Management by Karaoke

Management by Karaoke In order to make best business decisions, Japanese managers first collect as much as information as possible. The technique they use has come to be known as “Management by walking around” (MBWA). This technique has become very popular and has been written about by many researchers concerned with organizational leadership and management. American Nobel Prize-winning chemist Linus Pauling also believed that ”the best way to come up with good ideas is to collect a lot of ideas.” The founder of the giant retail chain Wal-Mart has institutionalized this idea as a program called “I have an idea.” Every Saturday he spends time to talk with employees about their ideas for improvements. Former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich has also used MBWA. He used to make frequent visits companies and talked with employees. Sometimes the employee would refer to the company as “they” and sometimes as “we, our company.” Mr. Reich observed that companies which the employees referred to as “we” functioned well, whereas companies referred to by employees as “they” had a variety of problems. The effectiveness MBWA is limited by the amount of trust employees have in company management. If they don’t trust management, they are not willing to speak openly; they think, “Uh! what difference will my opinion make? They won’t listen to me.” And they don’t especially like to see managers walking around observing them; they think, “Why don’t they leave me alone?” From this situation, a new management philosophy was born ”Management by sitting around” (MBSA). This is Karaoke came from. Many Japanese managers believe that there is no better way to get to understand their employees and gain their trust than to sing Karaoke with them. Some American managers have gone deeper. They organize regular “brown bag meetings” or “lunches with staff.” For that reason, we can develop MBSA to become “Management by drinking around” (MBDA). Of course, just because they sing together, or eating together, doesn’t mean that managers and employees will understand each other better. That depends on the quality of the activity. Other management techniques include going to competitor’s retail stores and observing how they do things, talking time to observe how employees treat customers, and visiting suppliers to see how they insure of their products. Some managers find it most practical actually to purchase their competitor’s products and use them in order to compare them to their own companies’ products. These are all ways of collecting ample information before making management decisions. Bản Tiếng Việt đã đăng trên TBKTSG ngày 14-3-2002, trang 24.