Chief Learning Officer - November 2007 - (Page 45)

productivity Ingenuity, experience and innovation reside in the people of a company more than in the boardroom alone (because they have most of the recent front-line experience). From the characterization of Schmidt (“mentally sluggish”) to the mockery of his immigrant accent (“Vell, I don’t know vat you mean”), the message is clear: The management gods know, through their scientific analysis, what the people are to do. The people’s job is simply to do it. The improvement in Schmidt’s iron-hauling productivity based on Taylor’s re-engineering of his work processes was impressive, to be sure: from 12.5 tons hauled per day to 47.5 tons per day (and an increase in his daily wages from $1.15 to $1.85). But the manipulative tactics to make that productivity improvement happen, and the presumption that the worker was a little less than fully human, leave something to be desired for the 21st-century manager. Today’s change management approaches never would dare to speak overtly of a worker as Taylor did. But one important aspect of the underlying attitude is much the same: Management knows what to do and so must set about “inducing” people to do it (or getting them to “own the change” as some now phrase it) while also, as Taylor says, “making them glad to do it.” Such an underlying attitude is what makes it possible for change experts to talk without apparent irony about communicating a “shared sense of purpose,” for example, when in fact it is management’s vision and sense of purpose that it now wants employees to “share.” Consider a new model for managing organizational change, one that presumes: 1. The world and marketplace are so complex, no single management team can ever have all the right answers. 2. Ingenuity, experience and innovation reside in the people of a company more than in the boardroom alone (because they have most of the recent front-line experience). 3. Workers are more prone to support a change program that they have helped to shape. 45 November 2007 I www.clomedia.com I Chief Learning Officer A New Model for Involving Knowledge Workers in Organizational Change http://www.clomedia.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Chief Learning Officer - November 2007

Chief Learning Officer - November 2007 Editor's Letter Table of Contents Imperatives Selling Up, Selling Down Strategies Take Five Rediscovering the Essence of Learning Cornell University Maintains Productivity While Pursuing Higher Education CLO Profile How Loyalty and Employee Engagement Add Up to Corporate Profits A Strategic Foundation The Evolution of the LMS Ariba: Growing Sales Skills in Conjunction with LMS Technology Leveraging Change to Build Productivity Equinox Fitness: Leveraging Change to Build Productivity Tangibles or Intangibles: Where’s Your Value? Raising the Stakes: The Strategic Role of the CLO Case Study Business Intelligence Case Study Advertisers' Index Editorial Resources In Conclusion

Chief Learning Officer - November 2007

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.