If you are not directly on the critical path, then you’d better be supporting someone who is on it. After all, as the old saying goes, “If you are not making or selling it, then you’re an expense.” If you want your salary paid, the critical path employees have to generate the money to pay you.
Support people can be divided into two groups: Critical Path Management and Support Services.
Critical Path (CP) Managers are the bosses who are in charge of the critical path guts of the business—all critical path workers report up to them. They do the managerial functions that help critical path workers be more productive, including traditional tasks such as organizing, planning, staffing, getting resources, directing, etc. They often make key decisions that affect the critical path. But that is not the same as actually working on the critical path.
These CP Managers fall into two broad categories: CP Player/Coaches and CP Minders. The Player/Coaches are still actively involved on the critical path. For example, many sales managers still make sales calls to clients, in addition to managing the sales people who work under them. Likewise, some R&D managers continue to do bench science experiments while also managing the researchers on their team. Design managers in some firms will fiddle with the critical designs for new products, even though they spend most of their time overseeing the work of other designers. Steve Jobs at Apple, for example, was notorious for inserting new design features or changing existing ones on a regular basis.
Player/coaches, then, are on the critical path and manage people on the critical path. They multi-task doing both CP work and the CP managerial support work that enables their subordinates to do a better job on the critical path.
CP Minders, on the other hand, seldom, if ever, touch the critical path directly. To see this, you need only look at where CP Minders have their offices. Most middle- to upper-level managers are located in headquarters or office buildings far away from the actual R&D labs, operations facilities, warehouses, sales offices, and loading docks that feature so prominently on the critical path. CP Minders work to improve the critical path not by working on it directly, but by working on improving the systems, processes, and training that CP workers use. They might organize the CP teams to improve communications, change the work flow to remove unnecessary steps, or figure out how to reduce defects and waste. Perhaps they also select better workers or motivate them to perform at higher levels.
Because they are not on the critical path, what CP Minders bring to the organization must make such a positive impact on improving the critical path that it more than justifies their salaries. (This also holds true for the managerial support work done by Player/Coaches.)
Every decision made and action taken by CP Managers, whether Player/Coaches or Minders, needs to benefit the critical path and those who work on it. These managers need to be powerful allies who see the entire path for today and into tomorrow, as well as the competitive landscape in which the organization operates. They adjust the path as necessary to better meet their customers’ needs and outpace the competition.
Just as importantly, the employees who actually work on the critical path must trust these CP Managers to do what is right for the critical path. These managers must understand the path and the needs of those working on it. The best managers regularly solicit input from the workforce to improve the path; actually listen to those suggestions; and then do something about them.
Jack Shewmaker, former president of Walmart and Sam Walton’s right-hand person, told me how the company did managerial support of the critical path. On a regular basis, Jack and Sam would leave headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, to go into stores and do two things. First, they would actually spend a couple hours working in the store, stocking shelves or working the cash register. This gave them a feel for the actual business in the store as well as a real-time sense of the store’s dynamics. It also demonstrated to everyone in the store, from managers to cashiers, that they weren’t too high and mighty to work the critical path, which, in turn, instilled respect and confidence in the workforce. These two top executives understood the critical path.
Second, they would meet with the employees, asking them what the store was doing right and what needed improvement. Sam and Jack would write every idea down on a yellow notepad. They would then have the list typed up and sent to the store so that the employees could make sure that the men understood their comments and suggestions. After clearing up any misunderstandings, they would then indicate which suggestions were approved so that the workers could implement them. If they didn’t agree with a suggestion, they told the workers why.
Jack and Sam did these two activities in every store they visited. Although they often heard some complaints and ideas repeated in several stores, they wrote the complaints down and responded each time as if this were the first time they’d heard it. They wanted each store’s employees to know that their top managers understood their issues vis-à-vis the critical path, and to see these executives as not only their bosses but their partners in improving the store’s critical path.
I want to stress that Jack and Sam’s actions were not just symbolic, morale-building displays aimed at showing the troops that the top brass cared about them. They were actually gathering the data they needed to help make the critical path better for their CP workers. Traveling to the stores and spending time there, not just meeting with managers but working on the floor, taught them about the particular challenges faced by individual stores and the common challenges that might require system-wide changes. By visiting a cross-section of stores, not only could they see common issues across locations, they could help transfer good ideas from one store to another. The goal was always to make the critical path better, shorter, faster, smarter, more effective, and more profitable.
Jack also told me that he and Sam would go into competitors’ stores to see how they were run. While inside, they would talk to their competitors’ employees, asking them what the store did well and what changes they would make to the store. Jack and Sam were amazed at how forthcoming these employees were with both their criticisms and good ideas—the employees were just waiting for someone to listen to them about how to improve the critical path. Of course, they incorporated the employees’ best ideas into Walmart’s operations, as well as kept an eye out for the problems that their competitors faced that might eventually affect Walmart stores.
These forays to their stores and their competitors’ stores led Jack and Sam to constantly improve Walmart’s critical path. For example, they learned the crucial importance of logistics to the merchandise in their stores. On several occasions, they had advertised products to prompt customers to come to their stores, only to have merchandise deliveries delayed en route—keeping the advertised products out of willing customers’ shopping carts. If logistics doesn’t allow you to get the merchandise into the stores, then you cannot sell the merchandise—and you create unhappy customers who lose faith in your ability to deliver. This led to the implementation of Walmart’s now-famous supply-chain management systems.
Critical Path Action Items
How are your CP managers adding real value to the critical path?
How are they getting in the way of it?