Читать книгу The Performance Principle - Mackenzie Kyle - Страница 7

MY CONVERSATION WITH Martha reminded me of an important life lesson: trying to wrap your head around a new idea can be downright painful. It requires you to think about something in a different way, from a different angle, and our brains aren’t wired that way. What appears to have kept us alive for the last many millions of years is this: we figure out something that works, and then we keep doing it. We might have figured the thing out rationally, but more likely we came to it accidentally, or through trial and error. Whatever the case, our brain locks on that process or method, and from then on, all of our brain power is directed toward doing it over and over and over again, in exactly the same way. We resist change because the way we do the thing works, and we don’t necessarily have time to screw around with something different. Our survival might depend on it. We fool around with a crazy new method for curing meat, the meat spoils, and the whole family starves the next winter. We try planting some new crop, it fails, and the family has nothing to eat the next winter. You get the picture. The whole “starving” downside is a powerful deterrent to making a change.

The problem is that this approach assumes our environment will stay the same; that we won’t face new situations or new problems like, say, superbugs and global warming, or economic downturns and changes in consumer preferences. But hey, sometimes burnt orange is the new black, and that means black isn’t cool anymore. Our environment is changing almost continuously, which means the moment we’ve worked out a way to solve a particular problem, the problem itself changes and our solution gradually works less and less well. But dammit, our brains don’t want to keep reinventing the wheel; they want to mass-produce wheels! Our whole existence seems to be built on the idea that the path to wealth, happiness, and the American Dream lies in replicating the same thing over and over.

Sure, we talk about innovation, creativity, collaborative involvement, continuous improvement, and all those other things we’re supposed to embrace. But when it comes right down to it, those things are a big pain in the ass. Who wants to spend all their time trying to come up with the next iPhone? Very few people do, and even fewer of those have the capability to do it. You’re talking about a group of people that numbers in the thousands. With seven billion people and counting on the planet, statistically this is equivalent to zero people. Of that tiny group of highly innovative, creative people, some work at Apple, and the rest at companies you’ve never heard of. So what happens? Our systems, our processes, our people, and our products all get disconnected from the world. You’re a Detroit car company making millions of cars that no one wants. It’s been pretty clear for ages that you’ve been left behind. But you keep pumping out those crappy cars because . . . why? Because it’s too hard to change what you’re doing? Too hard to think about things differently?

A long time ago, Martha spelled out a few things for me that really struck home. What she said boiled down to a fairly simple set of ideas about change and improvement that apply in any context.

1 There can be no improvement without change.

2 You can’t do it better unless you do it differently.

3 You can’t do it differently unless you can think about it differently. This involves a bit of a leap of faith, but there’s some thinking involved in trying to figure out a new way to do things. Which leads to:

4 You can’t think about it differently without adopting a new mental framework, a new perspective, or, to use a word that can sometimes make people throw up a little in the back of their throats, a new paradigm.

Martha’s point was that a mental framework is really just an organized collection of thoughts about how to deal with a certain situation. A framework is useful, because you get to figure something out once and then store those ideas in your brain for next time. We call the ideas a perspective or a paradigm. It’s like having a little procedure manual in our heads that we follow every time the situation arises.

Of course, the problem with mental frameworks is that soon after we establish them, the world changes and our perspective needs to be revised. Having expended so much effort to get that new perspective, though, the last thing we want to do is revise it. Instead, we want to take it out into the world and use it to solve every problem we encounter. It’s as if the natural industrial engineer in us wants to extract maximum value from every mental framework we develop.

The related challenge we face is thinking that once we have a solution, it will work on every problem. I fell into that trap for a while with project management. Once I understood the basic perspective on projects and familiarized myself with some of the tools that could be used, I tried to treat everything like a project. Turns out not everything is a project, though, and applying the project management process to anything that moved was not the best approach.

