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A Secret To Increase Profits

Written by: Gene Levine

Article Overview: What is the main reason some labor intensive companies fail and how you can use this secret to avoid making the mistake that spelled their demise?

A Secret To Increase Profits

Is Zeb, the vegetable farmer in your employ? You decide . . .

Zeb's business was growing his own vegetables and selling them at his stand in a nearby town. This was many years ago, and in a very under-developed part of the country.

In those times a farmer's best friend was his mule. Each morning Zeb took his mule out into the field just as his father, grandfather and great-grandfather before him had done.

He would lead his mule out to where his vegetables were stacked in baskets. First, he would put a load of vegetables on one side of the mule, then quickly balance that load on the other side with a "balance stone." He would then lead his mule off to town where he would sell his vegetables for money to enjoy a good life.

One day on the road he met a traveler who asked if he might join Zeb on the trek to town. En route the traveler ventured a few curious questions.

"Where are you going?"

"To yonder town to sell my vegetables," answered Zeb.

"Have you sold produce for a long time?"

"Yep," said Zeb. "My kin's business was sellin' vegetables in these parts for as long as I can remember."

The traveler then turned to the mule and, spotting the strange stone inquired, "Why is that huge stone strapped to your mule?"

"Why," replied Zeb without hesitation, "that's to balance the load of vegetables."

"But what would happen if you took the stone off?" queried the traveler.

"Oh," Zeb responded brightly, "the mule would tip over and fall on top of the vegetables."

"But," the traveler insisted, "why not plan to balance the load of vegetables on one side of the mule with an equal load of vegetables on the other side? That way you could take twice as many to market at the same time."

"Nope. Couldn't do that," Zeb said.

"Why not?" the stranger persisted.

"What would I do with the stone?"

"Why you could throw it away," the traveler laughed.

Zeb slowly shook his head from side to side in dissent.

"I couldn't do that either," he said, resolutely.

"And why not?" asked the traveler, incredulously.

"Because," said Zeb. "it's been in my family's business for years!"

And so it is with our jobs. We often . . . all too often . . . do what we do because we've done it that way for years, and haven't really stopped to take the time to figure out a better way.

So how many "balance stones" are you carrying in your business? Are your human resources payroll or payload? How long has it been since you questioned your people dealing methodologies with a truly analytical eye? Uncle Zeb precluded self-renewal. How about you and your company?

Mark Shepard, Jr., a former president of Texas Instruments once said;

"The challenge of increasing human effectiveness is emerging as the remaining frontier offering competitive advantages to the organizations most successful in channeling human talent and energies into constructive outlets. The reservoir is vast, since talent at all levels is poorly utilized."

Most business managers could do a better job in realizing that although they have employed people, most of these people are under-employed and their under-utilization leads to their job boredom, which in itself is a major deterrent to maximum individual productivity. The final effect of under-employment is high turnover - management's curse.

I have found that the main reason for under-utilization is that managers and supervisors do not know how to correct it - becase they have never been exposed to the available effective solutions. In short, workers are under-utilized because the people who direct them are under-trained.

Executives are well aware of the fact that worker effectiveness has a direct bearing on labor costs. It therefore intrigues me to see how many corporations completely fail to maximize the available employee potential. You may be asking how much potential is there? Here's what I know . . .

I've held over 150 management-oriented seminars to date usually attended by about 40 key executives. I always ask them this question;

"Suppose there was a secret magic pill that was put into your company's water supply. Then, when everyone in your workforce drank the treated water they would become immediately motivated to work to their full capacity. How much more do you think they would produce (using their present equipment, methods, etc.)?

The replies usually range from 5% to 100% with a consistent to-date average of 30%. The same 30% figure also pops up during those Confidential Corporate Surveys we conduct.

To achieve that 30% cost avoidance only requires one thing - properly getting your employees sufficiently motivated to release their untapped potential. And whose job is it to get their employees motivated; the supervisors!

Thus, I do not think 30% potential cost-avoidance will come about through coercion or intensifying present traditional management styles. Since the shortfall shows these styles are ineffective. Cost-avoidance will come forth only when today's management finally realizes that there is a "secret magic pill" available to them now! The secret is (and it really is no secret), that management and supervision must consciously satisfy the needs of their employees while those they supervise are at work.

Studies show, that based on results, about 20% of those chosen to be supervisors should never have been offered the job in the first place. Furthermore, regardless of whether they were qualified or not, once they assumed the position, 95% never received any further applicable training to better prepare them for what they would face. Their development was then left to guesswork and chance. They learned for the most part like Uncle Zeb, our vegetable farmer and passively cloned themselves into the style they were told to adopt or one that they previously observed in others.

Here's the question . . . Without a formal training programs specifically designed to produce an award winning supervisor or manager, how can we expect them to do the job we ask of them? The only acceptable answer is: we can't!!! The wrong person, being trained wrong, is wrong. To examine the specifics of effective supervision development programs you might want to consult our Supervisory Training and Development Manual that you'll found on our website.

In closing, remember that nothing happens unless you cause it to happen. Your biggest challenge is to do what Uncle Zeb should have done in his business: Throw away the dead weight of tradition and double your payload. Begin now to upgrade the skills, knowledge, motivations and effectiveness of these few employees who control your company's resources of machinery, money, materials, manpower, information and minutes, or, you will never solve the problems caused by their limitations. Either you take the time now (length of training sessions are about 2% of their normal work hours per week) to retrain your key employees properly, or, you will surely have to take time to continually solve the problems their limitations cause.

Unlike Uncle Zeb, throw away the stone. Until next time remember; in the end, it is the people who do not try that become the only ones who fail.

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Article Tags: Cost Avoidance, Efficiency, HR, Human Resources, Increased Profit, Profit



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