Abstract
One day, after my final lecture in the Operations module in a PADE program at the IESE, a participant approached me and commented:
Making agents take the initiative and be proactive requires “managing by serving.” This chapter shows how to achieve that by outlining a plan for action within any manager’s reach. Chapter 15 complements the previous chapter by focusing on the manager’s role as a catalyst for the SPDM style.
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Notes
- 1.
Senior management program at the IESE Business School-University of Navarre, where I have been a member of the academic staff for more than 25 years.
- 2.
But I believe my back ground in the humanities shows, along with my doctorate in education and having been HR manager in an industrial firm for more than six years. I wish to stay as aseptic as possible, because I often notice that messages that are on the “human” side are very intangible and even sentimental. And I am obsessed with being concrete and rational. I always say the heart does not interest me, but rather the head, and it is a shame that both go together!
- 3.
HR’s role in companies is in crisis. One only needs to glance at the Harvard Business Review to realize that. Managing headcount is history and now it is up to senior management to add more value to a company.
- 4.
Productivity-happiness-solutions.
- 5.
Remember, the last thing once the whole SPDM model has been analyzed is hire or fire, introduce technology or tackle the organizational structure.
- 6.
I hope not to confuse readers with this comment. I am not equating one with the other at all. God help me! Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great have been with me all my life. Steve Jobs is just an interesting incident.
- 7.
Already mentioned when I explained brainpower, but now it is time to delve into the matter.
- 8.
Excuse me for repeating myself, but remembering this is essential.
- 9.
“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others”: Mahatma Gandhi.
- 10.
Have I a lot of old friends? Well yes, I have acquired them over the years.
- 11.
This chapter is a hodge-podge of many ideas already set out in my previous books, and new complementary ideas that have arisen over the years as they have been recorded in IESE technical notes. They make up a different patchwork quilt that I consider completes much of the work that has been developed and makes it more digestible.
- 12.
Remember the Golden Triad seeks operational excellence through Efficiency, by encouraging learning or Attractiveness and identifying agents through Unity.
- 13.
Le Roi Soleil, i.e., King Louis XIV of France. He called himself that. Very modest.
- 14.
I do not know how to “entice” the reader with these ideas. I shall try to do so with my rational approach because I cannot do so with an emotional one. I have seen so much time wasted in stupid, mean games that I despair over not being able to convince people by using my ideas. A manager told me that, if people focused more on work because they liked it more, perhaps they would forget such “games.” And he may be right, perhaps the heart of the matter lies in getting so passionate doing what you like, that everything else becomes secondary or irrelevant. But I personally suffer when I see such miserable behavior that adds no value to companies.
- 15.
Every culture becomes subsumed in a set of rules and values. Operational culture consists of service operations’ rules and values.
- 16.
Remember? Details matter. They must be spotted and problems solved. Experience is not expected to be the only source of learning, and a manager must teach how to improve. A worker that finds a problem asks somebody in particular for help who must reply, straight away.
- 17.
And the people with whom he moves are all prima donnas, who are by no means easy to handle, just like an R&D engineer, a renowned surgeon or a conceited manager.
- 18.
Here I must add one of the personal anecdotes my students like most; comparing a manager to a “mother-in-law.” I tell my classes that I when I became a mother-in-law for the first time, I did some soul-searching to see how I should behave from then on with the new couple. And the decision was swift and clear. I had to “disappear.” I had done my bit and now I only had the supporting role of being there when needed.
- 19.
Remember? Incremental, by extension, radical and revolutionary innovation (Chapter 11).
- 20.
An interesting exercise is to ask somebody a question then ask them to keep quiet, think and answer. The silence will make many feel uncomfortable, but keeping quiet is a sign of maturity. One thinks and answers. “Breathe in and out,” I tell my EMBA students. “And then answer.” Frankly very enlightening, or so they tell me.
- 21.
Could we please get back to “Please” and “Thank you”? That would be great; in other countries they still do so, and it is very nice.
- 22.
I do not know why three is this chapter’s hallmark. It is all about trios.
- 23.
Excuse me for using such colloquial language, but I want to make the point that so much training in companies is second rate. A “drag” when I was a girl – a long, long time ago – was a high school course you needed to pass but was not really useful.
- 24.
Chapter 11: a thousand $1,000 improvements.
- 25.
We can also call it rehearsal.
- 26.
T2 we called it in a previous book.
- 27.
And you may quietly skip this.
- 28.
Remember: We learn more from a mistake than something well done.
- 29.
- 30.
First, Let’s Fire all the Managers, Harvard Business Review, December 2011.
- 31.
Remember the suggestions box?
- 32.
Sorry. Yes, that also needs to be changed. Will nothing be left unchanged? Well, I think not.
- 33.
I know several that are doing so and with very satisfactory results.
- 34.
If you like, it may then be analyzed jointly with the Board. But do not remove power from the KU to award money however it sees fit.
- 35.
Trust them. They do not fail but are solid and, when given the chance, they take it constructively.
Bibliography
Muñoz-Seca, B. and Riverola, J. (2004). Problem Driven Management. Achieving improvement in operations through knowledge management, London-New York, Editorial Palgrave-Macmillan.
Muñoz-Seca, B. and Riverola, J. (2008). The New Operational Culture: The Case of the Theatre Industry, London-New York, Editorial Palgrave-Macmillan.
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Muñoz-Seca, B. (2017). The Hallmark of Mediocre Managers Is Hiring People Worse Than They Are. In: How to Make Things Happen. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54786-2_15
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