REACTION TO POSSIBLE ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT (OD) BOOK

 REACTION TO A POSSIBLE OD BOOK

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© October 14, 2012

REFERENCE:

It so happens that Dick D's comment (see below) on OD has a connection with my last assignment with Honeywell before retiring in 1990.  It involved calling on Dr. Paul Banas and his staff at Ford Motor Company's World Headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan.

Having previously read “The Resurrection of Ford” in Training (April 1989). I was anxious to learn more.  I contacted Dr. Banas and he invited me to Ford’s Dearborn headquarters. 

It was soon apparent that Banas and his people were OD architects of this most successful employee involvement effort.  This was not a cosmetic intervention, but boots on the ground. 

Dr. Banas and his staff traveled around the world to Ford operations to set up employee involvement processes.  Countries visited included Canada, Venezuela, South Africa, Indonesia, Australia, Korea, and Taiwan, the Europe Economic Community, and back across the United States. 

Dr. Banas and five OD specialists worked tirelessly for over a year to complete this task, and then watched the seeds of their good work bear fruit.  It was OD at its best.

Point of reference:  In 1980 Ford looked like a goner.  Ten years later after carefully coordinated work across the globe, Ford was at the top of all car manufacturers in the United States.

When the financial collapse occurred in 2008, Ford was the only automaker of the “big three” that refused a bailout from the Obama administration. 

My detailed report (to be included in the OD book) of the visit surprised Dr. Banas who is a reluctant writer.  He called me after receiving a copy of the report.  "God!  Can you write!”  I asked him where I could find some of his work.  He referenced “Productivity in Organizations” (1988) where I found a modest three pages (425-427) in a book edited by Campbell & Associates. 

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A READER WRITES:

Jim.

Are you familiar with the work of Dr. Adizes?  I am enjoying this piece on OD that you have written.  Are you familiar with the OD story at General Motors (GM) from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s? 

The OD department had over a dozen folks.  GM was divided into three regions with almost unlimited OD resources.

My union (UAW) interacted with OD from their inception, or from the mid-1970s on.  I personally started to interact with OD personnel in 1981. 

In 1981, the UAW (United Auto Workers Union) had over 350,000 members working for GM.  Today's current hourly workforce in North America is 52,000.  GM is producing about the same number of vehicles as produced in 1981, but with rougly one-seventh as many workers.

In one sense, this is good, but in another, nearly 300,000 workers no longer have these good manufacturing jobs.

By 1984, the UAW and GM had codified contractual language consisting of nearly 100 pages.  This document contained provisions for funding a joint effort over multiple programs under the broad umbrella of Quality of Worklife (QWL).  It generated $175 million in the first year.

This was the province of the OD department coordinated with three of us on the UAW staff.

It is 2012, and all of that is now gone.  On the plant floors of GM, Ford and Chrysler, there are no longer OD-UAW teams, but now only corporate design, manufacturing and assembly systems. 

Dick

DR. FISHER RESPONDS:

Dick,

Thank you for your nice note. 

No, I’m not familiar with the work of Dr. Adizes or his website.  From checking it out, it appears he is quite an entrepreneur, charging readers for his insights and witticisms. 

People, especially Americans, believe anything free is suspect; anything of value has a price.  Entrepreneurs have learned this lesson. 

I don’t charge anything for my writing on the blog of my website (www.peripateticphilosopher.com). 

That said professors, philosophers, workers in the trenches, parents, publishers, psychologists and sociologists, authors, and yes, entrepreneurs visit my blog and often ask permission to use my work.  Generally, I give them permission. 

Life has been good to me and this is my modest way of giving back something.  It is not an original idea as I learned it from William L. Livingston III, who has been generous to a fault with his insights. 

You may ask why I copyright all my stuff?  That is primarily for BB, who may one day want to publish something.

Your note brings up the hysteria followed by the fads of the 1980s, which seemed to be subsumed under the umbrella of a cornucopia of acronyms such as QWL.

