ROBERTA BHASIN is the author of Mastering Management-A Guide for Technical Professionals which is published by Miller Freeman Inc. She also conducts seminars and speaks on management for technical professionals.

There's nothing new under the sun

"The only constant is change," is one of those trite but true expressions that is constantly hashed and rehashed in organizational literature. Change and its exponential rapidity are driving new ways of thinking about how to run companies, particularly large ones, so that some of these "new" ideas are beginning to sound like old ones.

Take the new ideas around "learning organizations," for instance. A learning organization seems to be one that is constantly renewing itself, learning from experience, from the environment, and from the collective wisdom of its people documented with the help of technology.

An organization that is capable of learning is one that is, by definition, nimble and responsive-able to turn on a dime to meet new competitive challenges. Jay R. Galbraith, writing in The Organization of the Future, talks about the "reconfigurable" organization in this regard and suggests a new set of human resources policies central to creating the skills, networks, and cultures that are required to support it. Among those human resources policies are the following:

• Hire people who fit the organization, not a particular job. Because new skills will constantly be required, the hiring criteria should include abilities in teamwork, problem solving, and learning.

• Create assignments, and careers, that are cross-functional. Galbraith cites an example of a company where R&D people follow new products to manufacturing and then into sales and distribution.

• Require continuous training and provide it within cross-functional contexts. In relation to this, make a working, cross-functional team the ultimate goal. The idea here is not only to create a common set of skills-such as those for project management-but internal networking possibilities as well.

• Redesign appraisal and compensation systems. Make sure these systems reward skills rather than jobs.

What is interesting about all of this is that it harks backward, as well as forward, to the concept of "cross-training," which has so long been an anathema to people and organizations focused on job security. "I am a specialist. Only I can do this job, so I am safe," the reasoning has gone. Obviously, the new thinking would disagree: "That's no longer so. You'd better develop all the skills you can, because the name of the new game is flexibility." And a key to flexibility is, you guessed it, cross-training.

Now, your organization may not be on its way to becoming a five-star "reconfigurable" organization, but if you have not taken advantage of opportunities for cross-training lately, you could be missing out on productivity and motivational improvements that usually come along with them.

You probably do not need to be reminded, but here are just a few of those improvements:

• Backup. How do one-person-thin shops get the work done when someone is out sick or on vacation?

• Quality. Most quality improvement efforts involve analysis around the "next process customer." Understanding the next guy's job will not only let you back him up, but can help you change what you do, thereby improving the whole process.

• Improved morale. The more you know about others' jobs and what it takes to do them, and vice versa, the more likely you will increase your respect for them and their abilities. Mutual respect is important to good morale.

• Staffing flexibility.

• Efficiency.

And, you probably do not need to be reminded that cross-training can be accomplished in many ways, including job sharing and "shadowing" in addition to more formal classes, courses, or even apprenticeships. All of which goes to show some truth in another adage: There's nothing new under the sun.