I read an article (A Scion Drives Toyota Back to Basics)  this morning in the Journal about Akio Toyoda whose grandfather started the company. Mr. Toyoda will be taking the reigns as President of Toyota.  In the article, there is mention of a traditional Toyota  practice called genchi genbutsu a traditional Toyota practice that means “get out of your office and visit the source of problems.” 

Now imagine this, an executive of your service organization getting out of the office to say . . . listen to phone calls from customers, open a checking account, see treadmills get repaired, observe the software development process, or (in general) look at how customers use their product or service.  I remember asking a bank executive what would happen if the CEO of a regional bank showed up at a branch to observe branch activities.  Her reply, “the employees would pass out or otherwise be faced with an assortment of medical conditions.”

What causes US executives to stay in their offices over going to where the value work (and failure work) is done?  Some of this thinking has to do with Alfred P. Sloan who in the 1930s advocated “management by the numbers” and that management should not be involved in the work.  Too many executives today follow this leadership strategy by sitting in their offices and managing their businesses from spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations.  This is a scary proposition and reports and financials don’t fully tell the whole story (see the blog Death by Call Center).

Although many executives have been on the front-line before, few dare venture out into the front-lines.  The sad part is they make a lot of assumptions about the work from when “they used to be there (on the front-lines).”  Many decisions are made either based on this thinking or what is reported off of the spreadsheets and PowerPoints from subordinates or consultants. 

Conversely, I have seen executives of service organizations that have never been in the industry (usually information technology) that have never written a line of code or understand anything about the industry the software serves.  Yet these same executives stand in front of an audience with silver tongue and PowerPoint to tell customers what direction the industry is heading and what they should do . . . buy more software!  An effort especially by these (not from industry) executives should be to get out of the office and see the work.  

Here are some things that don’t count as “getting out of the office.”  Anything that involves delegation of the activity, social activities with customer (dinner, golf, sporting events, etc.), a one-time leadership development program, or I used to do that so I know everything thinking.

I find systems thinking to be a participative sport where change management leadership has to be conducted with an understanding of the points of transactions (where the customer meets your front-line people).  There is no substitute and a word of warning when you do get out of the office to see all the things that are happening.  Do not over-react or try to fix things, make this a learning experience.