Leadership


increasing responsibility” (ibid: 53) and they are motivated by managers who show a genuine interest in what they do by ‘being there’ (Lundin & Christensen, 2001), in those ‘places of transaction’. The issue is serious. No matter the size of your business – local pub or local council, police or NHS – managers have to fundamentally change their thinking if they are to make any sustainable improvements to the service their organisations deliver and given the parlous nature of much of it at the moment, that shouldn’t be too hard. However, it will require some learning, which entails the appropriate mix of theory and experience: “Experience alone, without theory, teaches management nothing about what to do to improve quality and competitive position, nor how to do it,” (Deming, ibid: 19).


Stay with the issue And before your eyes glaze over at the mention of ‘theory’, remember Lewin’s (1951: 169) comment: “There is nothing so practical as a good theory.” A good start would be to read and adopt Deming’s (ibid:


ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Dr John Chamberlin is a senior lecturer and pracademic at the Derby Business School (DBS), within the Faculty of Business, Computing & Law at the University of Derby (UoD).


After 34 years in the telecommunications industry (BT), the fi nal decade as a senior operations manager with a large external workforce covering the East Midlands, John took early retirement in 1996, but within a year of this had signed on for a full-time MBA at UoD. Graduating in 1999 with one of only two distinctions – and the only ‘Masters’ Level Prize for Outstanding Performance’ – John then became a part- time lecturer within DBS.


Early in 2005, he again reverted to being a full-time student, to embark upon a PhD studying the implementation of business process reengineering (BPR) within two local authorities, graduating in 2009.


John is a founder member of ‘Sytoc’*, the Derby Business School’s ‘Systems Thinking & Organisational Change Research Group’, organised by colleague Gino Franco.


John’s primary academic interests are in BPR, systems thinking, management and leadership, managing change and the public sector.


* www.Derby.ac.uk/sytoc J.E.Chamberlin@Derby.ac.uk


23) ‘14 Points of Management’. But then, ally this with a very clear intent to GOYA, and spend some serious amounts of your own management time working alongside your own people in order to understand your own ‘systems’ from an end-to-end perspective (the customers’ perspective), and then exercise your managerial authority to continuously improve these systems to remove the obstacles to your people’s success. This is management’s responsibility. What will matter in the future is how you spend your time. It will matter what you do!


Footnotes


1 In the book of the same title by Peters and Austin, McPherson’s quote is: “‘When you assume the title of manager, you give up doing honest work for a living. You don’t make it, you don’t sell it, you don’t service it. You don’t stand on the loading docks in the cold or sit in the PBX rooms answering the phones hour after hour.”


2 I had something called my ‘rules of fi rmodynamics’ where using a rather pragmatic Pareto-based approach, I reckoned that 80% of my ‘problems’ were caused by 20% of the staff, but that (Pareto again) in about 80% of those were worth hanging in with the people concerned and 20% (ie four in every 100) weren’t and they mostly got sacked. And rightly so. It was the ‘96%’ who mattered.


3 The 80-year-old Chairman and CEO of Marriott International.


4 www.freshbasil.co.uk. References:


Aguayo, R, (1991) DR DEMING: The American Who Taught the Japanese About Quality, New York, Fireside/Simon & Schuster.


Blanchard, KH, Zirgarmi, P and Zirgarmi, D, (1987) Leadership and the :01ne Minute Manager, Glasgow, Fontana/Collins.


Chamberlin, JE, (2008) Reengineering Corporation Street: an Empirical Study of Business Process Reengineering (BPR) in two Local Authorities, A thesis submitted in partial fulfi lment of the requirements for Doctor of Philosophy to the Derbyshire Business School, University of Derby.


Covey, SR, (1999) The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change, London, Simon & Schuster, p255.


Deming, WE, (1986) Out of the Crisis, 12th printing (Feb, 1991), Cambridge, Mass, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Center for Advanced Engineering Study.


Fayol, H, (1916/1949) General and Industrial Management, Pitman, London.


Herzberg, F, (1968) One More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees?, Harvard Business Review, Vol 46, Issue 1, January-February, pp53-62.


Imai, M, (1997) GEMBA KAIZEN: A Commonsense, Low-Cost Approach to Management, New York, McGraw-Hill.


Joynson, S & Forrester, A, (1995) Sid’s Heroes: Uplifting business performance and the human spirit, London, BBC Books.


Kleiner, A, (1996) The Age of Heretics: Heroes, Outlaws, and the Forerunners of Corporate Change, London, Nicholas Brealey.


Lewin, K, (1951) Field theory in social science; selected theoretical papers, D Cartwright (ed), New York, Harper & Row.


Lundin, SC, Paul, H & Christensen, J, (2001) Fish!: A Remarkable Way to Boost Morale and Improve Results, London, Hodder & Stoughton.


Mant, A, (1979) The Rise & Fall of the British Manager: from buccaneer hero to economic scapegoat – a startling analysis of management today, London, Pan Books.


Mullins, LJ, (2007) Management and Organisational Behaviour, 8th edition, FT/Prentice Hall.


Peters, TJ, (1985) A Passion for Excellence, CBS/Fox Video.


Peters, TJ, (1988) Thriving on Chaos, London, Macmillan.


Peters, TJ and Austin, N, (1985) A Passion for Excellence: The Leadership Difference, Glasgow, Fontana/Collins (1994 paperback edition).


Peters, TJ & Waterman, RH Jr, (1982) In Search of Excellence, New York, Harper & Row.


Seddon, J, (2003) Freedom from Command & Control: a better way to make the work work, Buckingham, Vanguard Press.


Seddon, J, (2007) Performance beyond targets: leading radical change in the public sector, lecture at the University of Derby, 24 May.


Semler, R, (2003) The Seven-Day Weekend: A Better Way to Work in the 21st Century, London, Arrow Books.


Sheldrake, J, (2003) Management Theory, London, Thompson.


Spolsky, J, (2006) The Command and Control Management Method, http://www.joelonsoftware. com/items/2006/08/08.html.


Townsend, Robert, (1984) Further Up The Organisation, London, Michael Joseph Ltd, p69.


Tribus, M, (1989) The Germ Theory of Management, Second National Conference, British Deming Association, Salisbury.


http://162.74.99.105/centennial/timeline/75- pres.shtm (Reference Dana Corporation & Ren McPherson).


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