“DO YOU…

1. IMPROVE basic, measured efficiencies continuously?
2. THINK simply and directly about what you are doing and why?
3. BEHAVE towards others as you wish them to behave towards you?
4. EVALUATE each business and business opportunity with total, fact-based objectivity?
5. CONCENTRATE on what you do well?
6. ASK questions ceaselessly about performance, markets and objectives?
7. MAKE MONEY- knowing that, if you don’t, you can’t make anything else?
8. ECONOMISE always seeking Limo (Least Input for Most Output)?
9. FLATTEN the organisation to spread authority and responsibility?
10. ADMIT to your own failings and shortcomings and correct them?
11. SHARE the benefits of success with all those who helped to achieve it?
12. TIGHTEN up the organisation wherever and whenever you can because familiarity breeds slackness?
13. ENABLE everybody to optimise their individual and group contribution?
14. SERVE your customers with all their requirements to standards of perceived excellence in quality?
15. TRANSFORM performance by innovating creatively in products and processes including the processes of management?

Again from this email concerning this list: “These questions penetrate to the heart of successful management. They have passed, and will pass, the test of time.

This list looks a lot like others I have seen, and certainly many entries would be on such a list that I might create. But, whenever I see lists like this, I say to myself, “Great, but how do I do this?” Lets just take number 15, for example,  “Transform performance by innovating….”. What business processes do I put in place that assure that these results are regularly and sustainably produced? Or, what approaches and tools do I deploy to achieve number 8, “Economize…” ? Again, are there tools and approaches available that assure the we meet number 13, “ENABLE everybody to optimize their individual and group contribution?”

Without wasting further time with rhetorical questions, let me point out that in fact there are well-developed, well-tested systems of business processes available for a manager who wants and needs to achieve positive answers to questions like those posed by Heller. These include Lean^[[2]] , Baldrige^[[3]] , EFQM^[[4]] , or ISO9001-2008^[[5]]. None of these are simple cookbooks of management. The reality of management problems is much more complex and requires some subtlety in thinking through how to apply the principles and practices of these management systems to the individual enterprise. Nevertheless, these management systems provide the tools to systematically achieve results that answer the 15 points of this checklist, and more.

There is something else that interests me about lists like Heller’s 15. These lists almost always contain a provocative overlap between the attributes and skills of the manager and those of the organization. This overlap produces an opportunity (and responsibility) for the manager to drive the development and maintenance of these attributes in the organization. On the other hand, without the manager embodying a number of these attributes and skills, the organization will not come to embody them. In this case the manager’s performance is a negative driver of performance.

Lets take a look at a couple of Heller’s 15 as examples of this overlap phenomenon.

Number 4, “EVALUATE each business and business opportunity with total, fact-based objectivity?” calls for a fact-based approach to business. If the manager does not act, think, and talk in a fact-based manner consistently and rigorously, the organization will veer off this path quickly in response. If a manager does not gather facts and make decisions based on facts^[[6]] the organization will note this and begin to act in a fashion consistent with whatever decision making process the manager uses. This is a simple fact of life. People will do as the boss does, not as the boss says. On the other hand, if the manager is fact-centered in decision making, the organization will respond in like.

Number 13, “ENABLE everybody to optimise their individual and group contribution?”, is another interesting example of the overlap between the personal approaches and performance of the manager and and those of the organization. Central to every high-performance organization is the challenge to create an environment in which every person can and does make a fully engaged and productive contribution to the organization. The manager’s involvement in cross-functional team-based work expressly embodies this approach. After all, the people who report to a general manager (CEO, divisional manager, owner) are by definition cross-functional and they should solve the organization’s challenges as a cross-functional team. If the manager carries out his/her work in a cross-functional team-based manner, this will drive and support similar approaches throughout the organization. And, similar to our earlier discussion, failure here will support traditional management methods of command and control.

This overlap between the individual and the organizational is a great resource for the manager who wants to build a high-performance organization. They can make a direct contribution to the transformation by learning new approaches and skills and applying them in their day-to-day work. And, really, the principles and practices are quite straight forward. It requires more persistence than genius to build high-performance organizations. The transformation process is not like building a rocket where every part must work perfectly to even get off the launch pad.

