Far be it from me to argue with Peter Drucker. On the other hand, he made
the assertion in the midst of dissuading readers from the notion that the
purpose of a business was to create wealth.
But I think it is not an arguement. Clearly, there is no excuse for
cluttering the surface of the earth with a business unless its purpose is
to "create" and serve customers. But, with what? Unless the customers
only want anvils or buggy whips or corset stays then the business must
maintain some degree of alignment with customers as their needs change.
Now, and in the foreseeable future (for me, at least) we do not know how to
build automatons that can discern customer value, needs, requirements and
buying preference characteristics and automatically align all other
automatons in the business accordingly. Human beings are required. And
why go to all that trouble anyway except for human beings (Stradivarius was
not creating customers, he was creating joy and jobs). So while the
purpose is to create customers (or something of value to customers) the
Reason for doing so is to create an environment for human achievement.
Wealth is an outcome. And increasingly, companies are discovering that
wealth is measured in learning as well as cash.
On Tue, 16 Mar 1999 11:16:22 -0500
>From: Tim Edlund <
tedlund@MORGAN.EDU>
>Subject: Re: People versus Capital
>
>Alan & all -
>
>The idea that human resources have value is one that the accountants,
>among others, have argued they should include on the balance sheet.
>Howevewr, although they have argued for inclusion thereof, I've never seen
>any attempt to actually do so in any firm's annual report or other similar
>documents.
>
>Theory is one thing; actually doing so is another.
>
>- - -
>
>I think both views are important - but both miss the mark. Peter Drucker
>said that " . . the purpose of business is to create a customer." Failing
>that approach, failure is probable. Using it, employees and those who
>furnish capital are likely to obtain returns.
>
>Tim Edlund, Morgan State University
>
>On Tue, 16 Mar 1999, Facilitated Solutions [Alan Wilson] wrote: [in part]
>
>> Jack Ring wrote:
>> >I would like it even better if it assumed that People were the Reason for a
>> >business, not just resources or kapital to be used to fuel "the machine."
>>
>> Well said Jack. If people are a "resource", then:
>> 1. Can they be disposed of like a fixed asset?
>> 2. Can their "value" be included in the balance sheet?
>>
>> By focussing on the People first and the business second, I believe that
>> the business will actually be more productive than if it were purely a
>> "machine" that keeps the bean-counters happy.
>
> Provided the the people you focus on are customers first, and on
>those working for the firm second!
>
>------------------------------
>
>Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1999 11:30:58 -0500
>From: Tim Edlund <
tedlund@MORGAN.EDU>
>Subject: Re: critical academic work and relevance
>
>Guiseppe -
>
>This is typical, but unfortunate, in many academic circles. We should be
>attempting to find truth as best as we can, not attacking one another.
>Before I became an academic, I spent 25 years in the real world (some
>colleagues are unhappy about those words), and naively figured that in the
>academic world there would be greater agreement on important issues. Hah!
>
>But, if you are not yet tenured, I'd take a careful look at who is in
>opposition, and temper your approaches until you've reached that goal. I
>do recognize that the system at your university and in Italy generally may
>differ from ours; yet I would guess that there is some kind of equivalent.
>
>The problem is, of course, that such restraint often serves to stifle new
>approaches; and that many of us lose our zeal and fire long before we
>reach that point at which we judge it safe to offer opinions contrary to
>the received paradigms.
>
>Not sure this helps any, but it my help understand what is going on and to
>offer ideas for survival.
>
>Tim Edlund, Morgan State University, Baltimore, MD USA
>
>On Tue, 16 Mar 1999, Giuseppe Delmestri wrote: [in part]
>>
>> Some colleagues are starting to question my approach, while other support it.
>>
>> Did you have similar experiences in your school?
>>
>
>------------------------------
>
>Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1999 16:43:26 -0000
>From: Linda Perriton <
rooster@CABSAV.DEMON.CO.UK>
>Subject: Re: Critical Academic work and Relevance
>
>Hugh Willmott wrote:
>>There is a substantial body of empirically based critical work conducted
>and published in the UK and >elsewhere (e.g. Australia and New Zealand),
>believe me!
>
>I believe. As an elsewhere interested in feminism and education I am
>particularly proud of the fact that there are a good number of papers (and
>a number of good papers) written about reflexive teaching from Australasia.
>And many of them are showing the rest of the field a clean pair of heels in
>their willingness to take balanced, problematical ownership of their
>critical/radical beliefs and start talking about what this means to their
>teaching practice. I'm thinking here of writers such as Erica McWilliam and
>Alison Jones, and those who incorporate feminist post-structuralism into
>policy debates like Jill Blackmore. Writers such as McWilliam represent
>the first generation of graduates coming out of humanities programmes well
>versed in post-modernism and the expectation that they will be teaching or
>managing in a post-modern way. The demographics are coming! And there just
>isn't anything much there to guide them as to how that is, or might be,
>done. And it is also the feminist writers such as Ellsworth who are
>publishing accounts of their experiments in radical teaching and willing to
>reflect critically on them. As Keijo has indicated, those who are aware of
>their status as 'other' have been poaching from the theoretical diversity
>of the social sciences in which to build a modified teaching practice.
