Doing some research I came across a Harvard Business Review article from 1977 by Wickham Skinner and W. Earl Sasser, “Managers with impact: versatile and inconsistent.”  One of the topics Skinner and Sasser discussed are patterns of behavior characteristic of less effective managers. Their observations still ring true:

·        accepting conventional company wisdom without question; example, “we always promote from within” 

·        acting too slowly when changes are needed now

·        tolerating subordinates who are ineffective, hinting at improvements needed instead of taking decisive action

·        not challenging the way things are done, “the way we have always done it”

·        not handling priorities

·        not taking calculated risks, lack of  “boldness, nerve, and self-confidence”

·        not asking for help or advice when needed

·        not recognizing their own weaknesses

A pretty good instrument to measure the effectiveness of managers could be made from this list. Let me address one area: handling priorities.

We live in workplaces where increasingly we have to do more with less. Technologies sometimes increase workload where one might think workload should decrease. Organizations downsize but the work remains. Is it any wonder that in this environment our days are filled with the busywork of staying afloat?

As a young manager I found my days fully occupied with solving problems, making decisions, communicating, and so forth. But one evening I was reading Peter Drucker’s Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices and I realized I was not doing my job. Nobody noticed and probably no one would ever notice – but I was not thinking about where I wanted to lead my part of the organization. The next day when I came to work, I asked my secretary to hold all calls unless from the top guy (and it was a guy in those days). I spent the day in my office letting the busywork pileup while I drank coffee, Dr. Peppers, and thought about what we were really about. I came up with direction, a vision of where I wanted us to go, and how we might get there. At our next meeting I bounced the ideas off my teams and they agreed. Over the next year we focused more on effective, meaningful training. With better skill sets came more success at our primary mission. Together we made an impact.

I had not been handling my real priorities, leading and visioning. It was hard to find time at first and only got harder as I climbed the ladder. When it was impossible to take a day during my work week, I made it a Saturday. I recall after one Saturday, and subsequent divisional conversations, I presented our plan to my boss.  He liked it but was amazed, “How on earth did you find time to do this?” If you understand your priorities, you make time -- at work and in life. 

More from the interviews conducted about Joseph Juran for the PBS Special, An Immigrant's Gift.

From an interview with Steve Jobs, December 19, 1991, in Redwood City, California. 

Here Jobs talks about questioning what we do and the nature of people.

STEVE JOBS:    In most companies, if you're new and you ask, you know, why is it done this way? The answer is: because that's the way we do it here. Or because that's the way it's always been done.

And, in my opinion, the largest contribution of much of this quality thinking is to approach these ways of doing things, these processes, scientifically, where there is a theory behind why we do them. There is a description of what we do. And most importantly, there is an opportunity to always question what we do. And this is a radically different approach to business processes than the traditional one: because it's always done this way. And that single shift is everything, in my opinion.

Because, in that shift is a tremendous optimistic point of view about the people that work in a company. It says, these people are very smart. They're not pawns. They're very smart. And, if given the opportunity to change and improve, they will. They will improve the processes, if there is a mechanism for it. And that optimistic humanism I find very appealing.

My take-aways:

1. “Because that’s the way we do it here” or “because that's the way it's always been done” are not answers but starting points for discussion, clarifications, and improvements. It is possible that the way things have and are being done has proven to be best – if so, why? Juran's counterpart, W. Edwards Deming would argue the possibility for improvement is always there, even if it be ever so small. Questioning policies, procedures, ways of doing business are at the heart of continuous improvement.

2. Jobs echoes the last two assumptions of Douglas McGregor’s Theory Y from The Human Side of Enterprise (1960, p. 48):

“The capacity to exercise a relatively high degree of imagination, ingenuity, and creativity in the solution of organizational problems is widely, not narrowly, distributed in the population.”

“Under the conditions of modern industrial life, the intellectual potentialities of the average human being are only partially utilized.”

I agree with Jobs and McGregor. Most people could contribute much more to organizations if given a chance. I think this takes (1) a culture supportive of employee contributions and (2) leadership that values employees as assets, not costs.  
 

Image of Douglas McGregor used with permission.  Retrieved from http://antiochcollege.org/antiochiana/

I have been thinking  more about Herbert Shepard's "Rules for Change Agents", specifically his last rule of thumb, Rule VIII, "Capture the moment." Shepard suggested that we can handle  a situation at work or in life more effectively if we allow ourselves to be more engaged, to approach from different perspectives. He called this the "multiple potential of the moment." For example, apply not only your intellect to a situation but also your heart. He wrote, "One needs to have as many frameworks for seeing and strategies for acting available as possible." I recently viewed the 1939 John Ford classic film Stagecoach. Will the Ringo Kid (John Wayne) go to prison or to his ranch in Mexico? The resolution captures the moment. I do agree with Shepard. We can be too linear in our thinking sometimes.

However -- in discussing "Capture the moment" with my students, I put another spin on it. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to offer my spin as a new Rule IX, "Celebrate the moment." In the course of our days, our weeks, there may be small victories, small moments that we should savor -- but we don't. They barely register. We move on to the next task, the next meeting, the next project. Savor that "nice work", "great job". Allow yourself to enjoy the contribution you made to the success of the team, of another person. My guess is that most of us frequently have moments somewhere in our day, that if we let them, would bring a smile to our face.

