civileme wrote: > Well, I will say this once then shut up. > > Sorry John Rigby, I don't agree. I think your philosophies are warped > and skewed from reality. > > For a long time businesses were closed communities. Everyone followed > what some people studying Henry Ford had concluded: that precise control > was THE way to go. It didn't matter. The Old Boy Networks and the > rigid philosophies almost worldwide combined to make the business a > field like a watershed empire. Absolutely unassailable as long as they > had the money to squash any competition that did not follow the same > paradigm (and was therefore perceived as dangerous). > > Then along came W. Edwards Deming. He suggested that the use of > statistics could improve efficiency, cut costs, make workers more > productive by including them in decision-making processes, etc. He was > of course laughed out of the country of origin, the US, where the worst > of the business rot was entrenched. > > Well, General Douglas MacArthur decided Deming could be the man to help > Japan rebuild their shattered industrial base. They accepted the > methods and the training, and the beat the rest of the world to its > knees in the 1980s as a result, but of course as businesses go the > weakness of rigidity of approach set in, and others started using the > philosophy, so the degree of success apparently diminished. > > But there is a contractor in Hawaii where the number of construction > mistakes is tiny compared to any others in the world. > > There is a school in Alaska where in four years they went form a 40% 'F' > grade to 94% 'A's, and the courses in the mean time had acquired > objectives and purposes that were four or five times as difficult. > > A global chemical company went from mildly profitable to doubling its > revenue in four years, with no increase in staffing and only minor > increases in expenses. The degree of worker satisfaction (as measured > by Monday morning absenteeism and turnover) apparently doubled. > > I fear that most people in business are looking for a quick profit. They > think ahead five minutes to a few months, and they abandon any approach > that does not immediately show a return. Sorry, sometimes the more > efficient and trechnically correct approach takes longer. This is just > another fact. > And the fact that these same businessmen seem to find so hard to swallow > that they ignore it completely is that software makers have very few > assets. They try to erect barriers to protect _controllable_ assets > with software patents and secrecy and have made a horrid mess and a > genuine embarassment, so laughably far from reality that eventually only > soldiers and bullets will be able to make any semblance of enforcement. > The true assets in software industry are _people_; of the highly skilled > and admittedly perhaps specially talented type. Businessmen shake in > fear when they pause to reflect that every night their assets walk out > the door. > Marketing is of course important, but if you have no product to market, > or a poor product to market, the expense of marketing and predation can > consume every good thing a company stands for. > > So how has a group of (usually) about 100 paid people and a number of > dedicated volunteers produced something that could be considered even a > mild challenge to a behemoth like Microsoft with its thousands of > engineers and billions of dollars to invest? > > Well that is the fact that John Rigby and others like him seem to want > to avoid, or denigrate or ignore. Business does not control the best of > the techs, and never will again. Environments that provide freedom of > thought and cooperation(something people do automatically if left to > their own devices) are showing tiny glimpses of their true potential. > But management has to restructure considerably to play a useful role in > that environment, and they are understandably afraid of something that > requires a type of management that features letting go. The same battle > was fought in some schools where Teachers were unwilling to give > students control over their own education, but results like Mt Edgecumbe > and now dozens of schools across the country are hard to argue with. You > know, the Teachers are still there as trainers in cooperation and > coaches, but they no longer have to worry about controlling the class. > The big opposition is the folks who say, "We've always done it this way, > so that is the only right way to do it."
I would just like to add my 2p worth - Having run a small business (24 employees) in a difficult sector, according to my ethical beliefs, I know what enormous pressure management is under. The 'business world' still expect you to conform to their standards, while you try to meet your own requirements of long-term goals and ethical employment. It's no joke, believe me. That's why I am supporting MandrakeSoft. It doesn't cost much to be a small shareholder. If you believe in their goals and haven't considered this support for them, please look at it. There's only a few days left. Anne
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