There are two sides to this argument, and I have heard both many times and in many circumstances.
The debate usually begins like this: ‘Dilbert’, who is a salesman, agent, operator, mechanic, accountant, engineer, programmer, or some other soldier of business, puts the discussion in play.
“What
a disaster in the making! Our supervisor/manager/ VP has no
clue about the details of this business. No doubt they teach them in school
that managers need not know the business in order to run it.
This happened at the last place I worked, and they closed in
less than a year. Better get your resumes ready!”
The other side of the coin is usually argued by a ‘generalist’ manager who by their protests, identify themselves as ‘the managers’ that operations are talking about; and they want to defend their contribution to a company’s success.
“Well, I was hired to turn around XYZ, Inc and I did it in
less than a year! I re-organized (or: re-prioritized,
re-scheduled, re-located, re-incentivized) the organization
with retreats/goals/Monday staff meetings/MBO/metrics. I
don’t have to know what I am measuring to interpret the
data.”
“There is a place for the professional manager. Why, just look what happens to a company when they put an accountant, engineer or a salesman in charge!”
Certainly we have all seen situations or heard stories that would seem to support both positions. This leads us to think that there might be an underlying condition; a hidden ‘if’ that tilts a case study to one position of the other.
What is it about the organization that needs fixing?
If a business has well-designed processes that are early in their lifecycle and a tactical workforce that understands the business products and processes, then it is easy to imagine a whole raft of weakening causes that a manager may remedy without ‘opening the hood’. The perfect analogy is a parked driverless car, its engine running until the tank is finally empty.
In the context of business, competent tacticians are often paralyzed by choices. When an issue is tactical, a “T” ledger can be made of pros and cons or a clever programmer could even code a data-driven decision tree. Even if some of the inputs are probabilistic (e.g. ‘40% chance of project delay due to weather.’) it is still possible to reduce the issue to a “best” solution.
When confronted with choices which require weighing values and qualitative risks or picking one of three ‘best’ alternatives, many tacticians find themselves in a ‘Hamlet’ loop. They will debate the “To be” of the issue endlessly and without resolution. After exhausting everyone, they can return to the table with a hundred and one arguments “Not to be”, –opposing- the position they held before lunch.
One turn-around manager said, “My new staff had 14 different visions of the company mission…”, and of course if this was the fundamental weakness, then management success depended on getting the organization to focus and not upon learning how the technician in “B” section did their job.
But what if the organization is not the finely maintained and tuned race-car looking for a driver? To continue the analogy, what if the car has not been maintained? What if parts have been removed and not replaced because they were ‘too much trouble?” How do you make an operation right, and then make it better?
We all are judged in the court of measurable results, but I’m wary of the turn-around ‘experts’ who brag that they can simply “move the numbers” without knowing the operation.
First, I know or can imagine most of the tricks to transfer costs from the business to the customer (or employee), from the P&L to the balance sheet, from one plant to another, and from the short term to the long term. Such “Zero Sum” changes to a business do not improve an operation, and usually cause harm.
Second, many traditional metrics are lagging indicators and will often temporarily move in the “wrong” direction as operations are made right. I have a classic example that I have used in classes; a real customer service operation’s service level numbers temporarily became “worse” as their operation improved. Managers who do not understand their business processes are terrified of this transition and often say, “I’m scared to run the business right!”
Beyond the issues of focus and direction,
managers –must- develop their understanding of their business
operation. As I have said in ‘Management
Philosophy’, “You
needn’t be a surgeon to discuss “brain surgery”, but you should
to be able to define ‘brain’ and ‘surgery’.
If it is true that you can’t
effectively manage without measuring, you surely can’t manage
what you cannot define.”