And sometimes leaders fail to celebrate the successes of their units. I had a student who led an organization that had a very successful year. After we discussed celebrating the moment, he realized that he had not done so with his company, that he barely acknowledged the great year before focusing on the next. The next Monday when he went to work, he corrected that situation. They celebrated the moment. 

Celebrate the moments, large and small, that unfold to you. 

I read an interesting article in the Dayton Daily News last week about a community volunteer.  She has championed numerous causes in Dayton with much success. In the interview she said, "If there is something you are passionate about, find a cadre of like minded people, do your research and find a way to make it happen." This reminded me of one of my favorite articles in organization development, Herbert Shepard's "Rules of Thumb for Change Agents", specifically Rule IV, "Innovation requires a good idea, initiative, and a few friends." Shepard restated this as "Find the people who are ready and able to work, introduce them to one another, and work with them." 

There is much wisdom in these words. If you want to make a difference, it is easier to do with others who share your interest. It may be a workplace or organizational issue, a community initiative, or even something much larger. The Internet has changed the landscape for change. Finding others with similar interests has never been easier. All that is needed is the initiative to bring a few people together. 

There's a corollary. Perhaps there is an issue of which you are aware and in which you have a casual interest but you do not want to devote your energies in that direction. You can still plant seeds. If you know two or more people who share that concern, you can still introduce them. There is a synergy that can develop from numbers. 

So . . .  on what would you like to see action? Can you help make that happen? Who shares your concerns? Perhaps it is time to invite someone to coffee or beverage of choice. Make a difference.


Image from Google advanced image search. Free to use.  Source: http://frank.itlab.us/photo_essays/wrapper.php?sep_04_2010_bintan_birthday.html 

More from the files of the Dr. Juran "An Immigrant's Gift" Archival Project, research and dissemination of information from the interviews conducted about Joseph Juran for the PBS Special, An Immigrant's Gift.

From an interview with Steve Jobs, December 19, 1991, in Redwood City, California. 

Here Jobs talks about the nature of quality in products and services.

STEVE JOBS:  . . . (People) form their opinions on quality from their own experience with the products, or the services. And so one can spend enormous amounts of money on quality. One can win every quality award there is. And yet, if your products don't live up to it, customers will not keep that opinion for long in their minds. 

And so I think where we have to start is with our products and our services. Not with our marketing department. And we need to get back to the basics and go improve our products and
services. 

Now, again, quality isn't just the product or the service; it's having the right product. You know, knowing where the market's going and having the most innovative products is just as much a part of quality as the quality of the construction of the product when you have it.

My thoughts: Steve Jobs nailed it. At the time of this interview he was still several years from returning to Apple. But he walked the talk. The success of Apple demonstrates the strength of Jobs's assessment of the role of quality.  

In the September 16 edition of Parade Magazine, Marilyn vos Savant of the "Ask Marilyn" column answered this question: "My mother is famous for saying that no women worked in the '50s. Is that actually so?" Marilyn stated that "according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 34 percent of women  . . . were employed." This was accurate but to a point. In the 1950s the majority of black women worked outside the home. I e-mailed Marilyn and was informed that my e-mail would be published on-line. It was published this week here. 

In Black Working Wives: Pioneers of the American Family Revolution, Bart Landry noted that in the 1950s and 60s almost 75% of black families were headed by two parents. In studying the movement of white wives into the workforce, he found that "employment rates for black wives were about ten years ahead of those of white wives" (p. xi). He argued that middle-class black wives initiated the trend of working outside the home "long before white middle-class wives embraced it" (p. 5). The 1950s image of the woman in the home and the man at work was predominantly for whites, but not for most African-Americans.

The Society for Human Resource Management has released its 2012 report of their employee job satisfaction and engagement survey. On their website and in their tweet SHRM states “opportunities to use skills and abilities” has replaced “job security” as the most important driver of job satisfaction. SHRM based this on the percent of their on-line survey (n = 600) who rated factors as “very important” on a four-point scale from “very unimportant”, “unimportant”, “important”, “very important”. “Opportunities” was rated “very important” by 63%; job security, by 61%. One can argue that 2% is not a very large difference.

What we can conclude from surveys depends on several factors. One such factor is the type of scale. A seven-point scale has better measurement properties than the four-point scale used here. Another factor is how the results are presented. SHRM chose to present the overall findings from this rating scale as a ranking based on responses to one part of the scale. “very important.” What if we collapse the two “important” categories and sum “very important” and “important”? What is important to job satisfaction? The overall results look like this:

1. Compensation/pay          98%
2. Job security                        97%
3. Work Itself                          96%

Next is a four way tie at 95%

Opportunities to uses skill and abilities
Autonomy and Independence
Communication between employees and senior management
Organization’s Financial Stability

Frederick Herzberg would have argued that pay and job security are important because if they are not good, the employee will be dissatisfied. However, only the work itself is motivating.

Maslow would agree that job security is critical to satisfying safety needs. Jobs with tenure is one of the few work-related factors he specifically addressed in his hierarchy of needs.

I suggest that the factors that affect job satisfaction do not really vary much within cultures. There are individual differences but the big three, as presented here, will probably emerge repeatedly based on the management research literature. 

Image from Google advanced image search. Free to use.  Source: http://suttonhoo.blogspot.com/2009_01_01_archive.html