1. http://www.thinkingmanagers.com/
2. Lean is the American name for the Toyota Production System, also more broadly the Toyota Business System. There is no standards organization for lean principles and practices. A good starting point is Womack, James P., and Daniel T. Jones. Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation, Revised and Updated. 2nd ed. Free Press, 2003 and The Lean Enterprise Institute
3. Baldrige National Quality Program Criteria
4. European Foundation for Quality Management
5. International Organization for Standardization ISO9001-2008 Quality management systems — Requirements
6. Here is an interesting point about “facts”. Facts are by definition observable and independent of any individual. Facts exist in the shared space of the organization; they do not belong to any person, but to the organization.

I recently read 12 The Elements of Great Managing by Rodd Wagner and James K. Harter (Gallup Press, New York 2006) another in this series. Don’t be deceived by the title, this book is really speaking from the perspective of how employees experience high-performance management. So a little translation is required to uncover the implied principles and practices of the 12 elements. Here are the twelve elements as presented in the introduction to the book^[[1]] .

1. I know what is expected of me at work
2. I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right.
3. At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.
4. In the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work.
5. My supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about me as a person.
6. There is someone at work who encourages my development.
7. At work, my opinions seem to count.
8. The mission or purpose of my company makes me feel my job is important.
9. My associates or fellow employees are committed to quality work.
10. I have a best friend at work.
11. In the last six months, someone at work has talked to me about my progress.
12. This last year, I have had opportunities at work to learn and grow.

A footnote at the end of this listing states that “Each of the Q12© statements above represent millions of dollars of investment by Gallup researchers…..”. This is one of the reasons these Gallup books are interesting. There is lots of data embedded in them. It is well worth the time to read through and absorb the anecdotes that flow from the data.

The questions I have about this list are not about the validity of these statements. They seem to jive very well both with anecdotal observation and the findings of many other studies about the attitudes and feelings of people in high performance organizations. The questions facing a manager is how to create the business culture, infrastructure and processes that produces these results in the human resources of the organization?

Without attempting anything exhaustive here, let’s take a look at several of these 12 elements and see how one might convert them into actionable tasks for a manager.

Looking at the first two elements,  applying Lean principles and practices creates an environment in which every person knows what is expected of them, how they are to accomplish the tasks, when the results are required, and what success looks like in terms of detailed deliverables of a product or service.  And, they receive immediate feedback concerning all of these characteristics from those around them in the work flow.

Since good Lean work design involves visual, simple feedback mechanisms, quality is a result of the process and failures are dealt with immediately. Apply Lean principles and practices develops processes that directly connect the work at hand to elements eight and nine. Central to Lean practices is the principle that quality is a outcome of the process and failures are identified in the flow and quality issues are resolved down to the root level.

Lean principles and practices include a focus on the development of every individual in the organization to be fully cross-functional in their skills. Typically this is implemented through specific cross-training requirements so that, over time, every individual learns to be a fully qualified practitioner of multiple skills required by the company’s processes and long-term goals. or

Element seven, “At work, my opinions seem to count.” requires some further comment. High performance organizations require the involvement of every associate’s mind and energies to solve problems and carry out the work at hand. It is not optional in a high performance environment. So, by definition, every person’s engagement counts. The word “seem” needs to be replaced by “does”.  A little further quibble here. Opinions are not very useful without the supporting facts and thought processes behind them. This is the reason that high performance organizations, whether they identify themselves under the banner of Lean^[[2]] , Baldrige^[[3]] , EFQM^[[4]] , or ISO9001-2008^[[5]] , use disciplined problem solving techniques that everyone learns to use. This assures that everyone’s engagement in the problem is represented, but the problem solving is fact-based, gets to the root, and is actionable.

Element 10, “I have a best friend at work.” is clearly beyond the control of management. It is understandably nice, but definitely not a controllable element of any work place.

