test
New Systems Thinking
Featured Article
Tripp Babbitt
Free Download
Get started with Managing Service Organizations as Systems. Click here to get your free download from the website.
Buy the Books
Latest publications for the private and public service sectors. Click on book to purchase.

System Thinking in the Public Sector Freedom from Command & Control
 
 
 
 
 
 

Bryce Harrison offers Health Checks for Organizations and Call Centers.  Find out more
 
 
 
Looking for a New Path for Your Organization?  Check out Systems Thinking Interventions, begin your new path with a 3-day workshop.
 
International service organizations have said working with the Vanguard Method has been the most important change in thinking they have experienced in their working lives.  Come join us! 
 
Not since General William Tecumseh Sherman have we seen such carnage in Atlanta.  And just like General Joseph E. Johnston . . . the people working in the Atlanta education system never had a chance.
 
Standardized tests, pay for performance and other education system destructive forces has brought down another city.  The Georgia Bureau of Investigation found 44 out of 56 schools cheated on the Georgia standardized test.  178 principals and educators were found to have corrected answers on the test.

Why would teachers and principals risk their careers?  Certainly, these must be "bad people."  No good person would do this . . . off with their heads.

Oh, wait a minute, principals and teachers claim that the pressure to improve scores was "inordinate."  A poor evaluation or termination if targets aren't achieved.  Lives and careers destroyed by a bad system, not bad people.

Sound familiar?

This is corporate America . . . minus the testing of course.  Corporate America gets inspections instead.  

The standardized testing in education makes it easy to score and track, but does not reflect anything close to preparing students for the real world.  CEOs are saying workers are lacking "critical thinking, creativity and communication skills."  Ignore the fact that corporate organizations don't enable the use of these skills for a moment and let's focus on the Atlanta education systems misguided purpose of increasing student test scores.  
 
Let's face it, there is no reason to design systems in government, health, education or corporations with targets paired with incentives and/or threats.  We wind up with people focused on meeting targets and not on our students education or making us better or providing service.

Atlanta will recover just as they did after the Civil War, but will they learn?



Further reading:

Mentoring Program

Several people have sent me emails over the last year about a mentoring program.  I have set up a few of these individually, if this is something you are interested in please let me know.  This is only available for the US and Canada.
 
Send me an email at [email protected].
 
04-17-2013 11:35:10 AM

When power and hierarchy run an organization ideology, opinion and assumption become the staples of decision-making.  The loud mouth with position becomes the voice of direction . . . but hardly reason, logic or truth.  I have long used the phrase "opinion data" to describe the phenomenon used in executive and other management meetings.  This, ...�

04-13-2013 14:42:27 PM

Let's be clear.  A good person working in a bad system will lead to poor results.  The whole Atlanta School system- and education systems like them - have created environments where the system is dictating performance . . . and survival in that system.  The Atlanta education system created the environment for administrators and educators ...�

04-12-2013 16:40:51 PM

Management with a conventional perspective in their approach attack problems predictably .  .  . predictably wrong. If revenue is the problem, set a target for more revenue.  Expenses to high set a target for to lower costs. The real question that eludes such approaches is " by what method?" Subordinates are left with new targets ...�

04-10-2013 19:02:17 PM

What makes a company the worst in America?  The Consumerist website has determined EA Sports is this years winner of the Golden Poo award - for the second year in a row.  EA Sports soundly defeated perennial powerhouse Bank of America. I like to read the Consumerist as you get some really good info on ...�

04-09-2013 11:45:31 AM

It is a predictable solution for the uniformed . . .  raise standards and education will improve.  Education a man-made crisis and the solution is to leave more children behind.  If your learning isn't up to snuff, you get "extra help" in No Child Let Behind and this program has led to more "problem" children. ...�

03-17-2013 01:40:50 AM

I have often talked about the zero-sum game in my articles and blog.  The belief that good service costs more and cancels out any benefit.  "Customers", they say, "should not be trusted or they will screw us out of every penny."  If your organization thinks this way it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. In fact, ...�

