Page 192 - Harnessing the Management Secrets of Disney in Your Company

Make Your Elephant Fly—Plan 173

Trying out ideas, perhaps putting parts of several ideas together to pro-
duce a prototype, helps develop an overall concept and determine whether
or not it is workable. A prototype can be evaluated and market tested, and it
can serve as the centerpiece around which the process is developed.
When Lee Iacocca came up with the idea of reintroducing convertibles
into the Chrysler product line, he began by asking his engineers to make him
a prototype. After some figuring, the engineers came back and told him they
could do it, but it would take nine months. The exasperated Iacocca, wonder-
ing why a prototype of what he had in mind should take so long to make,
responded in effect: “You just don’t understand. Go find a car and saw the top
off the damn thing!” Within a few days, Iacocca had his convertible, which he
then drove around Detroit, conducting his own version of a marketing study.
People stopped and waved at him, shouted encouragement, or just turned
and stared in wonder. Iacocca counted the stares, the shouts, and the waves
that his prototype convertible elicited. After he had received a certain number
of these responses, he decided that Chrysler should go ahead with a line of
convertibles.
In some ways, the vision and idea-generation steps are among the sim-
pler parts of the project-management process. Any number of people can sit
around a corporate conference table and spin out a set of ideas and objectives
for their company. The real difficulty is in determining how to go about
reaching those goals.
Implementation of a project demands a carefully thought out structure that
establishes specific guidelines, from the initial “blue sky” idea up to the final
stages of completion. Certain milestones along the way must be specified, points
at which management is appraised of overall progress. Those who work on a
project need to know what is required at each step and how to measure their
headway. Efficiency dictates that nothing be left to chance. Barring unforeseen
acts of God, managers carefully plot every step on the chosen path.
We recognize that in today’s business climate, a forceful ruler patterned
after Walt Disney might generate no small amount of enmity and have a
harder time maintaining control, particularly if the company involved has
a somewhat free-wheeling culture. And, in fact, a strong argument can be
made for giving creative minds the maximum amount of freedom. But most
companies find that an approach that falls somewhere between absolute
control and complete freedom works best for them.
We recommend that each company design its own procedures for turn-
ing a dream into reality. Such a process works best if it grows naturally out