All of this was what I found myself coming back to with Hyler. I was searching for a perspective, a paradigm, that would help me deal with . . . what, exactly? When it came down to it, I was having trouble putting my arms around the problem. “I don’t want to close the plant” wasn’t a terribly helpful way to state the issue. Neither was “We’re not as efficient as we need to be” or “Demand for our products is down,” though all three of those statements were true.

When I took the opportunity to pull Martha aside at her birthday party and broach the subject of my struggles, she put on her regular sarcastic, crusty exterior, but I think it really made her day. I wasn’t sure I should be pinning my hopes for a solution to the problems at Hyler on a woman who was turning 102 years old. But beggars can’t be choosers, and Martha had once been a great source of ideas for me. In fact, as we got talking, I wondered why it had taken me so long to have another serious chat with her. After her regular number of digs and jabs, she had summed things up, as she always did, in a way that made me feel a little stupid.

“So, Willie,” she said, “you’ve described a bunch of different issues, and you’re telling me that things aren’t good at Hyler. Would you say that’s fair?” I nodded emphatically. “OK, well, that’s fine, but I can’t really help you with a bunch of random problems.” She chuckled. “Actually, I probably could. But that doesn’t seem to be why you’re here. So what is it you want help with?”

I stammered, stuttered, and then went silent. Martha had a gift for making me feel like an idiot, and she was in full-on giving mode at that moment. To be fair, I probably deserved it. I had laid out a variety of complaints about everything from the union to the performance management system to how we paid our salespeople, but what was I really asking her?

I came up with a ploy to give myself time to think. I said, “Your beer is looking a little low, Martha. Can I get you another one?”

She snorted. “Take your time, Willie. And yes, I’ll have another one, thank you, while you try to think this through.” I got up and headed for the kitchen.

What was the problem I was trying to solve? What was wrong with the existing situation?

By the time I returned with two more bottles of beer in hand, I had made exactly zero progress on answering that question. When I admitted as much, Martha laughed and said, “It’s not an easy question, my boy. But think on it a bit, and come back and see me when you’re ready to talk some more.” Then she smiled in a rather ghoulish way. “But don’t wait too long, Willie. I might not be here.”

THE FOLLOWING Monday I was in the Hyler main boardroom, staring at an empty whiteboard, trying to figure out how to answer Martha’s question. I’d been sitting there since 6:15 a.m., hoping that an early start would lead to early insight and that by 8:00 a.m. I’d be heading to Starbucks to celebrate with a latte. It was now 9:10 a.m. and progress was negligible.

Misery being what it is, I decided I needed to share my struggle. Ten minutes later I had my senior team sitting around the table. Stu, Amanda, Leslie, Alice, Sheila, Mark, and Luigi stared at me in silence until Luigi ventured, “So this is it?”

“This is what?” I asked.

“The big announcement,” Luigi said.

“Announcement?” I asked.

Stu sighed. “C’mon, Will, don’t play games. The announcement about the plant closing. You called all of us in here with no notice on a Monday morning. What else could it be?”

Alice, as VP of accounting and finance, had the usual stack of papers in front of her. “Funny thing is, things have improved a little in the eight weeks since you’ve been back. But obviously not enough.”

Amanda looked like she was going to cry. Mark Goldman actually had tears in his eyes. “It was a good run, Will,” said Sheila.

I felt like yelling at all of them. Instead, I kept my voice as calm as I could. “Have you guys given up? You think things are that far gone? That I’d be back for only two months and then shut things down?”

Everyone looked at me blankly. Amanda said, “Is that a trick question?”

I looked up at the ceiling. “God help us!” I scanned around the room, looking into the faces of the members of my team. As I made eye contact with each one in turn, I didn’t see a lot of hope in their faces. “No, this is not that meeting. The plant is not closing. At least not yet. We’re here to have a very different discussion. One I hope is going to put that other discussion on permanent hold.” If I had been expecting a rousing cheer after my emotionally uplifting little speech, I would have been disappointed. All it earned was more blank stares.

