RE: Fighting The Merit Cycle- Help!

["Mowery, R. Neal (RNM) " <RNM@y12.doe.gov>]

	Kurt Schoch wrote:

> Question for Neal or other:  What are those "hard questions" Neal refers
> to?  Can you give some examples?
> 
Rip Stauffer, John Hamilton, and others have given some examples of the
kinds of questions I had in mind.  The hard questions to which I was
referring are the ones where the problem is no longer theoretical, where
there are business implications associated with viewing a process as a Red
Bead experiment.  Sales.  Injury rates.  Reworks.  Invoice errors.
Absences.  Missed schedule dates.  Those factors that so often come into
play, especially in a Pay for Performance context, that are based on a
management paradigm that views the world as deterministic.  If you can't
bring up and confront these issues, the lessons of the Red Bead experiment
will not take.

Few participants in the Red Bead experiment will make the link between the
beads and the real world.  You must make it for them, as boldly and
specifically as possible.  In doing so, You must challenge head-on their
assumptions about how to interpret results.

Remember, you are asking for a revolution in the way managers view
performance.  That will require a strong frontal challenge to the status
quo.

There are other factors that indict the Pay for Performance/MBO as practiced
besides variation.  In particular, an understanding of suboptimization and
teamwork-versus-individual effort are critical.  And there is the question
as to whether you can really measure the important factors in a business.
There are some archived DEN posts around Pay for Performance and MBO where
these were discussed extensively back in 1998 that may be useful to you.

Myron Tribus' comment that no sinner was ever saved by a single sermon may
well be one of the truest lines ever written on the DEN regarding MBO as
practiced.  Persevere!

Neal

PS:  My spell checker suggests replacing MBO with MOB.  Could be something
to it! 

*********************************************
Neal Mowery 
Statistician - Lockheed Martin Energy Systems
Oak Ridge, Tennessee
rnm @ y12.doe.gov		Voice (865) 574-0796
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