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Slippery Rock Gazette March 2024 | 7
Training & Education
How Do You Identify Who Will Be a Good Manager?
‘section’ of the business process and are responsible for making sure the systems being used by their team make sense, are followed, and are tweaked and improved as new and better ways to get things done are identified by the team.
These roles are critical if your busi- ness systems are to persist through time. Without a manager doing this work, the system will fall into disuse, and everyone will eventually do their work their own way.
The second layer of management, the Department Manager, looks at the col- lection of systems their department uses to insure they are delivering the results required by the business. For example, the Production Manager is accountable for the capacity of the business’ chosen Constraint. Do the maintenance systems deliver the required machine availabil- ity? Do the operating systems deliver the required machine effectiveness? Are the upstream and downstream production processes doing their part to maximize the ability of the Constraint to produce?
When the department systems are NOT delivering what is needed, it is the Department Manager’s accountability to refine, design, or buy new systems that CAN deliver the required results. When this role isn’t doing this work, the Team Members will do ‘the best they can with what they have,’ and that is rarely good enough in the long run.
The third layer of management is the General Manager (GM). The GM is where all the different systems of the departments come together to deliver the Value the business wishes to create. What do I mean by ‘Value?’ The first and most obvious Value is the Return on Investment (ROI) of the business, a sec- ond Value would be ‘Customer Value’ – the delighting of the customer so they return to do more business with you. There are others.
The role of the GM is critical to any business that runs our Synchronous Flow System. The example above for a department manager describes how the Production Manager is accountable for the capacity of the business to produce countertops.
Please turn to page 9
ASyour stone shop grows, your team grows with it. More people doing more work will eventually require you to add ‘managers’ to the business, and that should get you to wonder ‘What exactly does it mean to be a manager, and how would I know a good one if I tripped
over them?’
If you don’t have the time to find out what makes a great manager, you will just be giving someone the title and hop- ing they figure it out!
As the business continues to grow, one day you will realize there are so many managers hanging around that you better
Rick Phelps
Synchronous Solutions
If your managers are not working on your business’ systems, they are not ‘manag- ing.’ And the chances are really high that they are NOT working on your business’ systems.
There is a hierarchy of management work directly tied to your business systems. For those of you who like to dig deeper, read Systems Leadership by Ian Macdonald, which builds on the research and writings of Elliot Jaques, but is a whole lot easier to read and understand!
put in place a manager to manage the managers. So, you do.
And sooner or later, you realize you have a mess on your hands. There are lots of managers, but you really aren’t sure what they are ‘managing.’ Your profitability is tanking, and chaos seems to reign. Turns out, they (the managers) didn’t ‘figure it out.’ How could they?
This would be a good time to get your- self educated on what ‘management’ and ‘leadership’ are all about.
Businesses run on systems, and people run those systems.
You MANAGE the systems.
You LEAD the people.
These statements should give you a big
clue to what went wrong. Ponder them.
Most stone shops will only ever need three layers of management: a General Manager, some Department Managers, and Section Managers. Really large shops with multiple locations will have a fourth layer of management, the CEO. The number of people at each layer of your business forms a pyramid like the one above.
At the base of the pyramid are your Team Members, the people who do the work that makes the money. These are the people running your business systems, and they are the key to your success.
Management exists to help your Team Members be as successful as possible, and each layer of management plays a different role in insuring that success.
The first layer of management, the Section Managers, oversee a small
How Effective is Your Business Strategy?
Continued from page 6
What is your market identity and how does your market message communi- cate that? How well does this differen- tiate you from your competition? Have you customized your marketing message to meet the unique needs of each of your primary market segments?
PRO TIP: Each market segment needs its own specialized market message.
This can be tough to do on your own. It can be immensely helpful to have the perspective of someone outside your business asking the right probing ques- tions to help you define this. It also takes an experienced marketing professional to craft the appropriate language and integrate it into the appropriate delivery vehicle for it to be effective. Few shop owners have this capability in their busi- ness. Find the help you need and build your marketing plan now.
HOPE is not an effective business strategy. As we face the headwinds of economic change, we can hunker down and hope to weather the storm or we can take decisive action. The shops who decide to take the actions recommended above are the ones that will come out ahead of their competition when this storm passes.
You deserve to have a business that makes you money, but also allows you time to enjoy it. If you want to dis- cuss how to make your business strat- egy really work for you, contact Ed at Ed@FabricatorsCoach.com or call 864-328-6231.
“Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing.
It was here first.”
– Mark Twain