“So you’ve got some ideas?” asked Stu. “Some new insight?”

“Not exactly,” I told them. “In fact, exactly not. I feel as if I know less than when I got here.”

“Nice, chief. Real inspirational.” Luigi could be a sarcastic bastard at times.

“Not to be negative, Will, but you’re looking at a group of people who have been busting their butts for three years now, trying to make this company work. Clearly we are out of ideas. Having us give it one more good old college try doesn’t sound like the path to success.” I preferred sarcasm to Alice’s more rational truths.

“I’m not questioning anyone’s commitment —” I started.

“— So you’re saying we’re incompetent,” Amanda finished.

“— and I’m also not saying you’re incompetent —” I continued, rolling with the detour.

Alice jumped in again. “Then you’re not making me feel better. If we’re not stupid, and we’re trying hard, the only other conclusion is that this problem isn’t solvable and we’re all on the next boat to India.”

“I think it would be Indonesia, Alice,” said Stu. “India is getting too expensive.”

“I hear Russia is the new spot for cheap outsourcing these days,” Leslie piped up. “Then, in another five years, the U.S. may be so economically depressed that this will be the place to be and we can all come back home.”

“Great,” said Stu. “If we can just hold on long enough, we’ll be the new developing world, and we won’t have to move the operation anywhere. Maybe that gives us some kind of competitive advantage . . . we can stay where we are until the crashing economy makes us competitive again.”

“People!” I interrupted, a little more shrilly than I’d intended. “At the moment, these are not things we care about. As I said, we’re going to stay right here and solve our problems.”

“Right, I forgot,” said Amanda. “With the new ideas that none of us have. Yes, let’s get back to that.”

I stood up and began to pace back and forth in front of the conference room whiteboard. “Not that I want to dwell too much on the good old days, but some of you were around when we dealt with the Windsailor crisis. Remember that? We didn’t know what we were doing then, and we managed to get through it.”

“Well,” said Amanda, “back to my point about ideas. Someone did have ideas then. You had that mystery consultant feeding us stuff.”

“If it makes you feel better, I’ve been in touch with the same consultant,” I said.

Suddenly, the mood in the room brightened. “Really?” said Amanda. “Why didn’t you say that?”

I stopped pacing. “Oh, so now you’re all enthusiastic? Like I wasn’t bringing anything to the table? You need a consultant to get you motivated?”

Amanda rolled her eyes. “You already said you don’t have any ideas, princess. And we’ve been coming up empty for a while now. So yes, some outside perspective is attractive. I’ll try harder not to offend your delicate feelings in the future. But cutting to the chase, what has your guy got for us?”

I decided to put my ego aside, at least momentarily, for the good of the team. “She . . . uh, he,” I started, and then had a furious conversation in my head about gender, honesty, and the value in correcting a little white lie.

When Martha helped us with the Windsailor situation, I was worried my team might not find an eighty-something-year-old lady a credible source of sound management advice. I portrayed her as a man, let the team paint their own mental picture of “him,” and made sure the team never met her. I had never corrected their perception of Martha, and now I struggled momentarily with whether I should tell them the truth. Expediency won out: I had enough on my plate without facilitating a discussion about how my mystery consultant was my grandmother-in-law. So I carried on with the deception.

“He is suggesting that we need to go back to clearly defining our problem. He thinks we’re spreading ourselves out in too many places, trying to address what are fundamentally symptoms of the same issue, not the cause.”

Stu looked thoughtful for a moment and then said, “He’s saying we’re playing a game of whack-a-mole.”

Mark Goldman, who had been silent to this point, upped his contribution significantly. “Huh?” he said.

Stu explained. “That goofy carnival game. My grandkids play it at the arcade. You plug in twenty-five cents —”

“Join the twenty-first century, Stu,” said Alice. “It’s, like, two bucks.”