I gave blistering attention to this hysteria in “Work Without Managers” (1991), again in “The Worker, Alone!” (1995), and once again in “Six Silent Killers” (1998) and “Corporate Sin” (2000).

Panic commenced with Tom Brokaw’s “Japan Can, Why Can’t We?” that appeared on NBCTV in 1980.  Japan was using American technology of statistical quality control and quality control circles, technology that Detroit (and yes the UAW) spurned before 1980.  Using this technology, Japan was taking valuable markets away from the United States, including the automotive industry.

What followed this hysteria amounted to quality control nirvana.  Corporate America couldn't duplicate Japan fast enough, failing to realize Japan was a group-oriented culture and the US was an individual-oriented culture.  Translated, the technology never worked as well as it did in Japan. 

In desperation, cosmetic interventions sponsored a proliferation of acronyms ostensibly to give the impression of shared manager-worker power and decision-making, but not really.  I was there, as were you, and it was a fiasco. 

It staggers the mind the way the productivity lapse was handled.  It was that old saw, “You throw enough money at a problem and it is bound to solve it.”  We have seen what money has done to education.  American industry didn't fare any better. 

At Honeywell at its zenith of quality control circles, we had seven Ph.D.’s working in OD in a complex of 3,000 professionals and 1,000 hourly workers. 

My sense is that human resources (HR), heady with its newly discovered power (i.e., direct access to top management) became so enthralled with its status that it drifted into being essentially management’s union, and not employees advocate. 

Somehow Dr. Banas, a rather cagey fellow, avoided this destiny.  He managed to squirrel himself outside the confines of HR proper, but still to gain management’s ear at Ford. 

He epitomized the unobtrusive observer avoiding contentiousness (one of his favorite words) letting others take the credit, while keeping it simple by focusing on a strategy for survival. 

He was a flipchart man, doodling his thoughts and ideas on a page, tearing it off and pasting it to the wall, then studying it for a spell, then pulling it down and tearing it up.  He was fun to watch.  To him the essence of an idea is simplicity.

Corporate systems have their merits, but they cannot be a dodge to avoid people issues.  Senior management has never been comfortable dealing with people as persons.  It prefers to pay more attention to records – to computer systems – than to people.  Systems have their place in the problem solving.  They can be entirely impersonal.  But the care and concern of workers must be completely personal. 

Dr. Banas knew this, and worked accordingly.  He made an effort to understand engineers and systems analysts, and not to muddy their work with his, or his work with theirs. Consequently, workers bought into the systems and operated them with pride and to the mutual benefit of company and workers alike.

It was a cold winter day when I left the comfort of my hotel for Ford World Headquarters, got into my rented car, and it would not start.  Before I was able to get underway, I was more than an hour late for my appointment with Dr. Banas. 

When I checked into security, and told the man of my ordeal, he asked, "What kind of car are you driving?”  I told him.  It was not a Ford.  The guard breathed a sigh of relief.

When I was waiting for the elevator to the office of Dr. Banas, I got into a conversation with a woman and two men, all design engineers.  They asked me the same question, and also smiled when I answered.

The same exchange was experienced when I explained to Dr. Banas’s secretary my ordeal, telling her how everyone reacted to the news.  She smiled.  “I guess you could say we are all on the same page.”

“How about the workers on the assembly line?” I asked.

“Oh, they are even worse than we are.  They take it personal.” 

When I repeated this to Dr. Banas, he answered simply, “It's all about ownership.  Everyone here owns what they do.”

In the main plant, I told a union worker what I had experienced.  He looked at me.  “That surprises you?”

I didn’t answer.

“We have ideas.  When we express them, people listen.  We have a chance to change the way things are done around here.”

“Really?”  I said incredulously.

Taking no offense, he said, “Yes, really!”

Neither digital technology nor wireless sensors can replace the élan of workers happy in work when they are taken seriously.

Be always well,

Jim

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