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I grew up working in my father’s business. He sold industrial supplies like bolts, nuts and construction tools to contractors throughout Utah and the Intermountain West. At sixteen I was driving the delivery truck and working in the warehouse. In the early days it was just he and I (him mostly). I would come over after school to pull orders and make deliveries. It was a good education to learn about starting and managing a small business.
My Dad felt like there was a right way and a wrong way to do everything—and that included the way I swept the warehouse floor. Every time I would try to find a shortcut or sidestep how he wanted me to work, he would remind me that there just aren’t shortcuts or an easy way around the right way to do some things.
While sitting in a waiting room the other day, I picked up the December 2011 issue of the Harvard Business Review and stumbled upon an article titled First, Let’s Fire All the Managers by Gary Hamel. My Dad would have hated Mr. Hamel’s argument, but there might be something to it.
Hamel suggests, “Management is the least efficient activity in your organization.”
I’ve certainly worked in organizations where that was the case—have you? “A hierarchy of managers exacts a hefty tax on any organization,” he suggests. “This levy comes in several forms. First, managers add overhead, and as an organization grows, the costs of management rise in both absolute and relative terms.”
I’m not convinced this is the only reason why we should reconsider how we manage process and lead people. Today’s economic climate requires organizations to do something more than just approach business as usual. Hamel argues, “We are all prisoners of the familiar. Many things—the first iPhone, J.K. Rowling’s wizardly world, Lady Gaga’s sirloin gown—were difficult to envision until we encountered them. So it is with organizations…”
As an example of a successful organization that’s completely thrown typical management structures on its head, Hamel talks about the Morning Star Company (a $700 million a year tomato processor) headquartered in Woodland, California. Morning Star focuses on seven core principles they call Colleague Principles. These principles are the foundation for how they “…encourage, achieve and maintain an atmosphere of high integrity, trust, competence and harmony among all colleagues, customers and suppliers…” According to Morning Star’s Organizational Vision, they do this to create a company in which all team members will be “self-managing professionals, initiating communications and the coordination of their activities with fellow colleagues, customers, suppliers, and fellow industry participants, absent direction from others.”
Here are the core principles:
Whether or not your embrace the Morning Star model for eliminating management (I think leadership is critical for any endeavor), there are clearly compelling reasons to embrace their “Colleague Principles.” Would these principles make sense within your organization?
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Small business evangelist and veteran of over 30 years in the trenches of Main Street business, Ty makes small business financing and trends accessible in common sense language devoid of the jargon.
Small Business Tools
7 min read • Aug 12, 2022