Consultant Q&A
H. James Harrington Responds:
Management that gives orders and thinks of their
employees as slaves who follow blindly, does believe in
teamwork. It is just that their view of teamwork is the
team works just as they are told to and only as they are
told. This type of management style was appropriate when
the work force was illiterate and was content to do
repetitive jobs day after day. Unfortunately for these
types of managers and fortunately for the rest of us, the
world we live in has changed. These misguided managers
are still psychologically wearing heavily starched,
high-buttoned collars with shiny, button-down shoes. It
is very difficult to get these managers to give up their
obsolete habits and dress up in today’s business
casual clothes.
This is a problem that all consultants have
faced and often with poor results. As consultants, we
have a big advantage over the people in the organization.
Top management pays a lot of money to get our advice and,
as a result, they are more inclined to listen to us than
to their own people. Even then, the consultant fails to
convert some sinners over to a brighter way of life. It
is a lot like smoking or drinking; being a dictator is
addictive. It gives the individual a feeling of
importance and power. It is hard to change their
behavioral patterns unless they are faced with an
earth-shaking event.
The real question to ask is: What can you do in the
environment you find yourself in?
Management changes for three reasons:
- It is better for management.
- It is better for the organization.
- Someone higher up tells them they must
change.
The problem that we have is selling management on
changing their behavioral patterns. It is much more
difficult than it was in the past. No longer are they
willing to invest money in motherhood and nickel beer
justifications. What they need is an explanation of why
it is better for them and the organization if they go to
a different style of management. That means you need to
supply them with quantitative data that define what the
impact on them will be if they make the change. This
means collecting enough information that will allow
management to understand that it is worth the resources
and effort that will be expended and that their new role
will be more satisfying. The four critical performance
measurements and the one personal measurement that need
to be considered are:
- Return on assets
- Value added per employee
- Profitability
- Customer satisfaction
- Personal job satisfaction (personal
measurement)
Don’t rely on nebulous terms like
“improved morale” or unquantified terms like
“customer satisfaction.” Instead, determine
that by changing to the new management style they will
increase customer satisfaction by 5 percentage points,
which will increase sales by $8.9 million per year,
thereby increasing profits by 18 percent.
Preparing a value proposition backed up with solid,
validated data from other similar organizations that
project a degree of improvement in each of these four
business measurements and the one personal measurement is
the best way to convince your management that they should
change their behavior.
H. JAMES HARRINGTON has written seven books
including the best selling The Improvement Process,
Business Process Improvement, and Total
Improvement Management: The Next Generation in
Performance Management. Harrington is the CEO of The
Performance Improvement Network in Los Gatos, Calif. He
is considered a leading authority in process
management.
Vince Ventresca
Responds
Question for
Consultants
November 2001 News for a
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