REPLY Why don't organizations function better? (SD6553)

[SDMAIL Ralf Lippold]

Posted by  Ralf Lippold <ralf_lippold at web.de>

Organizations have a tendancy to stay in their given paths, even when they face 
real and pressing problems, this can be called policy restistance as John Sterman 
calls that phenomen.

Everywhere on the planet companies want to follow suit Toyota as this company 
shows everybody how processes could be managed (not only in the automobile 
sector as Toyota is also active in home building and other fields). There is 
though a big difference as Toyota was facing the big problems while they were 
a tiny dot on the automobile market back some 70 years ago and back then they 
changed the design of the organization to a "learning organization". This is 
more difficult today when the culture is set, mental models are fixed (not 
easily broadened!) and people are forced to change the way they have done 
their work in the past years, decades or their lifetime.

As Lean Thinking supposes small changes -eliminating the waste that leads in 
most cases to other shortcomings (reinforcing loops in the processes)- are a 
way to start. But people don't see the positive effects in their own time 
horizons that is mostly very short compared to effects due to change programs.

This hinders momentarily the changes that would be essential to being able to 
use systems thinking and system dynamics in companies. On the other hand the 
problems are not as pressing as in health care, energy or environment (where 
is SD is used already in a practical way, see the NIH video lectures), as 
there is still a way to cut costs the easy way (move production to cheaper 
countries laying off workers at home - shifting the burden!).

In my opinion there has to be the cut where to step in and stop that vicious 
cycle.

The question is, "What is the right statement or way to connect managers to 
that "new" point of view seeing the whole?"

Looking forward to further comments on the initial question

Ralf

PS.: I stepped into the SD field from the practical side as I face topics that 
cover complete processes chains and to solve these it is not easy to get 
people on board. SD can be the solving key as the mental models of non SD 
people get broader;-)
Posted by  Ralf Lippold <ralf_lippold at web.de>
posting date  Sun, 2 Sep 2007 15:47:24 +0200