The Exec-Ed Zone

There are a few management case studies that because of their innate reason or their total surprise keep re-appearing in the business media. Amongst these is the Dabbawala's of Mumbai case study from Harvard, first published in April 2004. The Economist magazine ran a version of the story again this week. Their tale is indeed a remarkable one, and worth getting to understand.

The Dabbawala's are, literally, men with boxes - who deliver lunches to people all over Mumbai, India, on a daily basis. As is now well documented they do this on a remarkable scale, around 170,000 per day - and the surprising managerial element is that they deliver them with a six sigma level of accuracy. That is only one mistake per six million deliveries. The six sigma level of defect toleration would be impressive in any manufacturing/management process, but the dabbawalas achieve it with no technology or formal management education. It all comes down to teamwork - and one suspects a lack of western ego.

Not surprisingly the dabbawalas are now sought out by management researchers from across the world who are intent on dissecting their prodigious accuracy and discovering how to transfer it to organisations that, by all normal measures, ought to be more efficient than a seemingly loose arrangement of poorly educated and under resourced individuals.

Mark McCormack, the founder of the sports management firm IMG, wrote his famous bestseller What They Don't Teach You At Harvard Business School back in 1984. To a large degree what that book focused on is now included in business school programs (he was looking at MBA's primarily, as exec-ed programs were little known then). Today business schools and EDC's, particularly exec-ed programs, do a lot of work in organisational behaviour, negotiation skills, emotional intelligence, NLP etc as well as coaching and a raft of personality appraisals.

Despite all this we continue to see a surprising proportion of leaders who come from either the top or bottom of "advantage mountain". While this may be less prevalent in large corporations than it was, the self-starters who become leaders seem to be made up from a disproportionate number of the very privileged and the under-privileged or disadvantaged. "Self-starters" are very good in entrepreneurial activities - and I include in this politics! If we look at the current US President, whatever you make of his politics, he has made it to the White House - and whether he did so just as a stooge for his more manipulative cronies or whether on his own merits it cannot be gainsayed that he had a super-privileged up-bringing. His predecessor, Bill Clinton, whatever you make of his politics, came from a background that was, if not poverty-stricken certainly at the lower end of the scale. Stability was not an adjective that was applicable to his early years.

In the UK the current Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, is the son of a church minister and while again by no means at the bottom of the privilege scale he was disadvantaged by health problems most famously the blindness of his left eye suffered in a rugby accident aged 16 that meant many weeks lying in total darkness. That is character-building experience that most of us, fortunately, miss out on. His opponents on the other side of the Commons floor, David Cameron and indeed Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats, attended top UK private schools (Eton and Westminster respectively) and then went to the top UK universities of Oxford and Cambridge - both their fathers were successful in the City. Definitely from the well-privileged end of the spectrum.

Richard Branson, the maverick entrepreneur - again came from a stable middle-class background, but his early years were perhaps marked by his poor academic performance due, it is said, to his dyslexia. His struggles against the status quo and accepted path to adulthood must have tested his resolve.

There are countless other exemplars of this model at either end of the scale. What  is interesting about them is that one group has learnt to believe in themselves because no-one else does, they have no support frameworks to back them up, and the other group has prospered because of the extraordinary support frameworks they are surrounded by that enable them to observe how "the game is played" and connects them to the right players. While the latter is certainly the easier ride, it still requires the potential leader to have better than average abilities (intelligence, social skills, probably looks) to make the grade. The less-privileged will only prosper by sheer pig-headed determination usually - as well as intelligence. But social skills will have to be used in a maverick style - and looks are irrelevant largely.

The heart of this is the instilling of self-confidence and inner belief. Most people today have three support frameworks that can act as crutches when one's resolve and determination falter: your family; your friends/community; your work. Classic rags-to-riches stories are basically tales of people who have had no support frameworks and have had to tough things out inspite of that. Those that succeed become formidable self-believers and that confidence is hard to resist. It is very difficult to replicate the strength of these - and it is something that business schools cannot teach so they now they do it by fostering the community part through alumni networks and offering coaching to help build the self-confidence in times of stress.

I wonder what Mark McCormack would have made of it? 

Luke Johnson, the successful restaurant entrepreneur turned private equity manager and chairman of the UK's Channel 4 TV , wrote in his Entrepreneur column in yesterday's FT a diatribe on HR departments. In small organisations there is a clear question mark over the usefulness of an HR department, but as employee numbers start to rise, above 40 I'd suggest, then the HR role starts to come into its own.

The HR department covers an extremely broad range of functions, many of which are mundane and often too exasperating for other managers to deal with effectively. While an organisation will only be as good as its people, it also will have a myriad of people issues to deal with which if not well managed would derail the successful functioning of the business. Increasingly HR departments are developing much more interesting functions, talent management and executive development being two of the current prominent areas.

Mr Johnson's article shows a startling lack of appreciation of how people dynamics affect organisations. It will be interesting to see what sort of an axe he is taking to Channel 4's HR department. Whether accurately or not, his views can only add to the impression that private equity managers can only manage numbers and have little understanding of organisational behaviour. He is vulnerable to attack on this, as he is best remembered to the general public by throwing a hissy fit whilst being filmed going "Back to the Floor" at one of his restaurants as a menial member of staff - and storming off with the memorable phrase for a future TV boss of "you can stick your programme". None of which really showed any comprehension of the people issues a company experiences outside of the boardroom. Perhaps a few days "back in the HR department" may not go amiss?

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That said, Harvard Business Review published an article back in 2001 focussing on Larry Bossidy, CEO of Allied Signal, who turned the company around by devoting 30-40% of his time to finding and developing leaders himself, " despite cries for attention from investors, suppliers, customers, and top executives" . You can read a recent summary of the article here. He clearly didn't feel that the HR department should be left with this task.

The fourth movement of Beethoven's Ninth symphony is one of the great works of classical music, where he sets Schiller's "Ode to Joy" to music. The Ode to Joy has become an iconic piece, and as Leonard Bernstein has explained it "speaks to us of hope, the future and immortality...and cannot help but to leave the listener changed, enriched, encouraged". It has been adopted as the European Union's anthem, put to hiphop and bagpipe settings. It was being played in Tienanmen Square prior to the crackdown and was played at the fall of the Berlin Wall - it is important symbolically as well as musically.

So it should not be surprising thatthis weekend it was to be found being sung by the world's business and political leaders at the closing speech of the World Economic Forum at Davos. Benjamin Zander is a world-renowned conductor - but he is also increasingly well-known as an inspirational speaker on leadership issues. He gave the closing speech at Davos this weekend to rave reviews. Even if you do not have an hour to spare it is worth carving out time to watch.

It is a great podcast as it illustrates the power to open the mind that executives can receive from this form of management/personal instruction. The world's top echelon of leaders all listening intently to Zander - and reassuringly they are responding in just the same way as others will and are moved by the same things too. Zander has the same difficulty getting this audience to sing the Ode to Joy as he might with any other group, coaxing them out of their self-conscious fear of failure.

Confronting a fear of failure is of course what motivational speaking is all about. Zander and his partner Roz, wrote the "Art of Possibility" which refutes the "success" goal, as it has as its inevitable corollary "failure", they are two-sides of the same coin; instead they promote "contribution". "Goals" as he says "are grim" but if you deal with "possibility" then new horizons continuously open up. It went down well with the Davos audience - let's hope that they can use it in their real jobs.

ps my favourite part of his talk (around 19.30 minutes in for those scrolling through the podcast) is where he describes impulses in music, and illustrates this with the different playing styles of 8,9,10 and 11 year olds. Pure genius.