Discussion 2
Using Systems Thinking to Lead & Manage
Please consider the following questions. Using a new message, post your answers to each of the questions by the Monday of Week 5. Then, throughout Week 5, reply to the thoughts of others, and engage in discussion or dialogue about them with your classmates. You have until the Monday of Week 6 to complete (not begin) your dialog and discussion. Your discussion grade will be determined partly by the quantity of your involvement in the discussion but mostly by the QUALITY of your contributions to your group's learning, through both your initial posting and your responses and interactions with the postings of others.
According to Senge, the "fifth discipline" of the learning organization is "systems thinking." According to Scholtes, systems thinking is "the heart of 21st century leadership [and management]." As you read your assignments in Covey, Senge, and Scholtes, answer these questions and interact with your study group's answers.
Questions:
1a) Covey says we should "Begin with the End in Mind." What is Scholtes' main point about what the purpose of your organization should be? Can you remember what great management thinker we identified in the online lectures who stressed the same point?
Scholtes believes that the main purpose of any organization should be altruistic. This altruistic purpose is “best defined from a customer’s point of view.” The reason a customer uses the product should help define why the company makes the products. As in the case with Konica cameras, the company was first focusing on what customers thought of the camera and not what the customers thought about the pictures they were producing. Most customers thought the camera was great, and that they just weren’t taking good picture. Although that might have been true, by finding out what was wrong with the pictures the customers were taking, Konica was able to implement breakthrough technologies to help the consumer take better photos without
Please consider the following questions. Using a new message, post your answers to each of the questions by the Monday of Week 5. Then, throughout Week 5, reply to the thoughts of others, and engage in discussion or dialogue about them with your classmates. You have until the Monday of Week 6 to complete (not begin) your dialog and discussion. Your discussion grade will be determined partly by the quantity of your involvement in the discussion but mostly by the QUALITY of your contributions to your group's learning, through both your initial posting and your responses and interactions with the postings of others.
According to Senge, the "fifth discipline" of the learning organization is "systems thinking." According to Scholtes, systems thinking is "the heart of 21st century leadership [and management]." As you read your assignments in Covey, Senge, and Scholtes, answer these questions and interact with your study group's answers.
Questions:
1a) Covey says we should "Begin with the End in Mind." What is Scholtes' main point about what the purpose of your organization should be? Can you remember what great management thinker we identified in the online lectures who stressed the same point?
Scholtes believes that the main purpose of any organization should be altruistic. This altruistic purpose is “best defined from a customer’s point of view.” The reason a customer uses the product should help define why the company makes the products. As in the case with Konica cameras, the company was first focusing on what customers thought of the camera and not what the customers thought about the pictures they were producing. Most customers thought the camera was great, and that they just weren’t taking good picture. Although that might have been true, by finding out what was wrong with the pictures the customers were taking, Konica was able to implement breakthrough technologies to help the consumer take better photos without