This presentation is based on a paper published in the March 1999 issue of the Singapore Economic Bulletin. When assessing the efficiency of an organization, it is very common to examine the efficiency of the daily work processes. The key to developing lasting improvement is to understand where the problems originate. One answer is a lack of organizational alignment.
Conflicting goals are common in systems as well as in people.
This talk will address common practices that create conflicting goals within organizations, so that even though the normal efficiency study will highlight problems, structural conflict created by unaligned goals will make improvement efforts short-term at best. Prior to becoming a professional consultant, he held a variety of high-leverage positions in several major organizations. Douglas earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry from the California University of Pennsylvania in 1982. In 1984, he began studying the work of Dr. W. Edwards Deming, which led to a yearlong private tutorial with one of Dr. Deming's colleagues. The tutorial focused on Deming's System of Profound Knowledge and the Disciplines of the Learning Organization as defined by Dr. Peter M. Senge.