14,000 Brains

Many years ago, a CEO off a major conglomerate was visiting one of his businesses for a periodic business review. As the meeting was ending, he innocently asked the leader of the business to tell him again how many employees were in that business. The answer was 14,015 people.

The CEO was silent for a minute or two and was clearly pondering the answer. No one in the room could have imagined where he was ultimately heading with his question.

Finally he said, “Since you have 14,000 people, you obviously have 14,000 brains available for use in this business. What a tremendous resource you have at your disposal. The average human brain weighs about three pounds. That means you have about 42,000 pounds of human brains in your business. That’s 21 tons of human brains. That is absolutely mind boggling.”

“I am curious,” he continued, “how many of those 14,000 brains are you using to help you run your business? How many of those 14,000 brains do you utilize to help you solve the business problems you encounter? How many of those 14,000 brains are you utilizing to the maximum of their capacity?”

Regardless of how the executive answered the question, he wasn’t utilizing those brains as best he could. He was instructed to put together a plan to maximize the benefit of those 14,000 brains.

How many of us concentrate on the total brain power in our businesses? How many of us try to utilize every brain in our business? How many of us are satisfied that the suggestion box we mounted on the wall adequately taps into the total brain power in our organization?

Very few people put ideas into the suggestion box. Most don’t take the time to offer a suggestion. Many feel that no one pays attention to their suggestions anyway.

As a manager, you must be pro-active in utilizing all the brain power in your organization. Once you decide to do so, there are probably a number of ways to maximize the benefit.

One of my favorite ways to get people involved and to use their brains is to conduct meetings with every person in the organization each month. And I mean every last person in the organization.

My meetings are billed as business reviews and usually last about a half-hour. I share the previous month’s business results and the challenges facing the business. For each challenge or problem I discuss I ask for ideas about how to solve the problem. Some are offered, but I never close the meetings with enough ideas. So I challenge the people to keep thinking about the issues and tell them I will walk the halls and factory floor and will stop to see if someone has come up with any additional ideas. If anyone thinks of something and sees me, grab me to discuss your thoughts. A number of people will follow up. They are happy to be involved and feel more strongly that they are part of the team as a result.

I will also carry this one step further when I conduct brainstorming sessions, strategy meetings, or problem solving meetings. They usually involve key staff members and sometimes the engineers. I have found that it does not hurt to include a few people who wouldn’t normally participate in such meetings. Perhaps I will invite a secretary, an intern, and someone from the rank and file to join us. They may just have some ideas that the “experts” haven’t thought about. Try it at your next meeting and you might be surprised.

I have found three groups of people whose brains are not tapped as much as they could be. You never seem to see young people, clerical, support, and factory people in strategy sessions, problem solving meetings, and other business meetings. Yet all have brains and can use those brains as well as everyone else.

Young people don’t participate because they don’t have many years of experience to bring to the table. Yet they have some of the sharpest brains in your organization. Are you aware that most significant inventions were invented by young people? Alexander Graham Bell was 29 when he invented the telephone. Thomas Edison was 30 when he invented the phonograph and 32 when he invented the incandescent light bulb. All three of these inventions were accomplished between 1876 and 1879. My guess is that, in today’s business world, these two geniuses would not participate in strategy development meetings or problem solving meetings at the age of 30 because they wouldn’t have enough experience to significantly contribute to the meetings. I believe the lack of experience is not necessarily bad because the young person doesn’t yet know many things are not possible. You need some of that silly thinking in your meetings.

The next group of underutilized brains resides in the heads of clerical people and support staff such as technicians. I really don’t know why this group is underutilized. I think management just feels that these people can’t contribute much more than they are doing. These people understand the business far better than you think. And each has a brain or you wouldn’t entrust them with the things you do. Invite them to participate in activities beyond the scope of their duties and you will be pleasantly surprised. I sat on a department staff under a general manager. His secretary attended all staff meetings and she wasn’t there to take minutes. The general manager considered her an equal to the rest of his staff members and she participated fully in all of our deliberations.

My favorite group is the factory workers. Many do menial tasks, day in and day out, which don’t require a great deal of brain power. I guess management doesn’t think they have much brain power or they would be doing something else for a living. That way of thinking is foolish. I can’t tell you about all the factory people I’ve known that use their brains far more after work and are highly successful in their endeavors.

I knew a mechanic who set up a silk-screen machine in his garage to decorate T-shirts with catchy sayings he made up. He literally bought the T-shirts for pennies, fixed them up, and sold them for dollars at local flea markets on the weekends. A machine operator customized hot rods in his garage in the evenings and sold one to a magazine publisher for a huge amount of money. It graced the cover of a national hot rod magazine a few months later. There are many success stories of factory workers who became entrepreneurs after work. The point is that all of these workers have brains and are highly capable of contributing to strategy sessions and problem solving meetings.

If you discuss issues with these people, challenge them to come up with ideas, and follow up getting their suggestions, you will get some good ideas. You will be starting to optimize the brain power in your business. Most importantly, the people will feel as if they are important members of the team, will have ownership in the solutions, and will work harder to make things happen in your business.

14,000 human brains or 21 tons of human brain power is a horrible resource to waste!

From the book “IT AIN’T OKAY TO FAIL”
By Brian Strachan

Visit http://www.brianstrachan.com for more information about “IT AIN’T OKAY TO FAIL”

Article Source: http://www.content.onlypunjab.com

During the past forty-four years, Brian Strachan worked for the Navy Department, General Electric, AMF and Leggett & Platt. For almost four decades he has managed organizations in engineering, sales, marketing, and manufacturing. His leadership experience has ranged from leading a unit of six engineers to general management of four different businesses. He is retired from GE and is currently continuing his career as Corporate Director of Program Management for the Leggett and Platt Aluminum Group in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

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