Some elements are particularly subject to influence by the behaviors of senior management. Elements 3, 4, 5, 6, and 11 are typically elements to be found in high performance human resources management processes. But, making those processes come to life can readily be driven by the example of senior management in how they manage the selection, development and pruning of the people who report to them. If they practice sound high performance human resource practices, those practices will cascade down to everyone in the organization. It goes without saying that a component of that is direct involvement by senior management in oversight and monitoring of the health of the human resources management processes in the organization. A simple example of this is to impose a rule that no manager, even to the CEO level, can receive a pay grade review if they have any outstanding performance reviews for their subordinates. This drives timeliness quite nicely.

To conclude, this list of 12 elements is an interesting starting point to venture into high performance management. The list is really a slice of the results that flow from high performance management practices. The trick here then is to reverse engineer the list to uncover high performance practices from the world of Lean, Baldrige, and other high performance models that can be applied in your particular business environment. Building a high-performance organization is one sure approach to developing an organization that produces great results and solid answers to the 12 elements of great managing as described in 12 The Elements of Great Managing by Rodd Wagner and James K. Harter.

1. pages xi and xii
2. Lean is the American name for the Toyota Production System, also more broadly the Toyota Business System. There is no standards organization for lean principles and practices. A good starting point is Womack, James P., and Daniel T. Jones. Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation, Revised and Updated. 2nd ed. Free Press, 2003 and The Lean Enterprise Institute
3. Baldrige National Quality Program Criteria
4. European Foundation for Quality Management
5. International Organization for Standardization ISO9001-2008 Quality management systems — Requirements

Unhappy prospects or customers are an opportunity to display your real value and win a fan for life.

Here is the story from the owner of a start up yoga studio in New York City.

A neighborhood person began to say negative things about the studio on Twitter. Challenges about the pricing being too high and a lack of community involvement in the new studio. A PR person working with the studio’s owner responded and engaged the disgruntled neighborhood person. This lead to the owner becoming engaged and an exchange of emails that clarified the concerns and the facts of what the studio was really doing. The neighborhood person also received feedback from others about the competitive pricing for yoga in NYC. All of this lead to an invitation from the owner for the neighborhood person to come by for tea and attend a Saturday evening potluck party at the studio.

The neighborhood person responded with a 745 word blog entry that recited all of her concerns and the email responses by the owner. This blog postings closes with this:^[[1]]

you should note that B…… & Y…..’s instructors are all members of our Inwood and Washington Heights communities – which warms my heart to no end.  so, go to B…. & Y….. this weekend, take a free class, congratulate M….. and wish her much success. don’t forget to take advantage of their special packages before they end.

no matter what, the most important thing for me is community, and we need support our friends and neighbors in all of their endeavors.

maybe we will see you there… the potluck on Saturday night sounds like lots of fun!

The owner of the yoga studio told me that this neighbor came to the potluck and has signed up for classes.

There are many lessons to be noted.

Pay attention to what is being said about you on the Web

First, in the world of instant social media, you must pay attention to what is being said about you on the Web. When negative comments are made, you need to engage them immediately with positive fact-based responses. Find out more about the person and engage them. Every company no matter how small or large needs to have a process in place to regularly follow the chatter on the web. Follow Twitter, Facebook, local Yahoo Groups, and other places on the web where your customers and prospects hang out. Set up a Google Alert to automatically track comments about you and your business.

Greet every unhappy prospect or client as an opportunity to excel

Second, greet every unhappy prospect or client as an opportunity to excel. Be responsive, do not be defensive, ask and listen for the reasons for the unhappiness. Take action to fix or correct these problems or misperceptions. More often than not you will win that person over and make them a fan for life.

Silent, perhaps unhappy, customers who leave and never return

Third, what process do you have to find the silent, perhaps unhappy, customers who leave and never return? Do you follow up with clients who use your services once or twice and then never see again? Remember, you have already put the effort into attracting these customers. You have a relationship with them. They know what you do, where you are, how much it cost, but, for some reason they have chosen not to return. Most people will not complain or explain why, unless you ask.  Put a process in place to ask those silent customers who don’t come back. You will be surprised by the results and learn a lot about how your business is perceived.

1. names occluded by me