Date: Sun, 4 Sep 1994 13:01:06 -0400 Originator: rego-l@pandora.sf.ca.us Errors-To: sbuckley@path.net Reply-To: Sender: rego-l@pandora.sf.ca.us Version: 5.5 -- Copyright (c) 1991/92, Anastasios Kotsikonas From: sbuckley@path.net (Steve Buckley - WISE) To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Quality in Government conference Peter Senge is author of `The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization' and Director of the MIT Center for Organizational Learning. On July 14, 1994, he was the closing keynote speaker at the 7th Annual National Conference on Federal Quality: `Creating a Customer-Driven Government'. Here is an an excerpt: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "We're talking about a profound shift in the fundamental character of our institutions. Lookit. It's craazy that people think that they should avoid making mistakes. That's just fundamentally illogical: no one would advocate that *that* is the way organizations should work. It's craazy that you can sit through a 3-hour meeting of the top management of an organization and not hear a single question asked! And I want to tell you: that's *data*, that's not opinion. I'll show you the transcripts. Three hours! The top guys (and they usually are guys still, right?) sitting around talking about the most important issues facing the company, and nobody asked a single question. That's craazy! Have you ever noticed [that] the way a really difficult, confictual issue gets discussed in the formal staff meeting bears no resemblance, whatsoever, to the way two folks talk about it the night before, over drinks? Or the way it gets discussed in the women's room afterwards? Or walking down the hall? See? This is crazy! This is totally craazy! We have knowledge that we don't even come close to tapping because we can even talk about what's on our mind! It's absolutely crazy that our organizations are fragmented the way there are." (end excerpt) %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% I have an audiocassette tape of Mr. Senge's entire talk (about an hour) that, if transcribed, would be of great value to those "government reinventors" who did not attend the Conference (i.e., 99.9% of federal employees). If someone would agree to transcribe the entire tape (it would take me forever), I will gladly mail them an audiocassette copy for that purpose. Please respond to me at sbuckley@pandora.sf.ca.us or 301-464-0936. It is also interesting to note what Phil Lader, Deputy Chief of Staff to the President, and former OMB Deputy Director for Management, also spoke about at the four-day conference (along with Vice President Gore and many others). Mr. Lader told attendees that they should not consider themselves "a secret society" and that they should spread the philosophy of quality in government. However, even though the conference was *videotaped*, none of the speeches have been transcribed to ASCII text for electronic dissemination. In fact, not even the text from the 45-page handbook of proceedings has been made available electronically. So if you are interested in "reinventing government", you can't find anything on the information highway to tell you exactly what or who you missed at the largest annual gathering of "government reinventors". To express your interest (as a customer) in seeing an electronic file on the conference proceedings (if not the major speeches), contact Michele Hunt, Director of the Federal Quality Institute (FQI) in the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), at 202-376-3747 or Jim Perine, Conference Manager, at the same number. Any such file could be uploaded to the FQI's "corner" of OPM's MainStreet BBS (which, BTW, can be accessed by telnetting to fedworld.gov). ----Stephen Buckley, REGO-L Moderator sbuckley@pandora.sf.ca.us Internet Mail List distribution: REINVENTING GOV'T. (REGO-L@pandora.sf.ca.us) TOTAL QUALITY MGMT. (TQM.LIST@tqm.permanet.org) LEARNING ORGANIZATION (LEARNING-ORG@world.std.com) LEADERSHIP (LDRSHP@iubvm.bitnet) EMPOWERMENT (EMPOWERMENT@world.std.com)