Page 107 - Harnessing the Management Secrets of Disney in Your Company

88 The Disney Way

Traditionally, whether the buying is done by a group in the corporate struc-
ture or, as sometimes happens, by a special purchasing group, the respon-
sibility has always rested in the hands of white-collar executive personnel.
The work crews that operate from the trucks and the people who drive and
maintain them have nothing to do with acquiring them.
At our East Coast client, the vice president in charge of materials was
new on the job, having spent many years as a purchasing manager for an air-
line company. When we asked him how he went about buying needed sup-
plies, his honesty and candor were both refreshing and instructive. He readily
admitted that he didn’t know anything about utility trucks, even though he
was charged with buying hundreds of them. So what did he do?
“I got a group of line workers together,” he said, “the people who were
using the trucks, plus people from purchasing and an accountant, and I said to
them, ‘Go into a room and don’t come out until you can give me the specs for
a truck.’ And you know what? We saved a ton of money, and for the first time
ever, the line workers were really pleased with equipment we got for them.”
Contrast that story with one we heard from a group of line workers at
another utility. The purchasing department bought trucks without any consul-
tation with line workers, who were forced to come up with their own solution:
“When we get a new truck in,” they told us, “we cut things off of it and weld
things onto it. In two or three weeks, we have that truck the way we want it.”
Innovative? Absolutely. Efficient? No way! But this is exactly the kind of
thing that happens when management is wedded to the oft-heard principle,
“That’s the way we’ve always done things here.” Through either hubris or
inertia, outmoded and costly methods of operation remain in place year after
year, leader after leader.
But this need not be so. Any manager can imitate the innovative vice presi-
dent at the first utility who organized a multifunctional group of people to work
together to find the best possible solution to a problem. Rather than following
an inefficient and imprudent practice, however “standard,” and ordering a fleet
of expensive trucks or some other high-priced item, a manager can take the
initiative to change any wrongheaded procedure. But taking that initiative often
means bringing the front-line people into the process, people who know what is
needed, as in the case of the utility that acquired trucks that met workers’ needs.
At the same time, this team saved the company a lot of money, planning well
in advance of the purchase and coming in well under budget.
When properly structured, teams can improve everything from the bot-
tom line to employee satisfaction with the job. In fact, much of the research