One Minute Manager
by Ken Blanchard
People Are
Never the Problem
Companies can't afford to send people to
management training unless it makes a difference.
There has been a dramatic change in recent years in the management training
field. Management training used to be considered a fringe benefit; it was
a nice frill you could give your people. Training directors were evaluated
on how many people they put through their programs and how the participants
rated the program at the end. No one seemed to care if anybody behaved differently
back on the job.
This was very different from training in technical fields. If people were
sent to learn a new computer software program, they were expected to be
able to use it when they came back to the job. If they couldn't, they were
either sent back to training or a career planning talk might begin. Unfortunately,
that was not true when it came to training.
Since 1990, all that has changed. Nowadays, with the incredible competition
and the desire for more efficient cost management, companies can't afford
to send people to management training unless it makes a difference and affects
the results the companies are working on.
As a result, our company, Blanchard Training and Development, is now in
the "enhanced training business." All of our work with managers
is directed toward making a difference in performance. To celebrate that
change in focus, three years ago we began having a client conference where
human resources development professionals and top managers from companies
with whom we were working could come together and share results of our joint
efforts. We just concluded our third client conference. It was a marvelous
occasion.
Presentations were made by key managers from companies everyone has heard
of, such as Bell South, Caterpillar, Hershey Foods, Microsoft and Texas
Instruments. Other outstanding companies who made presentations were American
Golf Corp., Delaware North, Emerson Electric, Taylor Made Golf Co. and Williams
Pipeline. We also heard from two government agencies: Summit Pointe, a public
health agency, and the Virginia Department of Transportation. ANZ Banking
Group from New Zealand, Milltronics Ltd. from Canada and The Smith's Snackfood
Co. from Australia also participated. We have partners now in some 30 countries
around the world.
I took some time to mention these organizations to emphasize that every
type and size of organization today is focusing their training and development
efforts on results. I tell managers and trainers all the time that they
must spend 10 times the amount of time following up on their training as
they did organizing and presenting it.
There seemed to be two themes in the presentations at the conference.
First of all, effective change in organizational performance is driven by
the top of the organization focusing on a clear mission and operating set
of values. In other words, significant change does not happen unless the
top of the organization is behind it and focusing and energizing the efforts.
The second theme that became clear was that once the mission and values
were set, structure, systems and strategies had to be aligned with that
new focus to unleash people's power and create an empowered work force.
The old deal in the world of work was that work force loyalty guaranteed
job security. Today that deal cannot be made in any organization.
What do organizations want today if it is not loyalty? They want an empowered
work force that takes initiative, solves problems and acts like they own
the place. That does not happen overnight without significant changes in
the structure, systems and strategies that have been driving the organization.
I was struck by the realization that organizations are finally understanding
what W. Edwards Deming argued for years-that most of the performance problems
in organizations were not the fault of people, but of systems. Realizing
that fact, I asked my colleague Robert Watts to help me conclude the client
conference.
Watts, who has just completed a book titled People Are Never the Problem:
People Have Problems, mesmerized the crowd with his passionate plea that
people were not a problem, that they could never be one, nor could anyone
else. Not the people they call their bosses, nor the people they call their
employees, not even the people they call their competition nor, as much
as they hate to realize it, their enemies.
When he uttered these words, I could see smiles and tears well up in people's
eyes because when people are considered the problem, we can never get beyond
pointing fingers at each other and arguing who is right. People have problems,
they never are problems. What a wonderful gift Watts gave us all as we closed
this conference that was all about helping to unleash the power that people
already have within them.
© 1996 by Blanchard Management Report, Blanchard Training and Development
Inc. Attn: Bob Nelson, publisher, 125 State Place, Escondido, CA 92029.
Past articles, reprints, special topic requests, interviews and annual subscriptions
are available. Telephone (800) 728-6000, ext. 5201, or fax (619) 743-5030.
E-mail: kblanchard @qualitydigest.com
