W h y s o m e c o m p a n I e s m a k e t h e
F REED OMAN DR ESP ON SI BI LIT Y )
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| F REED OMAN DR ESP ON SI BI LIT Y ) A FRAMEWORK Picture an airline pilot. She settles into the cockpit, surrounded by dozens of complicated switches and sophisticated gauges, sitting atop a massive $84 million piece of machinery. As passengers thump and stuff their bags into overhead bins and flight attendants scurry about trying to get everyone settled in, she begins her preflight checklist. Step by methodical step, she systematically moves through every required item. Cleared for departure, she begins working with air traffic control, following precise instructions-which direction to takeout of the gate, which way to taxi, which runway to use, which direction to takeoff. She doesn't throttle up and hurtle the jet into the air until she's cleared for takeoff. Once aloft, she communicates continually with flight-control centers and stays within the tight boundaries of the commercial air traffic system. On approach, however, she hits a ferocious thunder-and-hail storm. Blasting winds, crossways and unpredictable, tilt the wings down to the left, then down to the right. Looking out the windows, passengers can't seethe ground, only the thinning and thickening globs of gray clouds and the spatter of rain on the windows. The flight attendants announce, "Ladies and gentlemen, we've been asked to remain seated for the remainder of the flight. Please put your seats in the upright and locked position and place all your carry-on baggage under the seat in front of you. We should be on the ground shortly" G o o d t oi iGreat 125 "Not too shortly, I hope" think the less experienced travelers, unnerved by the roiling wind and momentary flashes of lightning. But the experienced travelers just goon reading magazines, chatting with seatmates, and preparing for their meetings on the ground. "I've been through all this before" they think. "Shell only land if it's safe" Sure enough, on final approach-wheels down as a quarter of a million pounds of steel glides down at miles per hour-passengers suddenly hear the engines whine and feel themselves thrust back into their seats. The plane accelerates back into the sky. It banks around in a big arc back toward the airport. The pilot takes a moment to click on the intercom Sorry, folks. We were getting some bad crosswinds there. We're going to give it another try" On the next go, the winds calm just enough and she brings the plane down, safely. Now take a step back and think about the model here. The pilot operates within a very strict system, and she does not have freedom to go outside of that system. (You don't want airline pilots saying, "Hey, I just read in a management book about the value of being empowered-freedom to experiment, to be creative, to be entrepreneurial, to try a lot of stuff and keep what works) Yet at the same time, the crucial decisions-whether to takeoff, whether to land, whether to abort, whether to land else- where-rest with the pilot. Regardless of the strictures of the system, one central fact stands out above all others The pilot has ultimate responsibility for the airplane and the lives of the people on it. The point here is not that a company should have a system as strict and inflexible as the air traffic system. After all, if a corporate system fails, people don't die by the hundreds in burning, twisted hunks of steel. Customer service at the airlines might be terrible, but you are almost certain to get where you are going in one piece. The point of this analogy is that when we looked inside the good-to-great companies, we were reminded of the best part of the airline pilot model freedom and responsibility within the framework of a highly developed system. 126 Jim "This was the secret to how we were able to run stores from a great distance, by remote control" said Bill Rivas of Circuit City. "It was the combination of great store managers who had ultimate responsibility for their individual stores, operating within a great system. You've got to have management and people who believe in the system and who do whatever is necessary to make the system work. But within the boundaries of that system, store managers had a lot of leeway, to coincide with their Ina sense, Circuit City became to consumer electronics retailing what McDonald's became to restaurants-not the most exquisite experience, but an enormously consistent one. The system evolved overtime as Circuit City experimented adding new items like computers and video players (just like McDonald's added breakfast Egg But at any given moment, everyone operated within the framework of the system. "That's one of the major differences between us and all the others who were in this same business in the early said Bill Zierden. "They just couldn't roll further, and we could. We could stamp these stores out allover the country, with great Therein lies one of the reasons why Circuit City took off in the early sand beat the general stock market by more than eighteen times over the next fifteen years. Ina sense, much of this book is about creating a culture of discipline. It all starts with disciplined people. The transition begins not by trying to discipline the wrong people into the right behaviors, but by getting self- disciplined people on the bus in the first place. Next we have disciplined thought. You need the discipline to confront the brutal facts of reality, while retaining resolute faith that you can and will create a path to greatness. Most importantly, you need the discipline to persist in the search for understanding until you get your Hedgehog Concept. Finally, we have disciplined action, the primary subject of this chapter. This order is important. The comparison companies often tried to jump right to disciplined action. But disciplined action without self-disciplined people is impossible to sustain, and disciplined action without disciplined thought is a recipe for disaster. Indeed, discipline by itself will not produce great results. We find plenty of organizations in history that had tremendous discipline and that marched right into disaster, with precision and in nicely formed lines. No, the point is to first get self-disciplined people who engage in very rigorous thinking, who then take disciplined action within the framework of a consistent system designed around the Hedgehog Concept. Good to Great DISCIPLINED DISCIPLINED DISCIPLINED People Thought Action Download 3.69 Mb. Share with your friends:
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