[2010] 1960s WORK
[2010] 1960s WORK
0189 BTR Management
At BTR I had a large management team reporting to me, the largest I ever had -- perhaps as many as fifty overall if you included the charge-hands. As I have said elsewhere, the workers at BTR were those who were left after the famous closing down speech. This applied just as much to the existing management. In fact they were all very loyal managers, and adequate for their jobs.
The problem was I needed managers who could lead BTR into a new era. Accordingly we advertised to recruit a significant number of very high-powered middle managers to work under me.
As it had been so successful, we decided to follow the Tavistock team's approach. Thus we started with dinner, the night before, and continued the following morning with the intelligence tests - along with the factory tour - before we had the discussions and the individual interviews. The most significant difference was that, instead of the Tavistock, we used a (less expensive) freelance psychologist; and this meant we couldn't use the Rorschach Blot Test, but had to rely more on personality tests.
In addition, seeing it from the other side table, things looked rather different to me.
Thus, we focused very tightly on the people and the answers they were giving rather than letting the interviews run themselves, as happened elsewhere. In addition, I saw the mechanisms at work beneath the surface of the process. For example, while everyone was touring factory, the psychologist was frantically marking the various tests. In addition, while the candidates were having their lunch, the management team received the report from the psychologist and put together the initial review of the candidates -- even before they had reached the main interview process. After the group discussions, we had yet another meeting together to agree which of the candidates we were to actually take forward to the individual section.
The great advantage of this process was, as well as selecting down to a small number of (4) candidates, we went into the final individual interviews knowing a considerable amount about each of the candidates. This was the very opposite of the normal process whereby the first question the candidate is asked is “...tell us about yourself”. Instead, we launched directly into ferreting out their best and worst points. We could, from time to time, even use the good cop bad cop routine. I remember, in particular, one candidate who we thought might have had the ambition to become a Conservative parliamentary candidate -- where the BTR job was just a stepping stone to that. I launched immediately into him, giving him a very tough ride - saying what we thought - and gave him the third degree, to try and break him. I didn't succeed, but he then went on to my colleague, the good cop, who said “...oh my god you must have been with David, he's a bastard”. The candidate then replied “...you bet he was, he pursued me all over the place about my Conservative candidacy. But there was no way I was going to tell him that's what I did want, even though that was true!”
The information we got even went beyond interview, for those that we recruited. Thus, we were able to start off on their introductory training programme knowing what faults we had to correct and what strong factors we could build on. Incidentally, the final benefit of the process was that it guaranteed that the candidates would accept the job. As I myself thought, and one of our candidates said out loud, “If you have put so much effort into the process and you think it is the ideal job for me then who am I to quarrel.” Interestingly I had set out believing -- based on my father's experience -- that the candidates didn't necessarily need to have a university education. I thought that there must be people out there who were just as good. Indeed, a couple of our candidates looked very promising on paper, since they had had an excellent track record in their jobs. Unfortunately, what I found was that these people -- who had worked really hard on their careers -- were at the top of the junior management ladder; but didn't have had the intellectual resources to then take them on to the high-powered middle management jobs we wanted.
In this way I hired six new managers, largely to manage the marketing side of the operation. Thus I had several new managers who were effectively brand managers for the 'new products' - including the printing business and handrails - as well as some new managers for specific aspects such as quality control.
We had only one dispute in the whole process. The deputy managing director was once more involved. He liked a candidate from South America. However, his test results for personality - and in particular IQ - were suspect. His scores were low, and we would have automatically dropped him. The psychologist, on the other hand thought it was possible that cultural differences meant that he had blown the various tests. We still thought he was too much of a risk, and essentially was not very bright; but the deputy managing director thought he was great. So he hired him for his operation. It turned out that, after only three months, we had been proved right. He was, indeed, not very bright and they had to get rid of him! This showed just how invaluable the various IQ tests were.
On paper, therefore, I had a well-balanced team. I had my half-dozen high-powered new managers and perhaps another 50 adequate -- but distinctly under powered -- managers who were already there. What I, in my inexperience and naivete, did not think about was the potential clash between these two groups. The existing managers may have been all that was left over after the shutting down speech, but they had had a number of years to hone their survival skills. Hence they were political survivors. I, and my team, were the intruders who didn't recognise the lie of the land.
Indeed, most of the managers, certainly in the middle rankings, were political animals who did what was needed to survive. In particular they said what they thought was wanted to be heard. Accordingly, I got much better input from the shop stewards. I got on very well with them, not least because they were honest. Despite the way the workforce had been treated over years -- they genuinely fought for the good of the company as much as for their own workers. This was not altruism but was because they -- rather than my managers -- realised that their workers’ continuing employment depended on making the factories efficient. Thus, I enjoyed talking with the shop stewards as I went round the factory -- something that might have alienated even further from my managers -- where I felt uncomfortable with the them; since I was convinced the latter were telling me anything but the truth!
At the end of the day this backfired on me, since I made too many enemies amongst these managers. When I was fired my own team, which I'd hired, volunteered to resign along with me -- though I didn't let them -- where the other managers just appeared to take it in their stride: it was what I deserved!
What was especially strange, however, was the way that I was able to lay off 600 workers in out boot-making plant for six months, in the process ruining their lives, without really giving it a second thought. For me, as for the shop stewards who were very helpful whilst getting the best terms for the laid off workers, it seemed almost a bookkeeping transaction. On the other hand, when I personally fired the few individuals who had to be removed in this way -- because they had their hand in the till or had indulged in some other unacceptable behaviour -- I worried about this. It was a very unpleasant experience at the time -- especially where we had to send the company chauffeur back with them, so he could drive their company car back (in case they tried to keep it). I could, having met them face-to-face, recognise that the step I was taking would damage their lives. But, one step removed, I didn't worry about the 600 others, whose lives I had just as much damaged. It was illogical. But it explains why so many fat cats seem to have no feelings when it comes to declaring redundancies.
hits