Removing the reset button

As we exit the ‘noughties’ and prepare to enter an exciting new decade it seems an appropriate time to reflect on change, as this seems the only constant we can predict for the future.  Managing change is difficult.  People work to type and even though you can introduce new ways to do things it is hard to prevent old habits coming back and people reverting to the previous ways they did things.  I recall a friend once telling me that it is less about how you tell your child not to do something, and more about how often you tell them.  I guess this is a trait not limited to children and is part of the reason change is hard, and change management itself has developed into a discipline in its own right.  It is important to bear in mind that maintaining change can almost be as hard as enacting it in the first place, as often there are embedded reasons why things have occurred a certain way in the past.

The Egg and Spoon race growth strategy

I had the thought the other day that growing a new business is a bit like running an egg and spoon race. Everyone wants to run as fast as possible but the danger of running too fast is that you drop the egg.  So judgement has to be used in order to maximize speed but prevent the set back of dropping the egg, or worse still breaking it.  So who is in the best position to judge the speed at which you can run?

No canned laughter allowed

I have long been interested in management theory and since my postgraduate studies have read countless management books from the classic "Effective Management Skills" by Scott & Rochester; to the novel "The One Minute Manager" by Blanchard and Johnson; to the much hyped such as Tom Peters’ transition from prescription management in his book "In Search of Excellence" to his more liberal and flexible views in "Liberation Management". Recent best sellers such as "Good to Great" by Jim Collins, "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team" by Patrick Lencioni or "Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell are all interesting reads.

Happy 100th Birthday Mr Drucker. I am glad to say you were not a management guru

This week would have been the 100th birthday of Peter Drucker who is widely regarded as one of the greatest management thinkers of all time.  Drucker, who died 4 years ago, was not one for pomp and circumstance.  Rather he was a practical thinker who developed his guru status through 60 years of management thought and incite.  Affectionately known by even his peers as “the father of modern management” and “the world’s greatest management thinker” he was an intellectual who was influenced by the likes of John Maynard Keynes and Joseph Schumpeter.

Customer appeasement versus customer satisfaction

Early in my career, when I was a customer service manager, I interviewed for a job where I was given a hypothetical problem to resolve.  It was one of those questions where there is no right answer; rather the interviewer is simply trying to test your lateral thinking skills.  The hypothesis was that the customer had experienced terrible service and wanted the problem resolved immediately.  After running through a number of potential solutions, including involving my manager, escalating up the tree etc., all of which were ruled out by the interviewer, I eventually suggested I would go back to the customer and explain that regrettably what they wanted was not possible and proceeded to offer what I thought would be attainable.

The plural of anecdote is data

In Operation's management data is vital.  But calibrating data is equally as important.  Mark Twain is famously quoted as saying "Lies, damn lies and Statistics" as data can always be misinterpreted if the information is not used correctly.  But the reality is anecdotes have no place in Operations Management...indeed I would go so far as to say they are the enemy of any decent operations manager.  Particularly as for non-operationally focused managers they seem to carry such weight.  My personal pet hate is the Sales manager who uses the 'customer anecdote" as if that in itself should carry the day.  Don't get me wrong every customer issue should be treated based on the individual circumstances of their situation but one incident alone does not a trend make.  Just because one customer has an issue or questions your process does not mean that everything else you have done to date is wrong.

Panic Rules but doesn't resolve

Recently I received an escalation from a customer who had experienced a couple of issues on a service we had just launched. The customer was rightly concerned because if not resolved these issues would have an impact on the success of the program and clearly the customer was nervous. However, not as nervous as some of my management team. Within 5 minutes of the customer's email I had received a call, a text and a visit from two executives and the customers account manager requesting status or offering me advice.

In operations it is important to retain a cool head and focus on identifying and resolving the problem at hand. Probably the worst thing you can do is overreact. One thing I have learnt over 20 years in operations management is that things rarely look as bad after the storm as they do in the middle of it. So it is imperative you take that into account in your decision making or else you are likely to simply over correct and make a bad situation worse. The title of this post came from one of my operations managers who appreciates the importance of a cool head. As Kipling says, "If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs..."

The world is round - really!

In 1492 when the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus set out from Spain on a western route to find India he was in the minority in believing that the world was round.  Before his ship spotted land - what actually turned out to be the Bahamas - his crew were close to mutiny expecting to fall off the edge of the world at any point.  You can imagine that the debate between round and flat was all the rage in the 15th century and most scholars had the arguments well honed on either side.  

Cheating the basics

Sports metaphors in management are over used but one I like is the concept of cheating the basics.  In soccer the art of defending relies on some basic principles.  Never stand too close to the player you are defending else they might turn you; don't stand too far away else you allow them to be a passing option and you give them enough time to control the ball if passed to.  And the most important rule is to always stay goal-side of the player i.e. you must be closer to your goal than they are.  These are the basics of defending and good players will execute the basics consistently, poor players will not.  But that is not enough if you want to be a great player.  To be a great player you need to be able cheat on the basics e.g. stand so close to the player you can get a foot to the ball when it arrives, or far enough away that you lull the player in to a false sense of security and you move in with speed at the critical moment, or stand beside and not behind the player so you can step forward and steel the ball.