“— you plug in your money,” Stu continued, “then you take this mallet, and mechanical moles start popping their heads up on the board in front of you. You try to whack as many on the head as you can before the time runs out.”

“The difference is you get some satisfaction from that game. Here, there are always more moles to whack,” Luigi lamented.

Mark must have had a late night, because it was taking him a while to get the concept. “So, in this case the moles are the problem?”

Amanda made a face. “Yes, Mark, the moles are the problem. You have a mole infestation in your house, or your barn, or wherever the stupid game is supposed to take place. You stand there like an idiot waiting for a mole to poke its head out so you can whack it. But you’re not addressing the real problem. You’re not going to get rid of the infestation by waiting for individual moles to appear and then whacking them. You’ve got to fumigate the whole house. Or nuke it, or whatever you do to get rid of moles.”

“Nuke it?” said Mark. “Wouldn’t that be a little extreme?”

“People!” I said. “As much as I love to wander off topic and relive my days working as a carny —”

“You worked as a carny?” said Amanda. “That explains some things.”

“— which I just made up for effect! Can we get back to talking about the actual issue?”

“I think we are talking about it,” said Stu. “We have a serious mole problem at Hyler.”

“And instead of using nukes, we’re dealing with the individual moles,” added Amanda. “We’re killing ourselves with the whacking, and we’re not getting any further ahead.”

“OK,” I said grudgingly. “Maybe we are talking about the problem. But it’s still an analogy, right? You’re not going to tell me that our issues come down to an actual mole problem, are you?”

“Of course not. Don’t be stupid,” snapped Amanda.

Her comment was followed by an uncomfortable period of silence. Finally I said, “Analogies are great, but sometimes it’s hard to understand what they are referring to.”

Luigi commented, “It seems like an obvious concept, so why haven’t we thought of this before?”

Mark had finally woken up a little. “That part I do get. We’re so busy running around fighting fires that we don’t have time to stop, take a breath, and consider whether we have a mole arsonist on our hands.”

“So now the damn moles are lighting fires?” Stu sighed.

Mark shrugged. “You know what I mean. It’s a common problem — going hard and not taking a moment to stop and think.”

“I’ve got a story about that,” said Luigi. “A guy is driving his car down a country road, and he passes a kid who is running as fast as he can, pushing a bicycle. The guy slows the car down, rolls down his window, and shouts to the kid, ‘Hey, kid, what’s the matter? What’s the hurry?’ Kid pants out, ‘Late for school!’ The man says, ‘What’s the matter with the bike? Got a flat?’ The kid gasps back between breaths, ‘Nope, bike’s fine,’ and keeps on running hard, pushing his bike. So the driver continues coasting alongside the kid and says, ‘You don’t know how to ride it?’ Kid shakes his head. ‘I can ride.’ The driver frowns. ‘So why are you pushing it?’ Kid pants back, ‘Told you, late for school. No time to stop and get on the bike. Gotta keep running to get to class!’ ” Luigi laughed long and hard. The best he got from the others in the room was a groan. “What, you don’t get it?”

“Yeah, we get it,” Leslie said impatiently. “The kid is so obsessed about making time that he doesn’t realize if he slows down and loses a few moments to get on the bike, he’ll get there faster. It’s just that it’s not remotely funny. And as parables go, I would rate it as weak.”

Luigi shrugged. “Whatever. I can’t help your poor taste in parables. But I think it shows what we’re doing — running around solving little problems without taking the time out from firefighting to figure out the source of our mole arsonist bicycle problem.”

“I think you can leave the bike out of that,” said Amanda. “It’s confusing enough as it is.”

I decided to jump in. “That’s exactly it. Unless we stop running around like chickens with our heads cut off and stop letting the moles start fires, we’re never going to figure out . . . uh, if we have moles . . . or should I say, what the nature of our mole infestation really is.”

Mark made me give serious consideration to whether he might be a mole himself by saying, “Why are we bringing chickens into this?”

