The vaunted new management tools and strategies - reengineering, electronic commerce, incentive bonuses, and more - have proven their value over and over. Companies have had great success following the gurus' advice and achieving greater productivity and profitability, reduced costs and turnover.
Maybe you've tried some of these tools -- not just halfheartedly but with enthusiasm and forethought -- only to discover that they didn't work. Everything you'd read in the business press and heard from your colleagues led you to believe your company's performance would improve if you jumped on the bandwagon. But a year or so later, you found yourself sitting at your desk, scratching your head, wondering what went wrong. "Was it a bad idea? No. Did we fail to execute? No. Well, it worked for IBM. Why didn't it work for us?"
Maybe you were using a slicer-dicer to chop a sirloin ... or a screwdriver to pound a nail ... or a toaster to bake bread. Maybe it was simply the wrong tool for YOUR problem. It's not that the tool is flawed, it just wasn't designed for YOUR situation. Maybe what makes millions for IBM ends up costing you millions to repair the damage.
Whenever you consider any intervention, it's not enough to follow the directions. You also need to examine the contingencies. Under what circumstances is the tool effective, and when is it better to choose a different gadget? In business, there are no Swiss army knives.
If I had a hammer...
The business landscape is littered with battered companies that used monkey wrenches to screw in light bulbs. Here are some of the axioms they fell victim to:- Merge or die. Healthcare reform ushered in the notion that hospital survival required consolidation. Conventional wisdom dictated that to be one of the players you had to start acquiring. Nearly every U.S. hospital either was a player or was put into play. Only recently have some started to rethink the wisdom of healthcare consolidation (Wall Street Journal 5/14/99). Is consolidation a BAD strategy? No! Is the wrong strategy for some hospitals? Yes! Is it the right strategy for your hospital? Maybe.
- Dell or be Delled. The computer industry fears and emulates Dell. Companies in other industries are trying to become the Dell of their markets (Wall Street Journal, 5/10/99). Is Dell's strategy right for your company? MAYBE...MAYBE NOT. When Michael Dell started his company the leaders were IBM and Compaq. Dell succeeded not by imitating the giants but by using a new device, one that other tool bags lacked. Somewhere, in some college dorm room, the next Michael Dell is experimenting with a new tool that could put Dell out of business.
- 1-to-1 Fits all. One of the most recent marketing trends is one-on-one marketing (also called "one-to-one marketing" and "mass customization"). Getting up close and personal with customers, electronically speaking, seems at first glance to be a practice all companies could profit from. Experts Peppers and Rodgers, among the most visible proponents of one-to-one, quickly point out, however, that this approach won't be effective for every enterprise. Caught up in the hype, many executives ignore or overlook this fact as they retool for customization.
Is it tool time?
What's your management problem? Whether it's turnover or a top-heavy organization, there's no all-purpose answer. What works in one situation won't work in another. What works at one company might not work at yours. What works for one employee won't work for another. Most experienced managers know this, but few think or act this way. Picking the right tool requires investigation, deliberation, and patience.
- Stop looking for solutions. Start defining problems. When faced with a problem, the natural tendency is to fish for solutions. We're excellent at generating solutions; it's in defining problems that we need to improve. If you take the time to define the problem and isolate its cause, the solution is often obvious.
It's tempting to grab the tool at the top of the bag and start whacking away. Next time, take a deep breath and count to ten before you reach for the newest, shiniest, handy-dandy all-purpose widget. Define YOUR problem before you embrace OTHERS' solutions.
- If the solution doesn't present itself, make a shopping list. When the problem and its causes are clear, check out all possible solutions. Don't consider just one tool, and don't stop looking when you find the first tool that might work. There might be others that, instead of being merely adequate, are ideal.
- Examine the job and evaluate the tools. Your tool bag might be full of solutions, some better than others. What contingencies and circumstances make each tool less or more effective - or totally inappropriate? Set aside the ones to save for other situations. Keep the one (or more) that works. Choose and use one that's best for your company, and for its precisely defined situation.