03-15-2013 20:38:51 PM

I am still baffled by the article from March 6th by CNBC titled, 'Average' Workers Plague US Businesses: Execs Survey.  The knock on the American worker is that they lack critical thinking, creativity and communication. WOW!!  Imagine that the American worker is now the problem.  Never mind the American worker has been outsourced, marginalized by ...�

02-19-2013 04:10:24 AM

I am reading Joyce Orsini and Diana Deming Cahill's new book, The Essential Deming: Leadership Principles from the Father of Quality.  I have not read the entire boo, but thought it would be good material for a series of posts.  The book is an accumulation of Dr. Deming's articles, papers, etc.  As Out of the ...�

02-08-2013 20:09:29 PM

The Overjustification Effect . . . the act of doing something for mere pleasure is compromised by rewards.  When first reading Alfie Kohn's Punished by Rewards, I came across the concept.  We see it in everyday American life.  The evidence is that in organizations, there are a lot of people that either expect something extra ...�

02-06-2013 04:35:04 AM

I've been reading and writing a lot over the past month, just not much on my blog.  Most reading about organizational purpose.  In this case, not just customer purpose, but a higher calling to benefit mankind.  Certainly, we want to respond to customers and create an environment that they want to engage and embrace. However, ...�

01-29-2013 23:22:39 PM

I had dinner the other night at a new local restaurant with my wife.  She asked me about how a restaurant might improve their service.  Seems a reasonable question and I am constantly evaluating the service I get or don't get. I thought I would order a sandwich like I do at my favorite "other ...�

01-25-2013 09:32:30 AM
I caught an interview with an gentleman by the name of Brad Grossman (Grossman and Partners) that works with executives to keep them current (in general).  I visited his website and found that one of his predictions for the future is the
02-08-2013 20:09:29 PM

The Overjustification Effect . . . the act of doing something for mere pleasure is compromised by rewards.  When first reading Alfie Kohn's Punished by Rewards, I came across the concept.  We see it in everyday American life.  The evidence is that in organizations, there are a lot of people that either expect something extra ...�

02-06-2013 04:35:04 AM

I've been reading and writing a lot over the past month, just not much on my blog.  Most reading about organizational purpose.  In this case, not just customer purpose, but a higher calling to benefit mankind.  Certainly, we want to respond to customers and create an environment that they want to engage and embrace. However, ...�

01-29-2013 23:22:39 PM

I had dinner the other night at a new local restaurant with my wife.  She asked me about how a restaurant might improve their service.  Seems a reasonable question and I am constantly evaluating the service I get or don't get. I thought I would order a sandwich like I do at my favorite "other ...�

need for more analytical positions in the future. If only analysis was the ...�

 

12-09-2012 06:00:44 AM

I ran across the "Sourcing Sage" and his creative cartoons about outsourcing.  I found the cartoons to be entertaining but not-so-much the sage advice.  His wisdom is that in order to outsource/share services an organization needs to do the following: Process Documentation Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) Training Curriculum Knowledge Base Product Documentation Organizational Optimization Workstation ...�

11-25-2012 00:54:25 AM

The last American election "exposed" outsourcing as an evil, and in part, a reason one presidential candidate defeated another.  The belief is that outsourcing - foreign or domestic - helps to optimize a business function.  I heard this argument for the hundredth times on the Washington Times Communities website in an article titled, Outsourcing vs. ...�


  

Visit our blog

View our profile on LinkedIn

Follow us on Twitter

To learn more about how the Vanguard Method can improve your organization.  Contact me at [email protected] or call me at (317) 250 - 8885.
That's it for this newsletter.  Best wishes with improving your system and perspective.
 
Sincerely,
 

Tripp Babbitt
Bryce Harrison, Inc.
� 2010. Bryce Harrison, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Phone: (317) 849-8670 Email: [email protected]