What is going on? Companies for whom we had great respect are being felled like rotten timber. Toyota, Johnson & Johnson, Genzyme. These firms had stellar reputations. Their sales were robust. How could they screw up like this? One way would be surround oneself with yes-men. Another way is to believe your own hype and never examine your processes. I personally think that is was more than a little of both.

We must examine our axioms routinely. Yes, we have developed mission statements, plans of action, and reporting systems. But, we need to examine these to insure that the changing world still provides the same basis for your goals. Imagine building the world’s best chariots as Henry Ford’s cars began rolling off their assembly line. Or, more recently, being Adam Osborne and selling your “portable computers”, and then hearing that IBM is going to introduce their own version of a computer. We need to pay attention to the universe. We also need to walk around our enterprise. We need to hear from our customers (and our staff – directly and not filtered for our needs. Make sure everyone knows you really want to know what’s going on, to encourage open communication. You will be amazed at what you can learn. When we were running our manufacturing venture, the executive team (CEO, COO, and the board members) routinely met with customers- and not just local ones. We routinely walked the floor of our five manufacturing facilities to see what was happening, to speak with our staff.

This also means you have to ask questions. Don’t expect folks to provide you with information if they don’t know what you want to know. Even if your customers feel you need to know something, they may be reticent informing you- as would your staff. Ask them what you can be doing better for them, what resources do they need. While talking with our customers, we were astounded to hear that a few of them wanted different pallet formations. (We stacked our product four or five layers high, dependent upon the order size. This meant less floor space would be needed in their storage area. Two customers had staff that could not life the top layers, so we broke the pallets down on delivery to keep everything three tall. The customers were more than appreciative- and signed a long-term supply contract with us.)

On occasion, ask for the raw data that is used to prepare the (daily, weekly) dashboard you are presented.  Make sure everyone knows you are not questioning their abilities, you just want to peer more deeply into the organization. Just because sales are increasing does not mean that there are no problem regions. You will be amazed at what you find sometimes by just looking carefully at the performance of your firm.

If you follow this advice, you shouldn’t find your company in banner-sized print- unless it’s to announce your new product line or to  discuss your wonderful employment policies!

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