Management by wandering around was made famous 31 years ago by “In Search of Excellence,” the must-read management book of its day. Some say it should remain on your bedside table.
Authors Tom Peters and Robert H. Waterman studied more than 40 American companies. One company was Hewlett-Packard, whose executives made spontaneous visits to employees in the workplace. Of course, HP was not the only company employing this management technique. It’s likely not even an HP invention. One historian says Abraham Lincoln pioneered the style by informally inspecting Union Army Troops during the American Civil War.
Cozying up with team members has merit. The idea gained traction in the 1980s when Peters and Waterman suggested randomly visiting employees while they worked. They concluded the technique improved employee performance and overall company output. It also helped a leader to be a “hands-on manager, role model and hero.”
Today, we’re thousands of management books, articles and research studies beyond “In Search of Excellence.” With each new take on management—each wave of authors and consultants trying to leave their mark—we read, generally, that old techniques are passé. Try something new, they say. A “management revolution” is under way. “Radically different kinds of corporate structures” are being developed. Follow the new “model of how to start and run a company.” And so on.
It’s all fine and good. But one thing remains: management by wandering around. Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, walked and talked with staff members for long stretches of time. Jack Dorsey, the founder Twitter and Square (the latter of which makes a device that turns a smartphone into a credit/debit card machine), reportedly takes a hike every Saturday. We find the same in drywall and ceiling construction. The construction downturn has been tough, but at least managers have gotten out in the field.
“I’m more hands-on as the owner than ever before,” says Mike Poellinger, president, Poellinger, Inc., La Crosse, Wis.
Read, Teach, Converse
In our own search of excellence, we first turned to Denver Drywall, Englewood, Colo. There, President Bruce Miller relishes being a student of management. He likes to read about it.
“I have hundreds of books and books on cassette tape,” Miller says. “Driving around from one place to the other, sometimes at rush hour when everybody is honking, I’m one of those guys who will be listening to management tapes.”
By boning up on the topics of management, leadership and team building, Miller feels he’s grown to be a better work collaborator and leader. He’s also learned how to teach what he has gleaned to others.
“You can teach management principles,” Miller says, “but the people you’re talking to have to want to become better.”
These days, Miller’s audience has shrunk in numbers. Before the construction meltdown, he had between 400 to 500 people on the payroll, depending on the number and size of projects on the books. Today, he has fewer than 100 on staff. But, having fewer employees means Miller himself can make a bigger personal difference. He tries to practice what he preaches.
“You have to do what you say you’re going to do,” he says. “If you’ve told somebody the job will be done by a date, you don’t wait until that date. You start working on it today. You make it clear to the crew that it’s not just a ‘repeat.’”
Still, having a streamlined operation has forced Miller and his team to search for ways to be more efficient. That search lead Denver Drywall to create more conversations between management and employees.
“You’ve got to bring people into the office and sit down with them,” Miller says. “We sit down and say, ‘We’ve got a minus here. We’re losing money. Why is that happening? Did we do something with the estimate? Is there a problem with productivity?’”
The goal is to improve information flow. The mechanism? Greater interaction both inside and outside the company. Miller says it’s working.
“Productivity gets better when our leadership spends time in the field,” he says.
Chalk up another proponent of “management by wandering around.”
Cut Costs, Multitask,
Update Procedures
At WeKanDo Construction, Inc., Levittown, Puerto Rico, Richard Huntley, president, has adapted his company to the levels of workflow set by the economy. Company volumes today are 30 percent less than they were in 2009.
So, in 2011, Huntley began restructuring operations. He also enacted plans to physically move the company’s main offices. Both initiatives involved cutting costs.
“Just saving pennies would make a difference,” says Huntley, looking back.
Huntley and his management team looked at a variety of budget line items. They trimmed their electrical power usage. They considered ways to create a paperless office. They jumped further into the green movement. Huntley says his team trimmed 30 percent of the company’s overhead—and that matched the 30 percent drop in volume the company had sustained.
“It took us over a year, but I can say that now we’re better organized,” Huntley says.
Most of the top management and field supervision remains in place. But, Huntley says some cost cutting involved thinning out the supervisory ranks. Now, more work is shouldered by fewer managers. People on staff multitask.
“We’ve put everything together so that our procedures work better,” Huntley says. “From the first call, to the purchase order, to materials delivery, we’re much more efficient than we were before.”
Huntley himself is out in the field visiting crews and customers more frequently than during boom times. Such face-to-face contact has brought many benefits.
“It’s helped me to make sure we’re on target with production,” Huntley says. “I’m talking more to the guys and making sure things are going as planned.”
