
<BR>
Very interesting speculations, those. Some of them assume knowledge that I don't have and reveal an in-depth study of the ideas on your part. Very fine piece of work.<BR>
<BR>
Not to hook you up with my thesis, or imply that you are aligned with it, but earlier in the year I speculated that real change from OST efforts seems hard to find. By that I meant significant outcomes that made significant changes in the organizations over time. I was 'assured' by OST posters that I was just not seeing what was happening and dropped the discussion because I'm rarely directly involved in OST efforts. However, I respect the process and feel it has real possibilities.<BR>
<BR>
I do deal in organizational change through my consulting in Lean Thinking, which is the Toyota Management System that is shaking the corporate world these days. Having passed Ford, after spotting them a 40-year head start, they have the attention of companies all over the world. They will be the largest auto company by 2010, barring some kind of societal disaster. They seem to have solved the transfer of power and leadership conundrum <I>because</I> of the longevity of the progenitors and the Systems demonstrated superiority to any other currently known management system. <BR>
<BR>
My observation is: most organizational change is temporary (by definition, maybe?) and companies soon revert to the mean. How soon depends on the Leadership. Welch and Goizutta moved their organizations to new heights. So did the head of Motorola, but when he left, they stumbled badly. When leadership changes, the company changes, despite numerous 'change agents' working in the organization on strong trajectories. I can cite dozens of examples where very significant change and results were being achieved, the leader of the corporation changed, and they rather quickly reverted to a mean (which may be a slowly rising slope, slowly declining slope, or a flat line, whatever it was before the prior leader came and 'did things.') <BR>
<BR>
Hence my thesis: who leads OST change efforts makes all the difference, and I mean ALL the difference. If you don't have the top honcho, you can get one or two standard deviations away from the mean for a brief time but reversion is sure when the middle leaders change, or more likely, are fired or quit. Or, in the case of government, lose the election or position. They get too far out of synchronization with the culture and get spit out. (I know of a study that found that the initial change agent in a company had best be prepared to be fired or quit part way through the effort because almost all were. Then a new change agent was appointed and s/he continued the effort and brought it to some semblence of completion.)<BR>
<BR>
Anyway, one of the issues in American management is constancy of purpose, as Deming noted. We catch fads like colds because we change leaders like we change our clothes. Only when the exceptional leader lasts a long time do we get a marked shift, imho. (A sobering comment on our democracy). Seeing this, I always try to start with the leader first, and if I can't do that, I don't usually waste my life's time messing around in a change process that doesn't involve the top people. It's too precious.<BR>
<BR>
Best to you in your seeking and discussion, Artur.<BR>
<BR>
Paul Everett<BR>
<BR>
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