Message-ID: <970322175458_109434600@emout10.mail.aol.com> Date: Sat, 22 Mar 1997 17:54:59 -0500 From: Stephen Miles Sacks PhD <mailto:Scipolicy@AOL.COM> Subject: Response to Replies - The Hipbone is Connected to the Legbone To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
Greetings from Ardmore Pennsylvania - Surrounded by Haverford and Bryn Mawr Colleges and Penn, Temple, Villanova and several others nearby.First I thank the many readers for their insightful comments. I am heavily involved in organizing the ATP/NIST consortium for advanced medical systems so I cannot take the time not to personally answer every reply.
I the main, I am concerned that there is entirely too much ado about TQM and especially Re-engineering. The issue I raise is not so much that the approaches are not cracked up to what they are touted to be, but there are soo many gullible folks out there who are yearning for a "fix" to liberate them from their "trapped lives" in organizational drudergy or in society - a fate I similarly interpret to the "Beyond Growth" groupies. But that does not mean that change is not needed.
I gave up on humanistic and transformation crusades long ago because I do not interpret any as being the "holy graile" including any that I may dream up. No, the way I see it, the real issue for the masses is not humanistic management commanded by TQM, Re-Engineering, OD snd transformation gurus, but rather individual liberation and higher service in science and education and a way to pay for it - a la Jefferson's ideal of private enterprise.
So, organizations are systems, human devices that are ours to do with as we please. So TQM, R/E, OD, SM, and the like are ours to do with as we please in organizations. There is no such thing as a self sustaining organization or economy, just self-sustaining social groupings of people pursuing common values in whatever name they are committed - else the members run the risk of fallling into anomie.
By the way, "What ever happened to public nobility/elitism or benevolent dictatorship? No one has any thing good to say about them anymore. One would think the equality in organizations is the ultimate panecea. But show me a democratic organization and I will show you one that is ultimately headed out of business.
The happy medium between the two extremes I characterize is difficult it achieve.
Have a nice day.
Yours in science, technology, health and management
Stephen Miles Sacks, PhD mailto:scipolicy@aol.com