Page 189 - The McKinsey Mind

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164 The McKinsey Mind

start work. Unfortunately, no one has told him exactly who his
client is. He knows that he reports to Madeleine, the vice president
of production, but he has a feeling he also answers to several more
people. To get a handle on the problem, he sits down and makes a
list of everyone with whom he interacts and updates this list over
time. He lists the specific demands they have of him and when. He
also identifies exactly how his efforts help them get their jobs done.
For kicks, he also lists two adjectives that describe the personality
of each person.
When he analyzes his own position, he sees that he does much
more than just order raw materials. For example, for Maddie, his
boss (Ms. Trott to him), he ensures that inventory is kept low so
that inventory costs and write-offs are kept to a minimum. Grace
and Zach, two production supervisors who use the majority of his
parts, look to Lukas to keep adequate stocks of both raw materials
and spare parts to avoid a break in their manufacturing schedules.
His administrative assistant, Mike, wants to grow in his job and do
much more than just answer the phone. Thinking strategically
about his clients and their needs, Lukas realizes that he has the
potential to add value for his organization through improved man-
agement of inventory information; he decides to invest in a new
scheduling software package with terminal linkage to the produc-
tion supervisors and cost report generation on a daily basis to his
boss. He also sends Mike on a special training program to learn
how to run the software.
Lukas is off to a good start and he is quickly building a repu-
tation for innovative solutions. He did so by thinking carefully
about exactly who his clients are and what they need. He then
developed an innovative solution based on their needs and made
them aware of its capabilities. They began coming to him for addi-
tional information, and it wasn’t long before Lukas was promoted
to the knowledge management department as a manufacturing
information liaison.