A Valuable View From the Trenches

These days, up on the ivory tower of the boardroom, strategy reigns supreme – so much so, that top executives focused on “big picture” strategy (which is often times mired in charts, graphs, spreadsheets, and presentations) lose sight of the people that make it all happen.

Just watch an episode of CBS’ “CEO Undercover,” and you’ll see what I mean.

It’s a tough balancing act being a good manager – one must lead AND follow. Most managers have the “leading” part of the equation down pat, it’s the following part that still needs work.

In ancient China, a famous imperial advisor once compared the relationship between the king and his ministers to that between the head and the body, which in some ways reveals a truth. Both need each other. The head by itself is useless without the body, and similarly, the body is useless without the head.

After all, a headless body does not know where it’s going, and a bodiless head gets nowhere.

While there is an implicit understanding that both must act in concert with each other, sometimes things get lost in translation, especially as the head becomes farther and farther removed from the body.

With new technological tools at their disposal, managers may feel increasingly confident that they know everything that goes on in their supply chain, making it less likely for them to visit the trenches to see what goes on in the guts of their operations. Heeding to this newfound complacency would be a mistake.

No matter how you slice it, numbers only tell part of the story. The human aspect tells the other part, and cannot be ignored. There are plenty of examples where data points can be misleading. And more importantly, sound theories just don’t always work out in practice.

There needs to be an open dialogue between leaders and workers, based on mutual trust and respect. This relationship needs to be a partnership, so that when problems arise, they can be constructively resolved in a timely manner, without the need for finger pointing and blame.

A manager setting lofty sales targets may be pleased at rising growth rates, unaware that salespeople are stuffing the inventory channel to make current numbers, at the expense of future sales. This would have been more evident if the manager had ongoing dialogues with his sales force.

A manager launching a superior product offering may be unaware that sales are declining because consumers are not sufficiently informed about the product. This would have been different if managers spoke with training and marketing personnel, as well as potential consumers buying their products.

A manager setting new manufacturing productivity protocols may not have realized that these guidelines are causing discontent within the workforce, resulting in an impending strike that would lower future productivity. This would have been different if managers visited their manufacturing plants to witness worker’s reactions to the new plans. At the very least, managers should visit the plants to see the new protocols in action.

Just because we are living in the information age, where data can be accessed at a mouse click (without the need for human interaction) does not mean that old business practices can be tossed aside. The workers are the life-blood of the company. Managers must not forget that.

I am reminded by Sun Tsu’s famous saying from his work Art of War, “Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys. Look on them as your own beloved sons, and they will stand by you even unto death!”


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