Management
Holland, Dutrisac and Robbins agree that sometime it’s well
worth the expense to compensate advisory board members.
It can be quid pro quo; you sit on my planning board and I will
sit on yours. Robbins adds, “Planning boards are fabulous. I
have a number of clients using planning boards and their
growth has doubled and tripled over four or five years.”
On the surface, some owners see increasing revenue as a
numbers game. If sales are to double, inventory, equipment,
production processes, and distribution need to double as well.
That’s correct. You can’t sell what you haven’t produced. But
you can’t produce what you need if your employees don’t have
the cognitive abilities—production skills and knowledge—to
work on faster more complex production lines with new tech-
nology. The skillsets of the line workers and the organizational
skills of the managers have to expand to handle the complexity
of more customers and more business models.
Production lines become inefficient and ineffective when the
cognitive abilities of the employees are not matched to meet
the increased complexity of the production process. When the
competencies of middle managers are not matched to meet
the business’s needs, you get what Dutrisac calls jam-ups and
gaps.
Cognitive abilities
Jam-ups and gaps arise when the cognitive abilities, analytical
ability, logical thinking, concept formation, inductive and
deductive reasoning, of the employees are mismatched with
the production requirements. For example, novice managers
who have not developed the higher-level managerial skills of
problem analysis, alternative creation, and solution evaluation
and synthesis are ineffective in addressing new production
problems and leading employees successfully through them.
Leaving novice managers to struggle in the absence of skill
development is demoralizing to them and detrimental to the
company’s morale. Demotion doesn’t address the problem and
termination turns any development funds invested in that man-
ager into a sunk cost that will never have a return on
investment.
Lower level managers must be groomed for a company’s
growth spurts. Frontline employees must receive training and
education to keep their skills honed and prepared for produc-
tion changes.
Interpreting the advice of Dutrisac, Holland, and Robbins, the
misalignment of cognitive abilities is a red flag that points to
the importance of regularly visiting the strategic plan. Preparing
for growth tomorrow requires planning for tomorrow
yesterday.
Caterina Valentino, PhD, is an Instructor at the Ted Rogers School
of Management at Ryerson University and the Faculty of Health
Disciplines, Athabasca University. She can be reached at
[email protected].
@graphicarts
Insights from the experts
Maurice Dutrisac, principal,
Mastermind solutions
• If a company doesn’t have a strategic
plan, organizational structure won’t cure
growth problems. Structure follows
strategy.
• Jam-ups are created when managers are
promoted before the cognitive ability
required to address new levels of produc-
tion complexity is reached.
• Seek the assistance of an advisory board
to ensure objectivity and to set specific,
measurable, attainable, realistic and time-
sensitive company targets.
John Holland, specialist, Plutus Con-
sulting Group
• Owners are prone to multitasking instead
of stepping back and seeing where help
is needed.
• Never underestimate the importance of
understanding what stage your company
is in and the stresses that each stage
place on your organization’s systems.
• Know the quality and quantity of compe-
tencies that employees will need to grow
the company and provide the training
before each stage is reached.
Doug Robbins, founder, Robbinex Con-
sulting Intermediaries
• Tips to grow a company: plan your start,
plan for growth and plan your exit.
• Plan your product, advertising, marketing,
and employee training.
• Don’t work in a reactive mode. Plan your
growth or plan to fail.
GRAPHIC ARTS MAGAZINE | September 2018 | 17