Compassion=incentives? ... RE: [Ailist] PsyBlog: DoYouBelieve inFree Will?

[Lionel Boxer]

Andre
You and Dr W Edwards Deming agree.  It is more important or those running organisations to understand what is going on and lead appropriately.  Incentives is a lazy way out.
KPIs can be an effective management tool if there is real understanding and real leadership.  However, in the absence of substance KPIs are dangerous.

I sent a post last night, but it may have not come through.  Have a read of Deming's 1979 Out of the Crisis and Mary Walton's 1989 The Deming Management Method.  Look up incentives in the index and you will find some powerful ideas in these texts.

Lionel Boxer CD PhD MBA BTech(IndEng) - 0411267256
Associate of RMIT University - lionel.boxer at rmit.edu.au
Graduate School of Business
my "Assessment of Quality Systems with Positioning Theory" 
now in a googe book - see link at http://intergon.net
>>> Andre Ling <thelingus at gmail.com> 28/01/09 5:36 AM >>>
Hello,

I spend most of my time on this list just watching but I felt that this was
a topic worth piping up for. I am a bit of a skeptic when it comes to
incentives and even KPIs - especially if 'cascaded' from the top down. There
is a way in which creating alignment from the top-down can be quite
counter-productive.

The day-to-day reality faced by staff in multilevel organisations is messy
and complex. More often than not, policies and associated performance
indicators are not set by those at the front-line but rather by those higher
up in organisational hierachies who are distanced from these messy
realities. The simplified/idealised systems they create and roll-out or
cascade often serve their own information needs than those of the people
they are applied to.

Essentially this means that the front-line workers are viewed as little more
than cogs in a great big machine that operates in a neat, predictable,
linear kind of way. But insights from complexity theory challenges the
notion that social reality - and thus organisations - functions in such a
manner. Non-linearity, paradox, the entanglement of cause and effect
(especially in social contexts), emergence and cognitive limitations all
mean that trying to plan everything in advance and then enforce systems of
control from above can never really work very well. Still they are all the
rage.

Managers and leaders might do better by paying attention to the way that
power dynamics (including the ones that they are inevitably caught up in and
perpetuating) mediate learning and change within their organisations. Then
they might just realise that they are also co-producers of the patterns of
interaction that lead to the results that frustrate them so often. This is
not to argue against having any kind of vision, objectives or even ways of
measuring them. Rather it is to point out that it is not simply through
having and trying to apply an idealised system (with often invalid claims to
objectivity) on a complex and messy reality that the full potential of an
organisation to achieve valuable results can be unleashed.

Any thoughts???

Andre

2009/1/27 Lionel Boxer <lionel.boxer at rmit.edu.au>

> Exactly.
>
> I recently left one organisation that did the oposite to what you describe.
>  A few weeks ago I joined a ISO9001 certification authority as a
> certification/registration auditor.  It is interesting to see the high
> importance placed by current interpretation of ISO9001 on organisations
> establishing objectives that are based on policy and then cascaded to all
> levels within the organisation through various systems including KPIs.
>
> Withouth this alignment throughout organisations, leaders cannot hope to
> expect their people to perform as hoped for (by the leaders).  Otherwise,
> planning can only be an exercise in wishful thinking.
>
> Lionel Boxer CD PhD MBA BTech(IndEng) - 0411267256
> Associate of RMIT University - lionel.boxer at rmit.edu.au
> Graduate School of Business
> my "Assessment of Quality Systems with Positioning Theory"
> now in a googe book - see link at http://intergon.net
> >>> "Roger Davies" <rdavies at rtpcompany.com> 27/01/09 10:12 AM >>>
> Hi Lionel,
>
> I think we are on similar wavelengths. This is an issue I have struggled
> with and still do. There is a necessity for KPI's etc and to that extent a
> necessary need to subjugate a degree of free will in most organizations.
>
> ...
>
> It has to be in an environment that will benefit the organization.
>
> ...
>
> For me there are many small things like encouraging open conversations,
> open
> door policies, getting people's input into projects, asking them to set
> their own goals etc.
>
> Is it the use of free will that is some way generates compassion? In being
> respected and having all our contributions valued do we subconsciously
> learn
> to care about those who value us?
>
> The rule of law and the right to liberty are not mutually exclusive. Either
> on its own is not sustainable so we have to have the two in balance.
>
> Roger
>
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