I waved away his comment. “So, let’s stop whacking moles for a minute. Let’s stop even thinking about whacking moles, and let’s answer the question: what is our mole infestation here at Hyler?”

“It’s the union,” said Luigi without hesitation. “And I can say that because I used to be a union member. They don’t appreciate how bad things are. They just keep asking for more and more, and they’re driving us into the ground.”

“No,” disagreed Amanda. “The union reacts to what we do to them. Our mole is corporate headquarters and all the crap they push down on us. Look at our so-called performance management system. It’s totally dysfunctional and creates a totally dysfunctional workplace, including our crummy relationship with the union.”

“Uh-uh,” said Alice. “It’s our sales team. Will, you’re the one who pointed out they’re discounting us out of business.”

“Figures the accountant would say that,” shot back Leslie. “My sales team does exactly what they’re told to do. It’s the accounting department that doesn’t know what our costs are. How are we supposed to price things properly if you can’t tell us that?”

Things were getting a little heated. Stu interjected in an attempt to be a calming influence. “Guys, it’s all of those things together — it’s us. The people in this room. We’re the problem. And you know why? We’re not on the same page.”

Stu the calming influence didn’t provide much calm. Everyone turned to stare at him. Amanda was the first to speak. “How can you possibly say that, Stu? I’ve been killing myself for the last four years trying to make this place work. And I’d say the same thing for every person in this room. You think any of us want Hyler to go under or offshore? You don’t think we agree on that?”

Stu shook his head. “Having the same goal and acting like we do can be two different things. We all know our relationship with the union sucks, and we know we have to fix it, but what are we doing to make that happen? We just keep grinding on them, trying to make them give us more and more concessions.”

“And all they do is push back on us,” interrupted Luigi. “They just want to take. They won’t work with us.”

Stu cocked an eyebrow. “Are you saying that the union wants to close the plant? That they want the company to move all those jobs offshore?”

Luigi hesitated. “Well, no, I suppose not.”

Alice jumped in. “The union doesn’t understand how bad things are. They don’t believe it when we tell them. They think we’re bluffing.”

Stu snorted. “Going from three shifts a day to two? Laying off half the workforce in the last few years? Seeing our production fall? Do you really believe they think we’re just kidding?”

A light was starting to go on for me, though admittedly it was a bit dim. “Stu, you’re saying that we and the union both want the same thing, or at least we want to avoid the same thing, but people aren’t acting that way?”

Stu shrugged. “I’m not saying I can explain it, but think about it. We seem to be trapped in a pattern that’s taking us down the wrong road, even though no one wants to go there. And I don’t mean just with the union. I mean with everything from our sales program to our management systems to how we deal with safety. We run around whacking moles, not seeing that we’re actually whacking each other in the process.”

“That reminds me of a story,” said Luigi.

Everyone groaned. “Please tell me there are no moles or bicycles involved,” begged Alice.

Luigi smiled. “No, but there are more animals. I’m serious, this is a good one.” Luigi clapped his hands together and rubbed them, like he was warming up to perform a delicate operation or defuse a bomb. Or perhaps just to bomb. “There’s this little frog: he’s sitting by the side of a river, minding his own business. Suddenly a scorpion appears on the riverbank and comes crawling down toward the frog. The frog isn’t worried, because scorpions don’t eat frogs, but he’s a little cautious. He knows the scorpion has a deadly stinger on its tail. So Froggy does a little hop right to the edge of the river and gets ready to go for a swim in case the scorpion starts to get crazy.

“But the scorpion calls out, ‘Hey, Frog, wait! I’m not looking to sting you. I need a favor.’ The frog is puzzled. ‘Whaddaya mean?’ he asks. ‘What kind of favor?’ The scorpion scuttles closer. ‘A ride,’ says the scorpion. ‘My mother’s sick, and she lives across the river. I can’t swim. I need you to give me a ride on your back over to the other side.’ ”

“Wait a minute,” said Alice. “If the scorpion can’t swim, how could he end up on the opposite side of the river from his mother?” I was surprised it had taken this long for someone from the team to interrupt Luigi.