>Building a modified critical/radical management teaching process and
>content seems to me work that this generation of crits and rads could
>usefully leave as a legacy for the next. They'd hate it of course and pick
>it to pieces but at least we'd have a dialogue.
>
>Linda
>
>------------------------------
>
>Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1999 11:43:49 -0500
>From: Louis Chauvin <
chauvin@MANAGEMENT.MCGILL.CA>
>Subject: Re: People versus Capital
>
>This is one of the reasons why the switch from "personel" to "human
>resources" has always irked me. Brings to mind attempts at using
>language to distance ourselves from...(whatever). Taking the "person"
>out makes it easier to perform certain actions with less of a twinge on
>one's conscience. Just one little example of a wide spectrum of such.
>
>--
>Louis R. Chauvin
>Faculty of Management
>McGill University
>Montreal, Canada
>
>
>Tim Edlund wrote:
>>
>> Alan & all -
>>
>> The idea that human resources have value is one that the accountants,
>> among others, have argued they should include on the balance sheet.
>> Howevewr, although they have argued for inclusion thereof, I've never seen
>> any attempt to actually do so in any firm's annual report or other similar
>> documents.
>>
>> Theory is one thing; actually doing so is another.
>>
>> - - -
>>
>> I think both views are important - but both miss the mark. Peter Drucker
>> said that " . . the purpose of business is to create a customer." Failing
>> that approach, failure is probable. Using it, employees and those who
>> furnish capital are likely to obtain returns.
>>
>> Tim Edlund, Morgan State University
>>
>> On Tue, 16 Mar 1999, Facilitated Solutions [Alan Wilson] wrote: [in part]
>>
>> > Jack Ring wrote:
>> > >I would like it even better if it assumed that People were the Reason
>>for a
>> > >business, not just resources or kapital to be used to fuel "the machine."
>> >
>> > Well said Jack. If people are a "resource", then:
>> > 1. Can they be disposed of like a fixed asset?
>> > 2. Can their "value" be included in the balance sheet?
>> >
>> > By focussing on the People first and the business second, I believe that
>> > the business will actually be more productive than if it were purely a
>> > "machine" that keeps the bean-counters happy.
>>
>> Provided the the people you focus on are customers first, and on
>> those working for the firm second!
>
>------------------------------
>
>Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1999 10:29:19 -0700
>From: Jack Ring <
jring@AMUG.ORG>
>Subject: Re: TQM or ISO?
>
>To: Jorge Cuadros, Quality Engineer, Industrial Brawns S.A., Peru
>
>Talk about viruses!
>With due respect to Ann Marie, do not let the ideas of Business Process
>Improvement, and especially CMM, penetrate either your factory or your own
>thinking or you will slowly reduced to pursuing false goals while your
>customers all die of apathy.
>
>It is essential that youall start by building a reasonably mutual agreement
>regarding what Change Intitiatives your company must accomplish. This
>means that youall must build a list of the Top Ten Gaps between 1) your
>anticipated market and 2) what your company must Do, Be and Know. Then
>take a week or two to read, discuss and adopt a common mental model or
>concept for how you are going to bridge the gaps. For the reading give
>every key player a copy of Quality is Free and a copy of The One Minute
>Manager.
>
>Then figure out what the owners are going to Start saying and the line
>managers are going to Start doing to pursue the least challenging entry on
>the Top Ten Gaps.
>
>Meanwhile, do not leap into any bureaucratic programs nor unproven palliatives.
>
>By separate mail I am forwarding a case study regarding the renovation of
>the product development process of a family owned, leading manufacturer of
>automobile aftermarket parts in U.S.
>
>Good luck,
>+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
>On Sun, 14 Mar 1999 22:22:55 -0800
>>From: Ann Marie Harmony <
itm@IN-THE-MOOD.COM>
>>Subject: Re: What is first: "TQM program" or "ISO9000 process"
>[...]
>>Jorge- My background incorporates software quality engineering:
>>Here are some select spots on my personal site that incorporate
>>some good generic material.
>>
>>1. Business Process Improvement Handbook
>>generic how to, activity based costing, checklists, templates
>>http://www.ncal.verio.com/~aharmony/QA/handbook/Handbook.html
>>
>>QA Strategy and Roadmap- discussion of CMM, ISO, Best Practices
>>software orientation- Great Quality linkages page
>>http://www.ncal.verio.com/~aharmony/Mindsteps/homepage.html
>>
>[...]
>
>Jack Ring, 32712 N. 70th St., Snottsdale, AZ 85262-7143
>602-488-4615, Cell) 602.369.4615, Fax)602-488-4616
>Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt.
>Dance like nobody's watching.
