September 2005

For manager roles, it pays to think loose and easy
The term "continuous improvement" has a long and honorable history in Japan. But it's still not totally ingrained into American business leaders' consciousnesses, says an article in a recent Harvard BusinessReview about how Toyota trains its leaders. And no wonder.

Toyota spends weeks and weeks teaching new managers to see every part of any process as an ongoing experiment. Every change that promises even a small improvement is noted and implemented almost immediately. For example, improving the ergonomics of a task by something as seemingly minor as slightly changing the position of a handle a line worker uses might be done over the weekend after it's noticed. Now, that's flexibility in operations.

And now comes a truly novel idea in an even-more-recent HBR that talks about flexibility in management structures. To be successful, it says, today's global companies must become "velcro organizations." In this concept, managers shift roles--and authority--depending on the task they're performing. Yes, even reporting relationships shift as necessary.

In the traditional matrix design, for example, if Maria is the sales manager for widgets in France, she reports to both the country manager for France and the product manager for widgets. But matrixes are notorious for promoting bureaucracy, which gets in the way and slows things down. In the velcro style, managers aren't just functional managers; they also have a major assignment. And most importantly, the functional role can change--quickly, easily, and effectively--depending on what's needed for any particular project. Power to act--to plan and implement strategies using resources--lies in the role, not in the individual.

Applying this concept in a less-than-global setting brings it down to this: you find people who have the talent-to-accomplish-a-certain-objective, and you also give them the power to allocate resources. In other words, in a situation where Joe does not have the skills or experience to single-handedly oversee getting a job done, Janet (who formally "reports" to Joe in everyday situations) becomes the project manager of, say, the software implementation project because she has more experience evaluating software. Joe in effect "reports" to her for this project. The "boss" role is shiftable.

This sort of radical thing, of course, can only work if it comes from the top down. But think of the possibilities: an end to the all-too-common logjams that halt progress because of the deathhold grasp on power that traditional hierarchical management structures promote and reinforce--and that demoralizes and discourages so many talented people. And how much time and energy this would save people by reducing the need for political posturing and maneuvering.

Barbara