Alice continued to impress with her insights. “Maybe the story takes place in springtime, and the river is flooding. The scorpion moved out the previous summer, when the riverbed was dry.” I started to wonder whether my team was the real problem.

Luigi was undeterred, having spent much of the last ten years dealing with these people. “Whatever. Let’s not worry about that, because it doesn’t really matter to our story, OK? So the scorpion asks the frog for a ride across the river. The frog shakes his head. ‘Uh-uh,’ he says. ‘I’m not letting you get on my back. What’s to stop you from stinging me?’

“The scorpion says, ‘Look, Frog, I have no reason to sting you. I don’t eat frogs. Plus, just think about it. I can’t swim. We’re halfway across the river, I sting you, what happens? We both die. Of course I’m not going to sting you.’ The frog sees the logic in this and agrees to take the scorpion on his back.”

“I can see where this is going,” said Amanda.

Luigi ignored her. “So the scorpion jumps on the frog’s back, and the frog starts swimming across the river. They get halfway across, and all of a sudden the frog feels a sharp pain in his back. ‘What the hell?’ says the frog. ‘You stung me! Now we’re both going to die! Why would you do that?’ The scorpion shrugs —” Luigi held up his hand. “And before you tell me that scorpions don’t have shoulders, I mean that figuratively. The scorpion shrugs and says, ‘I can’t help it. It’s my nature.’ ”

I broke the silence after a moment. “I hate to admit it, but there’s something about that story that rings true.”

Amanda was nodding. “I hate to admit it even more than you do, Will, but I agree. Even though it makes no sense, even though the end result is bad for both of them, the scorpion still goes ahead and does it.”

Leslie added, “It’s also important that even though the frog knows it’s a bad idea to carry the scorpion, he listens to logic and does it. And then dies.”

Sheila spoke up. “So, what? We’re not supposed to do any favors for anyone? Being nice gets you killed? What? I don’t get it.”

“Or,” I said, “is the lesson that you can’t change someone’s nature? That scorpions sting, it’s what they do, and there’s no point in pretending any different?” I paused. “I don’t see how that can be the moral of the story. We deal with difficult situations all the time. Nothing is truly hopeless. There are always ways around it.”

“Yeah,” said Mark, “but maybe the story means you can’t take the obvious path. We’re saying that we’re the frog and the union is the scorpion, and they’re stinging us even though they know they’re sinking the company.”

Stu frowned. “To be fair, I don’t think you can say we’re the frog. I think the union guys would say we’re the scorpion.”

Everyone started to talk at once, which confirmed for me that both mole whacking and the frog and scorpion saga were striking a nerve. As the babble continued, I went to the whiteboard and wrote down two things:

1. What is our mole infestation?

2. What does the scorpion’s nature have to do with all of this?

I tapped the board to get everyone’s attention.

“Here’s where we are, people, and I have to say, we’ve made some progress.” I pointed to the first question. “We know we have to take a step back, stop whacking at moles. Otherwise more will just keep popping up, and we’ll get nowhere. We have to figure out what our mole problem represents, and then we have to find a solution that wipes out the moles entirely. Or at least one that leads to a major die-off.” I tapped the second item. “At the same time, we have to figure out the scorpion’s nature. I know Luigi told the story relative to the union, but my guess is it applies across all the major issues we’ve identified. Our salespeople, our internal performance management system — they are also examples of the scorpion stinging the frog, even though it’s clear to both parties that stinging will sink them both.”

At that moment, Hal Wilson, one of the shop floor supervisors, burst into the conference room. “We’ve got a serious problem,” he said, breathing heavily from his dash down the hall.

“Don’t kill us with suspense,” Stu said. “What is it?”

“Strike,” said Hal. “Well, sort of. The guys on the shop floor just walked out.”