APICS Pikes Peak Colorado Chapter

EDITORIAL

Assessing Potential Management Talent

By Ira Smolowitz, Ph.D.

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The management guru Marcus Buckingham firmly believes in the following differentiation between a good manager and a bad manager:

According to Buckingham, the best managers share one talent-the ability to find, and capitalize upon, their employees' unique traits. "The guiding principle is, 'How can I take this person's talent and turn it into performance?' That's the only way success is possible." And yet not everyone has that knack, Buckingham said. If he has learned anything from his years spent interviewing the best minds of the business world, it is this: Truly great managers, and truly inspiring business leaders, are rarer than many think. "Some of you in this room may not have that talent," he said. "If not, management can become a thankless task."

Checkers vs. Chess
How to tell a good manager from a bad manager? According to Buckingham, it's simple: Bad managers play checkers. Good managers play chess. The good manager knows that not all employees work the same way. They know if they are to achieve success, they must put their employees in a position where they will be able to use their strengths. "Great managers know they don't have 10 salespeople working for them. They know they have 10 individuals working for them...A great manager is brilliant at spotting the unique differences that separate each person and then capitalizing on them."1

I fully accept Marcus Buckingham's insightful observations. My question, which this article will address, is: how can a corporation early-on identify good potential managers? Remember: (a) resumes are often creative pieces of fiction; (b) most reference checks will only confirm a candidates former job title, and employment duration. I believe the Waiter Rule is of vital importance. Consider the following:

Office Depot CEO Steve Odland remembers like it was yesterday working in an upscale French restaurant in Denver.

The purple sorbet in cut glass he was serving tumbled onto the expensive white gown of an obviously rich and important woman. "I watched in slow motion ruining her dress for the evening," Odland says. I thought I would be shot on sight.".

Thirty years have passed, but Odland can't get the stain out of his mind, nor the woman's kind reaction. She was startled, regained composure and, in a reassuring voice, told the teenage Odland, "It's OK. It wasn't your fault." When she left the restaurant, she also left the future Fortune 500 CEO with a life lesson: You can tell a lot about a person by the way he or she treats a waiter.

Raytheon CEO Bill Swanson says there is one management rule that never fails:

"Watch out for people who have a situational value system, who can turn the charm on and off depending on the status of the person they are interacting with," Swanson writes. "Be especially wary of those who are rude to people perceived to be in subordinate roles."

The Waiter Rule also applies to the way people treat hotel maids, mailroom clerks, bellmen and security guards. Au Bon Pain co-founder Ron Shaich, now CEO of Panera Bread, says he was interviewing a candidate for general counsel in St. Louis. She was "sweet" to Shaich but turned "amazingly rude" to someone cleaning the tables, Shaich says. She didn't get the job.

Shaich says any time candidates are being considered for executive positions at Panera Bread, has asks his assistant, Laura Parisi, how they treated her, because some applicants are "pushy, self-absorbed and rude" to her before she transfers the call to him. 2

To me, the key to corporate success is the ability to anticipate. A successful manager must anticipate changes in the firm's customer base, initiatives by the competition, etc. Successful anticipation requires drawing upon the observations of employees at diverse levels. This, in turn, requires high interpersonal skills. The Waiter Rule is a good litmus test of a management candidate's interpersonal skills. In the words of Emily Post: "manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you use. 3

References
1. Good Managers Focus on Employees' Strengths, Not Weakness" Knowledge @ Wharton - downloaded 6/16/05 from http: //knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu p.1.

2. Jones, Del "CEOs Vouch for Waiter Rule: Watch How People Treat Staff" USA Today April 14, 2006 pp. 1B-2B.

3. Downloaded 4/21/06 from Famous Quotes Central (Etiquette Quotes) - http.//home.att.net/~quotations/etiquette.html, p.1.
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Articles printed with the permission of Dr. Ira Smolowitz, Professor of Finance and Dean, Bureau of Business Research and Program Development at American International College, Springfield, MA.
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Page updated: May 21, 2007 7:49 AM

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