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The real battle for quality doesn’t lie in processes; it lies in thinking. The recent rift in the state of Wisconsin and other places caused in part by increasing government costs leads one to ask: “Who is responsible? Is it management or labor?”
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Gov. Scott Walker’s actions in Wisconsin highlight the need for new thinking about the design and management of work. However, the management-labor strife doesn’t end in Wisconsin. It’s present in all businesses and has created an environment in the United States where we struggle to compete. When we need management and labor to work together in a global marketplace with emerging economies like China, there is no time for such silliness.
Although labor unions have often been fingered as the problem, we would not have needed labor unions in the first place had management treated workers better. Sure, unions have been corrupt in their history, but you can’t argue against the fact that management has been just as corrupt. Does anyone remember the recent banking crisis? It wasn’t a teller or a back-office worker who started that mess; it was management besieged with targets and incentives to grow the business.
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Comments
Who’s to Blame: Management or Labor? or? or? or?
Very one-sided arguement uses Deming re-hash; incorrectly applied, out of context, to answer a false dilemma.
Using Organized Labor as a substitute for Deming's 'worker' (and completely ignoring their hand in the Wisconsin case) and using State Government as a substitute for management (and applying prima facie the motives of management in the private sector) gives one the impression that this was an article, already written, in need of a larger context (Wisconsin).
This is way more complicated than the traditional Management or Labor conundrum (false either/or dilemma): Need to include taxpayer's, social/educational needs, and the usual political grinding from both parties into the mix...
Who's to Blame: Management or Labor
Here's the other dilemma: the anti--big government pundits think that privatization is the model for reforming government. But when one tries to explain government ills with a businees model, some people decry it is more complicated than that. Scott Walker considers himself a manager of the state's finances ahead of being a political leader. I think the author of this article is on to something. Poor managers will always blame workers for their ills, especially if those workers are organized. Wisconsin's "product" is the group of services it provides to its citizens. Just as a business mistakenly serves the short term needs of its shareholders, Walker is serving the needs of the tiny majority of the people who voted for him.
95/5
Good article but curious what evidence you have to support your 95/5 rule. Thanks.
95/5 Rule
Greg21:
This is a concept from W. Edwards Deming, I have identified it as a rule. Because management continues to focus on the individual. Understanding Shewharts and Deming's control charts will give you insight into the 95/5 rule. Common cause variation is attributable to the system, while special causes are typically felt by the worker.
Many readers of this website will understand variation, but if you don't you can always read a simple explanation here:
http://blog.newsystemsthinking.com/sharethisservice-metrics-what-you-ne…
I hope this helps, Tripp
E044820
E044820 Trying to steal the show from R2D2.
One huge problem is we have built complexity into government that you have noted. Liberals, conservatives and others are full of idealogies which adds to this complexity. Why not do what actually works rather than what we conjecture? There will still be the debates, but rather than improving systems from idealogies which has brought deficits, we improve the delivery so there is value. This means we make decisions based upon knowledge and what works vs. what we can agree on (which isn't too much right now).
I'd be curious to hear your profound answer and name . . .
Who's to blame- Management or labor
Excellent article how politicians want to push their agenda without giving importance to work out serious problems with all parties for long term common goal. USA is steadily falling behind in education compared to other nations. All parties must work together to find longterm sustained improvement with responsibility & accountability.
On to something . . . I hope so! Markzak
Rather than beating each other (labor-management) up let's show workers some respect and work together with new and better thinking about the design and management of work. We have to many managers put there for payback in helping people get elected these are the poorest managers of all . . . they are steeped in political ideology and emotion rather than understanding the work (knowledge) and sound principles for redesign of government.
It's both Management and Labor
Very good article. The way organizations are run needs to change, in both the private and public sectors. Systems thinking and development must take the place of Command and Control. Schools do not teach systems thinking or methods of implmentation and organizations do not know the concepts outside very few people and departments. Keep hammering the message home.
Charles "Chuz" Shillingburg
mgt or labor
historically i agree with you - mgt necessitated unions by mistreating labor. in Walker's case, i also agree with you that he wouldn't be able to address budget problems by laying people off, decreasing benefits and wages, etc. This is not addressing the cause of the costs.
however, that said, there is also a political narrative - Walker is in my opinion not really worried about efficiency; he is most concerned with decreasing the power of unions in the political process for the benefit of the corporations - koch bros. - who bank rolled his candidacy. see http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/02/wisconsin-scott-walker-koch-brothers This means breaking the power of unions to spend large sums of campaign money on TV and get out the vote. This is just the latest chapter in a book that has been written since there were mgrs and workers, but also as described in a recent book, 'Winner-take-all politics, http://www.amazon.com/Winner-Take-All-Politics-Washington-Richer-Turned… in the last 30 years, coporations have been extremely successful in dismanteling union power and now unopposed, using their own significant abilitly to raise money to essentially take over politics to their advantage. That is why Walker is able to do what he is doing and why he is doing it.
This is not a management/worker issue, but a very basic, almost religious belief issue for many conservatives like the koch bros.
if you want to go deeper in the situation on the liberal side you may want to check out 'Truthout'
http://www.truth-out.org/ a very progressive news and opinion source. or check out 'the authoritarians' by Bob Altmeyer
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/
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