Good Communication that Blocks Learning

Looking through my notes, I found another Harvard Business Review article that I think dovetails well into the posts that I had on Toyota and Quality earlier.

This one was called Good Communication that Blocks Learning by Chris Argyris. So first of all... I have a problem with his sensational title. It might be better titled "Don't Just Fix the Problem"... or "Double Loop Learning".

So essentially, Argyris scares people by saying that "Managing by Walking Around" aka having the managers actually go onto the factor floors or out into the field to see what can be improved... they should actually spend their time finding out why such problems existed and stayed around for so long.

This actually does make a lot of sense. I think it's exactly what Toyota has been doing in order to remain on top in terms of quality. Instead of just turning on the heat when the temperature goes below a set level, it would be more important to close the window to keep the house from getting so cold.

You need to be always challenging the process of processes. So instead of always having "the leadership" push improvement "initiatives" down the throats of their underlings, you need to have the process of "constant improvement" to be part of the corporate culture. Without this, the indivitual executive's pet initiatives will not be effective and only end up with finger pointing.

Spend some time and think about this. I'll try to write more about it later.

Again, comments are welcome and appreciated.

-Jason