>
>------------------------------
>
>Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1999 12:31:59 -0500
>From: G S C <
gscole@ARK.SHIP.EDU>
>Subject: Re: People versus Capital
>
>Tim,
>A decade or two ago, I think that the R. G. Barry Corporation tested
>'human capital' annual reports. Don't remember if they were SEC
>approved, i.e., the human capital portion, or not. The concern of focus
>was that if the value of the labor force was properly recognized,
>management might be more able to utilize that labor force. I had heard
>that other firms were experimenting with the approach, but I never saw
>any reports that those companies might have issued.
>
>Think that the work was done in conjunction with accountants at the
>University of Michigan. [Sincere apologies for any oversights on my
>part.]
>
>I used those annual reports in both my personnel classes and business &
>society classes. Several textbooks of that era also mentioned those
>annual reports.
>
>There were concurrent academic concerns. Did the value of the labor
>force increase with increases in inflation? If the value of the labor
>force declined, was the decrease due to management actions, or to
>workforce aging, or to non-job related interests of the workforce, or to
>whatever? The reports were always successful in generating class
>discussion.
>
>George S. Cole
gscole@ark.ship.edu
>Shippensburg University
>
>------------------------------
>
>Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1999 13:05:40 -0500
>From: Charles Wankel <
cxx@BELLATLANTIC.NET>
>Subject: Re: Online learning resources
>
>Mg-Ed-Dv-ers:
>Oops! I mistyped the url for the eSocrates web-based teaching platform
>information. It is (remembering case-sensitivity this time!):
>www.esocrates.com
>Cybercollegially,
>Charlie Wankel
>listmaster mg-ed-dv
>
wankelc@stjohns.edu
>
>------------------------------
>
>Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1999 11:57:57 -0600
>From: DAVID MCARTHUR <
DavidMcArthur@CBA.LOYNO.EDU>
>Subject: MBA Internship expectations
>
>Our program allows MBA students to do a summer internship with a local firm
>or governmental office for credit. I have been assigned my first such intern
>to supervise and have little experience in determining what expectations or
>standards to apply to the designing of the internship. Other than the
>generic sort of guidance that I've received which can be summarized as,
>"More rigorous than an undergraduate's internship" does anyone have some
>thoughts about how I should define a suitable MBA internship?
>
>Best regards,
>David
>________________________________________________________________
>David N. McArthur, Ph.D.
>
>Assistant Professor of International Business voice: 504.865.2100
>College of Business Administration fax: 504.865.3496
>Loyola University New Orleans
>6363 St Charles Ave., Campus Box 15
>New Orleans, LA 70118
>
>------------------------------
>
>Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1999 15:44:16 -0800
>From: Tom Hawk <
t_hawk@FRE.FSU.UMD.EDU>
>Subject: Participation Points
>
>Dick. I am unclear as to the intention and meaning of your answer to my
>post of what I do with contribution feedback and grading for my capstone
>strategy course. I don'r want to make any unwarranted attributions. So
>please clarify your answer. Tom Hawk.
>
>------------------------------
>
>Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1999 20:23:18 +0000
>From: John Naylor <
j.b.naylor@LIVJM.AC.UK>
>Subject: Re: People versus Capital
>
>Should human resources be on the balance sheet? Skandia is among several
>Swedish companies working on this question.
http://www.skandia/se/ It
>reports on 'human capital' as well as 'intellectual capital' partly as
>means of explaining why stock exchange trading occurs at around 5 times
>book value.
>
>Incidentally, don't sports-teams-as-businesses have this problem? I
>think UK tax law requires player transfers to be treated as trades in
>the profit and loss account. A sale of such an asset by a little club
>creates a big profit (and hence tax) in one year that cannot be posted
>against the normal trading losses. And the estimated value of Manchester
>United Football Club (£675 million) cannot just be the brand and the
>stadium. Could the more than 20 professionals be worth about £5 million
>each?
>
>John Naylor
>Business School, Liverpool John Moores University
>
>------------------------------
>
>Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1999 14:29:35 -0700
>From: "Joseph E. Champoux (Joe)" <
champoux@UNM.EDU>
>Subject: Films and copyright
>
>Here is my understanding of US copyright provisions for
>videotaped films. There is a fair use provision in the law
>for educational use.
>
>I would like to here from people in other countries, as we
>did from Alan Wilson in Australia, of their copyright laws.
>Surely it affects those of us who teach abroad and use film.
>
>Joe Champoux
>
>----------------------------------------------------------
>
>Copyright Issues
>
> Using scenes or entire movies for instructional use raises
>several issues about copyright infringement. Separate issues
>center on using videotapes made by off-air taping of television
>broadcasts and using film scenes in workshops done for a fee.
>The following presents guidelines and observations for legal use
Jack Ring, 32712 N. 70th St., Snottsdale, AZ 85262-7143
602-488-4615, Cell) 602.369.4615, Fax)602-488-4616
Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt.
Dance like nobody's watching.