Management Further Resolves . . . to Listen to Dilbert More in 1997?
As the year staggers to a close, we thought it timely to ask some favorite contacts in management circles to suggest some New Year’s resolutions--not for themselves, but for companies. Given the bonehead stunts that many corporations have pulled, a bit of resolve is obviously in order. (Are you listening, Walt Disney Co.? Anybody home, Texaco?)
* Don’t pay $90 million for a temp. When you sign on an executive, look before you leap.
* If you want diversity training to take hold, give executives the tools (sensitivity training, anyone?) before giving them tape recorders.
* Also, share and share alike: All stakeholders in a company can and should win.
--Robin A. Ferracone, president of SCA Consulting, a Los Angeles firm that advises companies on executive compensation and other matters
* Do nothing as frequently as possible. Companies, like some people, are often locked in to relentless activity. It’s hard to get back to what the Buddhists call “beginner’s mind.” Sometimes it’s important to experience inner stillness. The issue is one of trying to access the blank canvas of the beginner’s mind, when issues can become clarified and perspective can be gained. I’m suggesting the corporate equivalent of meditation.
* Thoroughly pig out on new technology, particularly connections among people. Touch the new future by experimenting. Find a teenager who can explain the Internet, and launch an online conference, buy software, read books. Think about how technology could change your business. Don’t ask a secretary or administrative assistant to go online for you. Do it yourself.
* Do or learn something that’s fundamentally new to the organization. Acquire an expertise that’s unfamiliar or perhaps unexpected. Managements can often become insular. Do something new. Hire somebody whose job is to predict future trends. Think systematically about creativity. Find ways of freeing the organization to allow people to improve--in short, to jam.
--John Kao, professor of business creativity; founder of companies in biotechnology, feature films and video computing; and author, based in Boston and New York, of “Jamming: The Art and Discipline of Business Creativity”
Corporate leaders should set their firms’ course to ensure that people engage in work that has real significance. I mean activities that make a difference in their own and others’ lives. During this holiday season, leaders should be resolving to raise not just the spirits, but the sights of their employees, their customers, their shareholders. At the end of their days, most people want to feel they didn’t waste their lives in trivial or petty work. It’s up to leaders to point the way.
--Jean Lipman-Blumen, professor of organizational behavior, Peter F. Drucker Graduate Management Center, Claremont Graduate School
The goal is to aspire not to saintly do-gooding but to find creative, realistic ways of integrating social ideals into their daily operations. Here are some potential ways:
* Explore the huge, untapped profit potential in the inner city. Follow the daring leadership of American Savings Bank, which has pioneered mortgage lending in South-Central Los Angeles as a profitable business endeavor.
* Recognize the rich rewards of catering to your customers’ social idealism. By imagining innovative products that demonstrate a significant commitment to the environment--to help people with HIV/AIDS or the needy, among others--a company can create and dominate new product categories while addressing urgent social needs and reaping a bonanza of deserved goodwill.
* Unleash the best in employees by honoring their intelligence, creativity and natural desire to excel. Develop more family-friendly policies, cultivate a more egalitarian ethos and find new ways to share the fruits of success through profit sharing, employee stock ownership plans and bonuses shared by all for meeting key financial benchmarks.
* Understand that competitive performance over the long term is enhanced by honoring one’s highest ideals.
--David Bollier, author, based in Amherst, Mass., of “Aiming Higher: 25 Stories of How Companies Prosper by Combining Sound Management and Social Vision”
The most important thing is that companies have to grow. That would require not downsizing. Also, if all companies religiously read “Dilbert” and assumed it pertains to them, we’d have a better world.
--Rob Duboff, director of Mercer Management Consulting, Lexington, Mass.
And here’s a closing thought. Be it resolved: No company shall hire a CEO with the nickname Chainsaw.
Does your company have an innovative approach to management? Tell us about it. Write to Martha Groves, Corporate Currents, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053. Or send e-mail to martha.groves@latimes.com