Here’s a point that might make the latest edition of “In Search of Excellence,” were it to be updated today: “It’s an asset to be able to see more of the owners and GCs on a personal basis—to not only email or talk over the phone with these managers, but to come up with better solutions and do more PR work,” Huntley says.
Referee, Set goals, Train
John Hinson, president, Marek Brothers Systems, Inc.—Dallas, Coppell, Texas, says his number one, out-of-the-box, management idea involves team-building. He calls it “refereeing.”
“You put people in a room, and they all get to know each other. They share issues related to their own personal environment,” Hinson says. “You give them a game plan. You help them get to where they need to be, because you can’t just say, ‘Hey, you need to be here.’ No, you’ve got to show them how to get there. It’s like teaching a kid how to eat. You’ve got to show them. Hold the spoon. Put it in their mouth. After practicing, they learn how to do it.”
To motivate his people, Hinson turns to goal-setting.
“You communicate with the person. You show them how to get where they need to be, and you help them get there,” Hinson says. “When they accomplish it, they mark off one of the rungs on the ladder.”
Hinson says it’s important to be able to coach and guide people during their development. They need feedback: “You’re really getting this,” he often says. But, people also need constructive criticism: “I’m concerned about these areas. Let’s set some goals. Let’s meet some deadlines,” Hinson might say.
By giving employees clear direction and distinct targets to reach, they sense accomplishment. They improve. Goal-setting itself serves to motivate, especially when combined with training. In-house, Marek Brothers has developed what Hinson calls a “workforce development training program.”
“We take a young individual who’s been flipping hamburgers. We train him so that he can have a career in our industry,” Hinson says. “He can see a roadmap, because we provide it. But he has to be the one who pushes from the bottom up. He’s got to say, ‘What do I need to do?’”
The “roadmap” involves training manuals, seminars and a list of all the tasks that need to be mastered to fulfill a particular trade.
“I personally teach it to the young craftsmen coming in. They hear it from the president of the company,” Hinson says. “I have about eight classes where I spend time with them.”
No doubt, Peters and Waterman would call Hinson a “hands-on manager, role model and hero.”
Accept Reality, Specialize, Get Certified
Poellinger says his management team is lacking in mid-level managers by default. His volume today is about one half of what it was prior to the construction downturn.
“We just can’t continue to contribute to a big management component,” Poellinger says. “There’s not much money in the projects for a lot of on-site management.”
That means Poellinger’s people have had to assume more supervisory duties.
“We’ve had to scale back,” he says. “Where we used to have a superintendent on a job, now we’re just running a foreman.”
How does Poellinger encourage his team to avoid frustration? It’s a challenge.
“When [an economic downturn] happens for maybe a year, you can do the cheerleader thing—‘We’re all in this together,’” Poellinger says. “But I’ve lost a project manager to a general contractor. We bid low, but the general contractor doesn’t have the work so he self-performs it. This guy said, ‘I might as well work for the GC. They’re doing all our work anyway.’”
Nobody knows if GCs self-performing work is short-lived or not. Indicators in Poellinger’s market point to construction increasing. Poellinger hopes that general contractors are becoming more apt to sub work back to his firm.
Even so, Poellinger isn’t waiting for the market to rebound. He’s taken steps to augment his firm’s expertise by getting credentialed in various specialty niches.
“We’re trying to provide technical services that general contractors are not willing to take responsibility for,” Poellinger says. “We’re pursuing air barriers, specialty coatings and firesafing that we’d normally sub out. We’re positioning ourselves for this work especially given the new 2012 building code.”
For example, Poellinger has become a trained and certified to install a specific brand of curtain wall system, and it is also a trained and certified spray foam installer of a product for the commercial industry that meets new energy code requirements. The company is also trained and certified in spray foam installation and fluid applied air barrier installation by the Air Barrier Association of America.
By having taken steps to specialize, Poellinger says owners, architects and general contractors have been in touch. They need the help.
“I have an inspector in Trinidad right now,” Poellinger says. “Because we have our International Code Council certification as a fireproofing specialist, Samsung found us on the Code Council website. It’s opened the door for us in industrial construction that we’ve never had before.”
Make Time for Inspiration
Denver Drywall’s Miller sums up good management by suggesting that it involves making an investment of time. He says it’s important to spend time with his people. Doing so makes them feel a part of the team, which, in turn, inspires them to reach out and contribute.
“If we spend time with each one of the guys, I think they feel they’re doing something worthwhile. It’s hard work, hanging drywall, but you can use your brain. That’s what we try to teach,” Miller says.
He adds: “It won’t take you but five minutes to show somebody how to do something. It doesn’t do any good if they’re just tracking their hours and turning in time. For us, it has to mean something. We want our team to be inspired.”
Mark L. Johnson is an industry writer and marketing communications consultant.
