Part of the fundamental factors for organizational quality and competitiveness is innovation, but not only in the processes, but also in the form of management. Carlos Hurtado, a young manager of a service company that had grown rapidly in the last 4 years, was running into a series of problems that were escalating and seemed to have no end in sight. The Manager found no apparent reason why a company that was being run with the same recipe that led it to the top in the industry was now giving so many headaches and generating a work environment that was not very favorable for the organizational perspectives that were had.
In the first instance, he thought that one of the fundamental factors for the increase in organizational problems was the lack of employees, that the exponential increase in sales had exceeded the human capacities of current employees to handle them. He began to recruit new officials, but not only that, I am looking for young and well-prepared professionals in order to compensate experience with scientific knowledge and new ideas, thus thinking of having the ideal formula within the organization.
After a couple of months of having incorporated the new professionals, it was seen that the problems continued to increase and there was not in their contrast, a proportion of improvements that counteract this situation. So he decided to start giving formal calls for attention to his workers for each problem that arose, under the premise that perhaps the workers were not giving their all in their duties, however the problems continued and with the additional aspect that it had worsened the work environment because the civil servants thought that they gave their best and that the calls for attention received were unfair.
Carlos began to be more and more concerned that this series of internal problems began to generate a slowdown in business growth that was taking place. The young manager decided to start the implementation of a quality management system, thinking that this could become the solution to all internal problems. The project was launched with a very large internal marketing, work groups were created, all personnel were intensively trained and very complex procedures were developed that sought to cover the greatest number of probable situations and how to treat them; however, the business situation did not change and was already beginning to affect customer satisfaction.
Burdened by problems that exceeded his human capacity to handle, the manager called a meeting with his entire management team to analyze the reason for the situation and the proposals that could be made to get out of the situation. All possible aspects were analyzed and the following conclusion was reached:
- They had highly experienced staff complemented by highly trained professionals, to this was added the fact of having had an intensive training program, thanks to the recently implemented quality management system, so there were no weaknesses on that side. In turn, the quality management system that had allowed ordering the processes and establishing continuous improvement methodologies, at least on paper, so there should be no problems on that side, it was a matter of complying with what was formally established. With the most advanced technological development of the local industry, therefore, lack of support tools to make processes more efficient was not the problem either. The company had the necessary infrastructure and equipment to provide a good service.
So what was the problem of the organization? The young manager did not understand what was happening. However, determining the cause of the problems was simpler than what could be expected, but unfortunately not easy to solve, the problem was that everything had changed except the type of management that had been inherited from the previous manager who had been since the beginning of the company and that had led to its success, the company had grown, the environment had changed, the employees had changed, so the management style also had to change according to new needs, both internal and external.
But the young manager did not want to accept that, although he was short of age but had inherited the old way of management and unconsciously did not want to change it, despite what he said about the need to innovate and adapt to changes in the environment. But all innovation in processes and ways of working are of no use if there is not a change in the managerial mentality that directs it. The management style that led an organization to success can be very good, but for the characteristics of the environment existing at the time the peak was reached, but it is very likely not the ideal to maintain it. What was good before was good for that time, but it does not mean that it gives the same results for the current or future environment.Many successful companies have gone into a tailspin because they maintained the management style they had when they achieved it. To maintain success, you have to constantly innovate everything, including your leadership style.
All business innovation must start with innovation in management style, otherwise every effort will not do much good.
