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Borrowing
from Jack
By Michael Alan Hamlin
February 25, 2002
Our firm spent last Friday and Saturday
(I wrote this column mostly on Thursday) engaged in our annual team
building and planning exercise. I'm a real touchy-feely skeptic,
so while I feel that these annual get-togethers are critical activities
for our firm I always wind up squirming when interviewing potential
trainers and facilitators. They just seem so naive when it comes
to real business.
This year was no different. An associate kindly - and
thoughtfully - recommended someone he thought could help us. The
proposed trainers' credentials were impressive, and he has done
work for a good number of great Philippine companies. But aside
from going through a few feel-good, corny games meant to build teamwork,
I just didn't get it. Nevertheless, we asked him to help out.
I never got the chance to be disappointed, though.
The trainer said a major client suddenly required him for a similar
session, and he just couldn't say no. Maybe that's the case; maybe
not. Maybe it was that he felt my skepticism was so overpowering
that anything he might try would be compromised. I have to admit,
I'd hate to have to design a training program for someone like me
(I can already feel all you HR managers and motivational specialists
shaking your fingers at me, and rightly so.).
This left us in the uncomfortable - and critical -
position of having to decide what to do Friday and Saturday. I couldn't
think of anyone to help us, and no one in their right mind would
agree to help us on such short notice, especially with my attitude.
Conveniently, I used my recent preoccupation with Jack Welch (as
regular readers of this column know) to come up with an emergency
plan.
Welch is a great believer in training. He says he spent
an extraordinary amount of time at Crotonville, GE's fabled training
center. "I was in the Pit once or twice a month, for up to
four hours at a time. Over the course of 21 years, I had the chance
to connect directly with nearly 18,000 GE leaders. Going there always
rejuvenated me. It was one of the favorite parts of my job."
The Pit, incidentally, is a large case room like those
you see in business schools. Amphitheater like, the professor or
facilitator stands in front of the class staring up at students
and participants who glare back down at him or her. It's not like
being on a stage, but rather, obviously, a pit. From 1984 until
he retired late last year, Welch went to Crotonville to participate
in every one of the company's top three management classes, he says.
Before Welch showed up for his session, he would sometimes
"send ahead a handwritten memo of what I expected to cover
during a session. For our MDC (Management Development Course), I
typically asked them to think as a group about some issues."
For instance, Welch would write, "I'll be talking about A,
B, and C players. I'll be asking your thoughts about the differing
characteristics of each... And want to engage you in a discussion
about them."
When our trainer declined to help us out, I immediately
thought of that question. And the more I thought about it, the more
I became convinced that Welch's questions to his top executives
could be a guide for our little company's team. So I put a series
of questions together derived from a series of questions Welch provides
in his book, Jack: Straight From the Gut, that we would tackle in
discussion sessions in between our vision, mission, and goal setting
sessions. The first couple of questions were:
1. What are the major frustrations you deal with...
that I can help with?
2. What are the three best things about working with our company?
3. What don't you like about your career with our company that you
would like to see changed?
I thought these would give me some insights into issues
that we need to address to make our company an exciting and rewarding
place to work. But I also wanted to know what our colleagues thought
I should be doing as a leader. So I borrowed some more questions:
1. If you were appointed managing director, what would
you do in the first 30 days?
2. Do you have a current "vision" of what to do?
3. How would you go about developing one?
And I realized that this would become a key component
of our vision, mission session. I would ask four more questions:
1. Present your best shot at a vision.
2. How would you go about "selling" the vision?
3. What foundations would you build on?
4. What current practices would you jettison?
5. What kind of people will you need to realize your vision?
We've got a pretty frank, empowered group in my view.
I'm not sure that's the view of a majority of our team members,
or at least I wasn't when I was writing this piece. But the questions
excited me, and I was looking forward to the discussions and finding
out more about our company and where it's headed.
(Michael Alan Hamlin is the managing director of consultancy
TeamAsia and the author of three books on Asian economies and companies.
His latest book is Marketing Asian Places, of which he is co-author.
His e-mail address is mahamlin@teamasia.com.ph.)
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