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All managers in such companies need to adapt to the new environment. What are the rules of the new environment? First, everything happens faster. Second, anything that can be done will be done, if not by you, then by someone else. Let there be no misunderstanding: These changes lead to a less kind, less gentle, and less predictable workplace.
The output of a manager is the output of the organizational units under his or her supervision or influence.
High managerial productivity, I argue, depends largely on choosing to perform tasks that possess high leverage.
whenever possible, you should choose in-process tests over those that destroy product.
A common rule we should always try to heed is to detect and fix any problem in a production process at the lowest-value stage possible.
The first rule is that a measurement—any measurement—is better than none. But a genuinely effective indicator will cover the output of the work unit and not simply the activity involved. Obviously, you measure a salesman by the orders he gets (output), not by the calls he makes (activity).
The second criterion for a good indicator is that what you measure should be a physical, countable thing. Examples of effective measures of administrative output are shown below. Because those listed here are all quantity or output indicators, their paired counterparts should stress the quality of work. Thus, in accounts payable, the number of vouchers processed should be paired with the number of errors found either by auditing or by our suppliers.
for leading indicators to do you any good, you must believe in their validity. While this may seem obvious, in practice, confidence is not as easy to come by as it sounds. To take big, costly, or worrisome steps when you are not yet sure you have a problem is hard. But unless you are prepared to act on what your leading indicators are telling you, all you will get from monitoring them is anxiety. Thus, the indicators you choose should be credible, so that you will, in fact, act whenever they flash warning signals.
The linearity indicator can give us an early warning that we are likely to miss our target.
Also valuable are trend indicators. These show output (breakfasts delivered, software modules completed, vouchers processed) measured against time (performance this month versus performance over a series of previous months), and also against some standard or expected level. A display of trends forces you to look at the future as you are led to extrapolate almost automatically from the past.
Another sound way to anticipate the future is through the use of the stagger chart, which forecasts an output over the next several months. The chart is updated monthly, so that each month you will have an updated version of the then-current forecast information as compared to several prior forecasts. You can readily see the variation of one forecast from the next, which can help you anticipate future trends better than if you used a simple trend chart.
(* means the actual number for that month) I have found the “stagger chart” the best means of getting a feel for future business trends.
What works better is to ask both the manufacturing and the sales departments to prepare a forecast, so that people are responsible for performing against their own predictions.
In short, reject before investing further value.
The key principle is to reject the defective “material” at its lowest-value stage.
