Please write to pflaump@cfl.rr.com http://www.wiredbrain.net/ look for /synergy/ 

RE: Social Capital

Francis Fukuyama's book "TRUST,
The social Virtues & the Creation of Prosperity" suggests the cause of these all too common problems. The lack of "trust" has forced replacement of natural work groups with formal administrative rules and procedures. The management of technology, organizational operations are not culturally or morally free. His concept of "social capital" is the ability of people to spontaneously work together and trust each other. "Social Capital" is the critical idea of the current technological, economic, political, educational, managerial effectiveness. It is absolutely necessary to understand the concept of "social engineering" as prejudiced as we are about the concept.

Ford was a social engineer, so is IBM, Microsoft, and so was the creation of Japan Inc. We assume "social engineering" is top down, anti-human, bureaucratic and mean. It can be, and must be, if it is to work, moral, human, honest, loyal, truthful, in fact, all the social virtues are practical and necessary.

Fukuyama's book discussed the change from "Ford's" scientific management "X" theory organization of mass production to "Toyota's" "Z" style lean manufacturing, network systems. He gives the credit to Taiichi Ono the chief production engineer at Toyota. He does not mention Deming's TQM. The problem Toyota was out to solve was low cost construction of many alternative products in relatively "short" production runs. The "Ford" system was based on the economies of scale requiring very long runs to distribute the massive set up costs over large number of products.

The ratio of fixed to variable costs was very high until "masses" were assembled. Just in time, lean manufacture reduced inventories of parts, reorganized tooling from days to minutes, required quality checks at the source. Lean manufacturing could not be tied to complex administrative rules and job descriptions. Freeing groups to be innovative created "" The difference in benefit/cost was striking - less than half of the competition.

That kind of productive difference gets noticed.

We will look at examples of the how's and where "applied social psychology" works. John Dewey, Anton Mankaranko, Father Flannagan, Debbie Miers in education; Deming in industrial engineering, Peter Sange in systems analysis, Charles Handy and Peter Drucker in management theory, Gary Becker in economics, James Fallows on technology. 

The peoplematter. Some people get along better than others. It is important to select the "right" people but people can change and most will adapt to social systems and develop good and bad habits depending on motivation, incentives and climate. The lessons we learn from examining models is both very simple and very complex. Social systems that work "go with the flow", the bent is make straight, good is made better, better is a process, without and with pressure, stress and timing.

RE: The governing issue of our times:

BLUE SKY Paradigms, Learning Organizations.

Rapid change under competitive conditions require very smart maneuvers, if we don't move fast enough, someone will. It's almost impossible to maintain a "franchise" and control shifting markets.

For many products and services the market is neonate, not quite born, so products and services have to be created out of the "blue sky" What we know and can ( more or less agree about ):

There is a significant change from "X" factories ( top-down, separation of thinking and doing, bureaucratic, position and power often goal replaces quality. Not quite honest, sincere, but out for the "bottom line" The fifth wave ( Tribal, Ancient Empires, Nation States, 1st and 2nd Industrial Revolutions, now "information societies" ) is open, global, competitive, fast, sincere, honest, collective responsibility, teams, and the Quality that grows from such "learning systems" Liberty,equality, and fraternity, become open decisions (participation), objective reasons, (rather than power) and joyful esprit de corps.

The Fidelity Funds, Magellan managers, (Peter Lynch) visited firms. What they looked for was honest, dedicated, and talented people. The quality of the people ( at all levels ) made for successful companies ( in the long run) and the strategy produced the most successful mutual fund.( Peter's Search for Excellence, named firms, almost all over the hump, and on the way down. They had out lived their reputations ) Maybe I should do an index of quality firms for investment purposes. Figures don't lie, but liars sure can figure. What we don't know and can't agree about: Can you train and direct responsibility ? Can you leave the choice of goals and well as methods "open"? How do you structure freedom, organize liberty, direct team work and manage creativity 


Copies of the SYNERGY JOURNAL sent by request: pflaump@cfl.rr.com
Peter E. Pflaum Ph.D. , Headmaster GLOBAL_VILLAGE_SCHOOLHOUSE 
225 Robinson Road, New Smyrna Beach, FL 32169-2176 (904) 428-1355
pflaump IRC webforum.research.digital.com join #synergybunch 
http://www.altavista.forum.digital.com/ Directory Floor 503 
http://www.wiredbrain.net/ look for /synergy/