Followup to Beer Game

1
Follow-up to Beer Game
All material paraphrased from The Fifth
Discipline The Art Practice of The Learning
Organization, Peter Senge, Doubleday Currency,
1990
2
Discipline

• Meaning 1 Reactive NOT the one we are using
  here!
• Enforced order or means of punishment
• Meaning 2 Formative -- Learning and
  improvement oriented
• A body of theory and techniques that must be
  studied and mastered to be put into practice

3
Learning Disabilities

• I am my position
• The enemy is out there
• The illusion of taking charge
• The fixation on events
• The parable of the boiled frog
• The delusion of learning from experience
• The myth of the management team

4
The Five Disciplines

• Personal Mastery
• a commitment to lifelong learningto see the
  world objectively
• Mental Models
• a recognition of deeply ingrained assumptions
  generalizations that influence how we understand
  the world and how we take action

5
Five Disciplines (cont.)

• Building Shared Vision
• The practice of developing skills of unearthing a
  shared picture of the future that fosters
  genuine commitment and enrollment rather than
  compliance
• Team Learning
• The ability of groups to genuinely think
  together
• Involves dialogue and the suspension of
  assumptions

6
Five Disciplines (cont.)

• Systems Thinking
• The integration of learning from all disciplines
• The recognition that the whole can be more than
  the sum of the parts
• A shift of mind from seeing ourselves as separate
  from the world to connected to the world, from
  seeing problems as caused by someone or something
  out there to seeing how our own actions create
  the problems we experience.

7
Laws of the Fifth Discipline

• Todays problems come from yesterdays
  solutions.
• The harder you push the harder the system pushes
  back.
• Behavior grows better before it grows worse.
• The easy way out usually leads back in.
• The cure can be worse than the disease.
• Faster is slower.

8
Laws (cont.)

• Cause and effect are not closely related in time
  and space.
• Small changes can produce big resultsbut the
  areas of highest leverage are often the least
  obvious.
• You can have your cake and eat it toobut not all
  at once.
• Dividing an elephant in half does not produce two
  small elephants.

9
Recognizing Relationships
A
B
B
A
vs.

• Why do we want to shift from 'linear thinking' to
  'seeing loops'?
• Allows us to see "the big picture"
• Helps us to sort out some of the dynamic
  complexity
• Emphasizes how the actions we take are part of
  the problem as well as part of the solution
• Increases our ability to identify points of
  leverage
• Provides a new graphical way of communication

10
Reinforcing Loops
"The sky's the limit" "We're on a roll" "We're
going to hell in a handbasket" "The more I do,
the more there is to do"
s
Actual performance
Growing action
time gt
s
time gt
11
Reinforcing Loop 1

• Workers can't be trusted.
• gt set strict rules and procedures
• gt rules get in the way of doing the job that
  needs to be done
• gt workers 'side-step' the rules
• Conclusion workers can't be trusted.

12
Reinforcing Loop 2

• People have to be bribed to do good work.
  (incentives and/or rewards)
• gt we establish a reward for accomp-lishment of
  a task
• gt the reward is attractive
• gt people come to expect the reward
• gt we ask people to accomplish this same task
  without providing a reward
• gt people verbalize their objections (and
  possibly refuse to complete task)
• Conclusion people have to be bribed.

13
Homework

• Beer game follow-up (5 point concept)
• Provide a current, real-world example where
  outcomes similar to the Beer Game can be seen.
  Describe the systemic structural similarities
  between the situation and the Beer Game.If you
  are stuck, you may get some ideas in the Lessons
  of the Beer Game section of the readings.
• Next week Learning (and Change) for Improvement
• Read Teaching Smart People to Learn by Chris
  Argyris, Harvard Business Review, May/June 1991,
  pp. 99-109 (available in the shared class files
  on the GSC site)