Written by: William Lee, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Micromanagement. Such taboo in modern business.
Yet, business communities are flocking to alignment, congruency, performance metrics, feedback loops, big data, behavioural science, motivational forces, purpose-driven engagement, and other concepts that together, constitute management at the micro-level.
Can we truly manage without control?
Critical Tasks Identification
Mr K was recruited to a technical sales unit in the manufacturing industry. To make sales in that space, it is vital to deliver performance consistently and competitively with full alignment in the product-application-operation technical cycle.
Supplier product and design is limited by its capabilities, market intelligence and positioning, under its own control. Product application is the cultivation of information exchange between the supplier and the customer to find the best (combinations of) fit. Customer end user then controls the operation(s) that place ceiling(s) on product performance, with or without supplier involvement.
Without solid technical foundation, any commercial discussions were proven fruitless or costly.
Connecting Mechanism
At first, there was a huge gap between strategy and actual business activities.
Products and applications were based on overseas experiences. Service reports from engineers were so vague and incomplete that Mr K struggled to comprehend what exactly happened when products were running. Field sales could not satisfactorily explain why price cuts or claim payments were necessary to maintain business, often complaining underperformance.
Given a chance to get hold of a non-contact measuring equipment, Mr K used his PhD skill to develop one technique that involves several different information streams to collectively give a different picture to customer’s critical manufacturing problems.
Starting from articulating a vision to the customer, Mr K was able to access information previously unavailable to his industry sub-vertical. He then invested substantial time in putting together these information streams, finding pattern(s), proposing mechanistic explanation(s), and discussing possible solution alternatives involving various external and internal stakeholders. He even advised individuals on how to weave through their personal political problems leading to positive outcomes mutually beneficial to both the customer and supplier organisations.
Assisted by deep understanding of one customer’s business organics, he was able to find the common link to that entire industry. From there, together with the product management team, a new generation of product designs and service philosophy were developed that on the surface were inconsistent with customer apparent needs but at the end, gave customer a better operational flexibility and economic returns. Something that confused competitions while generating cumulative competitive advantages. Consequently, Mr K’s company was able to reduce application changes and the associated trials, complaints and claims, which then led to repeat orders and consistently planned production and delivery that achieved real economy of scale.
Mr K found a way to connect different stakeholders technically, emotionally and commercially through open and good faith discussions bound by privacy and respect (see also Chapter 4 — Taichi Fortunate (brainzmagazine.com)).
When a customer is engaged, they actively share critical information and participate in continuous improvement that optimises application fit and operational performance. When various supplier business units are engaged, this unrestrained and unbiased information is enabled to flow freely without pride, prejudice and politics. Products and services can then be improved effectively and efficiently to best serve customer needs better than competitions. When customers realise substantially better results, they become even more engaged that percolates along the value chain.
A virtuous business cycle filled with frictionless feedback loops outside in and inside out, is thus attained. Furthermore, the more the Wheel of Fortune is turned, the more momentum it builds.
Shine Too Bright
Technical, emotional and commercial connections between multi-stakeholders, however, require structure, organisation, and lots of dedication.
It involves much details and coordinated efforts.
And for that to happen, transparency exposes weaknesses of some, and amplifies strengths of others.
A star sales subordinate of Mr K, did not respond well. He started to go into hiding, sometimes months at a time. And, he was spreading unfounded rumours, accusing Mr K of running a sweat shop, power hungry, micromanaging, and/or adopting uncompetitive market practices. That made recruiting extra difficult among significant organic growth.
Mr K tried hard directly and indirectly to explain the special technique and wished that Mr Z be able to pick up or at least participate. He spent hours and hours explaining why a change was needed in response to shareholder demand, thinning margins, increased delivery times and shifted compliance requirements. He spoke as little as possible when they visited customers together, for Mr Z to take the spotlight. He even assigned technical assistant to Mr Z and assured him of his long-term job security.
He failed. Mr Z simply wasn’t able to understand the technical complexity, nor accept his reduced role. The harder he tried, the worse Mr Z’s engagement became.
He finally accepted that, to a person with enlarged ego and perceived any change as threat, one word was too many. He also learnt that one word was enough, if there was mutual respect. And sometimes, that respect needed to exist right from the beginning.
Restructure
The hard learnt lesson changed Mr K’s approach.
Instead of explaining everything to everyone directly, shining too bright and exhausting himself in the process, he restructured the organisation to that tiered with authorisation, empowerment, allowance, transparency and privacy boundaries. People were organised through aligned employment contracts, job descriptions, work manuals, organisation chart and ability to perform strategized critical tasks, and incentivised accordingly.
The clarity allowed him to train his team through the tiers to write unrestrained, unbiased, relevant and on-time reports maximising numbers, graphs and pictures.
When words and opinions could not be avoided, he implemented procedures to ensure that everyone in the team speak the same language and understand the right messages.
He also established documented processes that facilitated each tiered leaders, including himself, having a chance to exercise tiered discretion, becoming fully aware of their direct subordinate activities, coaching their teams and establishing their own credibilities.
Last but not least, he tried his best to negotiate better pays and conditions for his team, balancing company strategic needs.
He de-micromanaged, step-by-step.
“難得糊塗”
The purpose of management is never about control. The aim is always to ensure that decision makers are ‘rarely confused 難得糊塗’ by information received and what they are trying to achieve, so that actions can be taken to serve both individual and collective purposes.
Avoid shining too bright. Start from critical tasks identification and fit. Structure, organise and incentivise. Implement well-designed information flow. Generate and facilitate individual and collective energy, direction and mechanisms (see also Chapter 5 — Day And Night (brainzmagazine.com)).
Embrace good faith, respect and care.
Implement procedural justice, fairness, openness and popularity, and be as well prepared as possible that allows flexibility in time and space, for people to grow and things to ferment, organically and spontaneously.
Turn people’s Wheels of Fortune together, through the connecting mechanisms of capabilities, emotions and commercials.
William Lee, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine William Lee, a business coach and expert in connecting people’s wheels of fortune together, excels at producing positive results in complex multi-stakeholder engagement, end-to-end customer experience satisfaction, and remote team management. Frustrated by years of conflicts and external negativities, William dug deep to understand how our minds work, how we interact with one another, and how good faith can improve our connected world together. Through a process called CentriFusion, William’s methodology and system provide an easy first step to vastly improve team empathetic capability. With increased presence and engagement, as a result, fertile mental grounds are sown to enable organic and spontaneous growth, aligned to a shared common purpose. William provides the way to attain TRUE and SUSTAINABLE COMFORT in your businesses. Enjoy life without complacency!
