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Jun. 2, 2008 – Two simple, profound management strategies

Wanted to share two recent fascinating conversations about management strategies.
Neither is particularly difficult to grasp. No visuals or multiple footnotes needed here. Just simple thoughts that are difficult to pull off for so many managers, yours truly included.
The funny thing is the origins of these two strategies are worlds apart, although both beliefs are fairly universal.
The first, I’m guessing, originates from Akashi City, Japan, the site of Kawasaki’s production engineering department. Here is where Shigehiko Kiyama, or Scott Kiyama as we know him, began working for the worldwide manufacturer before eventually rising through the ranks of management. Kiyama is now president of Kawasaki Motors Corp., U.S.A. and speaks fervently about the role of collaboration within a corporate setting.
“In our company,” Kiyama says, “we don’t use ‘I’, ‘my’ or ‘me.’
“Lots of people say, you made a mistake. That’s my success, my accomplishment. No way. We use only ‘we,’ ‘our,’ ‘us.’ ”
Kiyama’s passion about this subject, obvious in that it stretches to his and his co-workers’ vocabulary, reflects a common belief. If we can ensure all of our staffs understand the sum is only as good as its parts, then it’s much more likely that our company and ourselves will not only be successful, but truly content in our work environments.
It is a management philosophy so simple yet so difficult to pull off that it reminds me of the “seafood diet.” That is, “see” the food, don’t eat it.
That’s not to say it can’t be done, the management philosophy at least. The test is whether management is truly up to the task of doing its part. Because if we want our staffs to truly take ownership, then we must in turn be willing to give up some ownership. We must allow them to take their own ideas and move forward, sometimes with success and other times in failure. And when the latter happens, it must be discussed and then swept under the rug and dismissed.
To not accept failure or to latch on to it and elevate it to some uncommon height of importance kills the concept of collaboration. If failure isn’t acceptable, then why should staff members be willing to bring initiative and hence strong work ethic to the workplace?
The issue of failure reminds me of probably the strangest educational practice I’ve come upon in years. My daughter recently brought home a math test that had two grades on it — one for the initial test and then one for a follow-up test. The follow-up test, I asked? It seems the math teacher goes over the math lessons one more time after the test and then allows his students to retake the test. My first reaction to this teaching philosophy: What a waste of time! Why even bother with the first test? But if you take the time to consider the ultimate goal, which I finally got around to, is to educate and not grade, then it makes perfect sense.
Managers should consider the same concept in judging failure. Is our ultimate goal grading our staff or producing an environment of collaboration that inherently carries some risk of failure?
The other important management philosophy I stumbled upon in recent weeks was forwarded along by Clark Vitulli, the former president of America’s PowerSports, one of the nation’s largest dealer groups, and now part owner of Harley-Davidson of St. Augustine in Florida.
Vitulli has a wealth of management experience, including many years outside the industry. In fact, he was working at Chrysler when Lee Iacocca took on the company that was on the verge of bankruptcy.
Vitulli can remember one of the first management philosophies that Iacocca brought to Chrysler. “When he came on and the company was broke and going to the government for money, he encouraged management to take training even though we were literally days away from being bankrupt,” Vitulli said.
Iacocca stressed training because he knew it was an absolutely vital part of keeping employee morale up.
“It made everybody think about the future, improve their skills,” Vitulli said. “It was an amazing thing to do.”
Some two decades-plus later, the same vital message remains. Even in a down economy and with new unit sales not as robust as hoped, it is still so important to improve your staff with training. The actual increased staff knowledge is always a boon, but the morale boost that goes along with it is even more valuable.
Iacocca was able to bring a company on the brink of financial disaster back to actually making a profit in just three years and his insistence of requiring training surely had a hand in that turnaround.
Training and insisting on staff collaboration are two huge staff goals to focus on. How that specifically happens within your company or dealership is a personal endeavor, but surely it will happen that much quicker and be that much more successful if it starts at the top. Kiyama, the president of a manufacturer that builds everything from motorcycles to bullet speed trains to tunnel boring machines, certainly understands that.
“Lots of people ask me, Mr. Kiyama, what do you do?” He said. “I say, ‘Oh, I dig tunnels.’” psb
Neil Pascale is editor-in-chief of Powersports Business. He can be reached at npascale@affinitygroup.com.

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