Management 101: A Case Study

MANAGEMENT 101: A CASE STUDY

by Mike Manes

Here’s your exercise. I’ll present three characters in two short scenarios. Label them — one is dumb, one is smart, and one becomes a hero. You’ll find the answer near the end of this article.

SCENE ONE

Ben lies in his chair and sleeps every night after supper. He calls it his comfort zone. His girlfriend Dawn calls it 'dumb, fat, and happy.' Every night as Ben begins to dose off Dawn shuffles her feet across the carpet and touches Ben’s ear. The static electricity shocks him and she says, 'Let’s go for a walk. You need the exercise. You need to get moving. All this lying around is bad for you.'

Ben responds, 'Let me rest. It’s been a hard day. If you had to follow me around all day you couldn’t keep up. I’ll exercise tomorrow. I’ll walk in the morning.'

Dawn shuffles her feet again and sparks fly. Despite his near-comatose state, Ben swears and throws a shoe at her.

SCENE TWO

Ben’s in the same chair, and comatose. In fact, he’s technically dead. The medic, Last Chance Vance, rips off Ben’s shirt, pulls out two paddles and yells, 'Clear!' Ben’s body jolts violently — more movement than he’s had in a decade. His heart commences beating. He commits at that moment to eat right, exercise, meditate, pray, go to church daily, and possibly even enter the priesthood.

Dawn sobs, 'Why didn’t he listen? Why did it take so much to get him to change?'

Last Chance Vance says, 'I’ve seen this plenty of times. People have to get close to death to appreciate life. You can’t make them change. They have to do it for themselves.'

Management experts agree that innovation is critical, and that change is the only constant. That’s why businesses make acquisitions, outsource, joint venture, reengineer, and downsize. The best of them even develop a Research and Development (R&D) department. Unfortunately, more than 70% of these efforts will fail within 18 months. The organization might still be alive, but it’ll be in a coma at best.

If this scenario seems familiar, examine recent attempts by your own business to innovate. Did they work? Did they work to their maximum potential? Were they worth the effort? If you can answer 'yes' to two of these questions, stop reading. Your business remains alive.

If your innovations failed, ask why. Why did they fail? Was the plan bad? Was the opportunity unrealistic? Was it undercapitalized? Did the technology fail? Did your competition kill it? Or was it sabotaged from within?

The fact is that if your organization has survived so far, chances are that you and your team are capable. The problem is usually one of willingness. Few people want to move beyond their comfort zones.

After your efforts to change from within failed, you set up an R&D unit. Its only function was to innovate — to give life to new ideas and nurture them to the point that they could be handed off to the rest of your business to operate. This worked for a while. The first projects succeeded. Then something happened. Subsequent projects didn’t work. In fact, they weren’t even accepted. People began criticizing and second-guessing R&D. What went wrong?

Carefully analyze what happened. Everyone was pleased at first because they didn’t have to worry about creating or integrating new ideas that you brought back from every seminar. R&D was good.

The first R&D projects weren’t threatening because the team knew that the situation wouldn’t last. After all, they could and would’ve done this stuff a long time ago if it was really important.

Then, one or two of these crazy ideas actually worked. What’s worse, R&D gained recognition. The spotlight of success started to shift from yesterday to tomorrow. Then the rumbling began: 'Anybody can think up these things. Implementation is the key.' R&D transformed from an irrelevant diversion into a real threat. Worst of all, R&D was invigorated and motivated, producing more new things for the organization — without the organization getting credit for it. The solution: R&D had to go!

Answer: Ben is stupid, Dawn is smart, and Vance is a hero.

The stupid one isn’t just Ben — it’s you as the head of a company who sits around watching the status quo kill innovation. You need to become a hero by leading. Ben stands for your company: fat, dumb, and happy. Dawn is your R&D department — full of good ideas, energy, and suggestions. In fact, if you’re Ben, she’s a pain. Your only hope lies in Last Chance Vance — shocking your company back to life and motivating your staff to commit to change.

Identify the key elements, teams, or departments of your business. Explain to them that in the future they’ll have the authority, the responsibility, and the compensation for their performance. Give them two short-term goals: one that’s familiar, the second that’s different. One goal will be aggressive, the other conservative. Each team will decide which goal will be aggressive and which conservative. The only requirement is that the more conservative they are in setting one goal, the more aggressive the other goal must be. After they set the conservative goal, you’ll balance the equation by determining how aggressive the other goal will be.

The conservative goal stands for the floor; the aggressive goal represents the ceiling. Each team is required to make the floor. The target is the ceiling — and the great reward comes from blasting through it.

The familiar goal will probably be their department budget. The different goal will be an innovation (doing or building something new or something old in a brand-new way). This isn’t about being efficient — it’s about being effective.

In most cases, the more powerful the status quo, the more likely the team will choose a familiar goal (budget) as its conservative target and then let you set the aggressive goal as the innovation. They don’t believe that innovation will last.

They’ll do their thing; you’ll do yours. Once the goals are established, the team’s chest pains will commence. Panic will set in because the 'box' between the floor and the ceiling contains — perhaps for the first time — real expectations of performance and (worst of all) accountability, responsibility, and the need to change.

The good news is that you still have Dawn: the aggravating R&D department. Here’s where the dynamic changes. Tell each team that they can ask the R&D department for help whenever they need it — and watch R&D change instantly from the source of the problem to its solution. R&D can become the hero, sharing the burden of risk with the team.

Don’t stay stupid: transform yourself into a hero by leading. It’s your last chance, Vance!