Extraordinary Results with Ordinary People

     A customer of Cummins Engine Company, a western truck fleet, was experiencing frequent engine failures. Evidence suggested that the drivers were abusing engines, and that such abuse was occurring shortly after the vehicles left the company’s home terminal. When Cummins investigated, it discovered that the dispatchers, hidden safely behind a large glass pane, were taking their own sweet time compiling the drivers’ trip tickets. Furious about this seemingly deliberate foot-dragging, the drivers would storm out of the dispatch room and vent their frustrations on the trucks. The solution? The company removed the glass pane in the dispatch room. It totally transformed the relationship between drivers and dispatchers. “Often invisible barriers between people are the root cause of performance problems in business,” writes Schutz. “The driving force is stifled.”

     Four of the most powerful words in the world are I need your help.
     Leo Brewer, a friend of Schutz, bought a Cummins distributorship in St. Louis, Missouri. He needed to make significant improvements, though, and was out of money. Together with Schutz, he cooked up a plan. He went back to the filthy and neglected facility, gathered his crew in the shop area, and told them that he, his wife, and his children were coming in on Saturday morning to clean, and that anyone who wanted to could show up and pitch in. To make a long story short, they did. Then, the next weekend, they joined together to repaint. “The camaraderie of those two weekends resulted in more than just a clean shop,” writes Schutz. “It established the basis of a new culture, a new relationship between management and labor, and the company took off to new heights of performance.”

      Company icons are powerful. Don’t underestimate that power.
      When Schutz joined Porsche in 1981, the company was planning to discontinue the Porsche 911. Although there were practical reasons to put it on the chopping block–it was hard to drive and had an engine that could barely meet upcoming noise and emissions regulations–the decision was harming morale. A deep sense of loss and grief pervaded the entire company. Schutz describes the “moment of decision” when Porsche reversed its plan. “I noticed a chart on the wall of Professor Bott’s office,” he writes.

      “It depicted the ongoing development schedules for the three primary Porsche product lines: 944, 928, and 911. Two of them stretched far into the future, but the 911 program stopped at the end of 1981. I remember rising from my chair, walking over to the chart, taking a black marker pen and extending the 911 program bar clean off the end of the chart . . . The Porsche 911, the company icon, had been saved, and I believe the company was saved with it.”

     Don’t give your customers what they say they want. Instead, redefine customer expectations.
That’s right. You cannot do good proactive marketing or new product development by listening to your customers. There was no customer demand for the transducer, the airplane, the automobile, the microwave oven, the Internet. No one asked Steve Jobs to invent the personal computer. You must use your imagination and vision to decide what customer expectations are likely to be after change has occurred. A prime example is the Porsche 911 Cabriolet (discussed above). “Instead of responding to the customer request for a less costly and more trouble-free car, we built a convertible with a price approximately 20 percent higher than the contemporary coupe,” Schutz writes. “Dealers and customers loved it.”

     Pursue excellence, not success.
     Managers focused on success, particularly short-term success, will frequently fail to mobilize the real driving force, the committed passion of people that can result in extraordinary performance. Success must come quickly and may be fleeting and fickle. Those who are obsessed with success will often compromise their values and principles. On the other hand, excellence is lasting and dependable. Managers striving for excellence and quality tend to be patient because their focus is on the longer term. They lead with a quiet confidence because they know they will win in the long run.

     Build credibility.
     This may require that you put yourself in a vulnerable position. Law mandates that a German AG must hold meetings with all its people, a Betriebsversammlung, several times each year. Schutz describes the meetings he had with the 8,500 employees of Porsche, during which anyone could ask any question. It was a way of ensuring that the CEO and other members of management were accountable to employees. Though he admits that at the first such meeting he was “scared out of my mind,” he lauds these events as a great way to achieve credibility–and suggests that U.S. organizations find ways to achieve the same effect. “One way or another, managers must put themselves into a position where they are vulnerable,” he writes. “This cannot be done with a newsletter, video communication, or bulletin board announcement. No form of one-way communication can get this job done effectively.”

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