I must confess that it is difficult to blog about the events surrounding Trump's incoming administration, primarily because everything is happening so danged quickly.
I want to jump out and say that I have been very impressed by Kristi Noem's leadership style.
She is a "Go and See" leader.
It is too easy for managers to start believing that the little squiggles swimming across the "dash-board" on your lap-top are reality. It is very seductive, actually. Precise. Unambiguous. No effort required.
If you ever raised animals on pasture, you know "numbers" have limitations. Your neighbor a half-mile to the south may have had 2" of rain and you might have only gotten 1/4". His cattle may be fat-and-sassy and your lambs might have barber-pole worms.
Go-and-See gives you a chance to hear "the rest of the story". Broken equipment issues? Maybe your guy "Bob" has anger management issues. It is not an equipment or maintenance issue. It is a "Bob" issue. You can't fix it unless you really know what is broken.
And the return-on-investment is beyond calculating in the human dimension. Why should anybody care more about something than the boss cares about it?
I was working third-shift at "the factory" and was rolling out an unpopular policy change from management. After reading the policy to three of my "guys" in one of the far-flung corners of my kingdom, I slipped into the "Metrology" center to tread-water for fifteen minutes.
One of the minions in the Metrology center, a guy named Tony, snidely (I thought) suggested that I was "hiding".
I said "Nope. I am sitting here because there comes a point where any more 'attention' from management is like picking at a zit. Sometimes the best thing a boss can do is to become invisible for a while and let people 'process' the changes."
18 months later that "snide minion" was the Chairman of the Union Local and I found myself in an excruciatingly painful situation with my chain-of-command. I have no hard evidence, but I think Tony told the Plant Manager (two or three links up the chain-of-command) that he (Tony) would be unhappy if I was treated harshly.
Like I said, the return-on-investment of Go-and-See management is beyond calculating in the human dimension. I didn't reel my "guys" in from their jobs and roll-out the changes in my office. I went to their domain (next to the Metrology center) and unrolled it.
If any of my readers work for Kristi, and if you are comfortable with the task, please let her know that I think she is doing a GREAT job.
Lifting notes: 136 x 6. 185 x 6. 205 x 6. 225 x 4 (felt weak, dropped back). 205 x 6 x 4 more sets. Total of 8970 pounds
My management training in college was from guys who had done it. Old timers from the old school. The most common statements were:
ReplyDelete- MBWA is the way. Management By Walking Around.
- If you spend more than 10% of your day at your desk, you are generating unnecessary paperwork.
Amen. If you aren't in the field interacting with line employees all you have is information being fluffed and polished by every management tier. The old "This idea is crap" at the line morphing to "This Idea has powerful growth opportunities for the company" in the boardroom.
ReplyDeleteInteresting times with K.Noem as governor here in SD. State budget doubled during her tenure, not a 'good thing'. 'Plenty of jobs elsewhere' during the covidiocy if one chose to stand one's ground against the edicts in the workforce. Agreed that she's doing well in her first encounters in the arena, hoping that strong sense of duty continues.
ReplyDelete-RB in flyover country
What do you think of the pros or cons of a manager carrying a partial non supervisory workload?
ReplyDeleteJonathan
Toyota requires that supervisors (in the factory) be capable of doing every job they supervise, be able to do them flawlessly and "at-rate". Part of their thinking is that supervisors cannot approve continuous-improvement suggestions if they don't have deep knowledge of each job since many "improvements" involve moving or trading work-content from one operator to another.
Delete"...requires..." is not optional. Toyota gives each supervisor a strick-and-aggressive time limit to learn the jobs. Two things happen if the new supervisor cannot do that. The supervisor is demoted AND the supervisor's boss is disciplined.
I think every manager should be able to seamlessly tag-in and cover one of their direct-report's job. Accidents happen. Employees have babies. Top brass can steal your best person.
In very small shops, it can be an economic necessity to have the supervisor work....lots of farms are like that.
The risk is that a crisis will not be properly escalated because one of the links, the boss, is not in the loop. That may seem alarmists, but think of wild-fires as a scenario or a highly anomalous lab report (like Pb in water). Those are events that can't sit in an in-basket waiting for you to break free from your "production work"
A father of a close friend was a bigwig at the phone company, back when there was just one phone company, told me about his experience. He started as a operator as almost all managers did. When he was in charge of phone installations he had a 94% on time record.
DeleteWhen the company switched to hiring MBA grads and turning them loose to 'optimize' systems the rate reversed. "When they promise to come install a phone Monday between 8 and noon 92% of the time they don't!' And this was the mid '80's.
Funny thing is, top leadership looked and must have said OK.
She’s hot for a post wall old lady, and she can ride a horse, but if you dig around in the web archives - she can’t hit a flying bird with a shotgun to save her ass.
ReplyDeleteShe strikes me as fomented. Hot mama republican gov. Not unlike AOC on the other side. Kinda Fake. Sorry Joe.
Her dealings
with carbon capture and eminent domain/taking farmland is troubling in SDakota.
The heavy makeup always tells a tale with respect to females. Politics aside…
Since I am not in the market for a girlfriend, her physical attractiveness is not all that important to me.
Delete"Carbon Capture" is a scam. Consumers Energy has a plan to inject Carbon Dioxide into the Devon shale/limestone layer of bedrock. They plan to pump out water, dissolve CO2 in it, and the re-inject it into the ground.
Management is not a skills test, it is a character test. That's why so many do badly.
ReplyDeleteSeems like she might know a bit about getting things done. Don't think too many barns get mucked out by laptop warriors. She might have some experience on the operator end of a shovel.
ReplyDeleteI lived in South Dakota for 15 years, part of that was with Kristi Noem, she was the best governor SD ever had, not the worst either. Some of her policy was backwards. The Carbon Capture being on of those and the farm debacle of Eminent Domain not withstanding. Only positive was the masking mandates in public, but she did allow health care and companies to decide to require masking instead of making that a personal decision. She did look good in a bikini though for an older gal...
ReplyDeleteMeant to say "She wasn't the best governor..."
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