Those ancient American philosophers, “Abbott and Costello” used to do a classic bit called “Who’s on First?” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEaKjRyPjVY ) which many of you have seen. Two people think they’re talking about the same topic using the same words, but they misunderstand each other completely. It’s absolutely hilarious – until you realize that your company department heads are performing the same skit every day.

Operations people like to control costs.
HR people like to have a fully manned, contented staff.
Sales people like to satisfy clients.
Finance people like to control costs.
Marketing people like to build brands.

Now, here’s what sometimes happens.

Salesman Stan approaches Customer Carl and proposes a business transaction. Carl asks for certain terms – including customizations of the product, quick delivery, special service and a lower price. Stan says, “no problem”.

But Oscar the Operations manager looks at the order and says, “No Way”. He says he can provide the standard product in 6 – 8 weeks.

Then Fran from Finance gets a look at the deal, and says that a customized production run of a rush order is going to require a 75% increase in the price that Salesman Stan has already negotiated.

Halley the HR Manager is short-handed, and doesn’t want to stress-out the already overworked administrative staff with a rush job, and says it will take at least twice as long to do what the client wants.

And Marketing Marge is putting together another advertisement that touts the company as having great service and fast delivery.

Stan goes back to Carl and tells him the order will be late, expensive and not to the same specifications that they had originally discussed, and Carl promptly threatens to take his business elsewhere. Stan spends the rest of the week and LOTS of expense money convincing Carl to give them a reduced trial order.

Not so funny now, is it? Who is to blame? Well – YOU, the senior manager are. Because you allowed your department heads to work out their differences on a live client instead of in a series of regular meetings.

Make sure all of your department heads are on the same page, and agree on the MEANING of the words they use. “Quality”, “Value”, and “Service” mean very different things to each individual department. It is up to the senior managers to make sure that the company has ONE voice, and ONE set of standards.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 16th, 2007 at 9:43 am and is filed under Managing in China. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.