Corporate Learning
Strategies
Daniel R. Tobin,
Ph.D.
Correcting Functional Myopia
Copyright ©1998 Daniel R. Tobin
During
the building of a new house some years ago, I happened to stop by the site one
afternoon. As I walked through the house, I found the drywall contractor
finishing his work in what would be the dining room. He had done a fine job,
except for one thing -- the insulation contractor had not yet insulated the
walls.
"What
do you think you're doing?" I asked.
"I'm
doing what I'm paid to do -- put up drywall."
"But
the insulation isn't in the walls yet!" I complained.
"That's
not my problem," he replied. "I'm being paid to do the drywall."
This
contractor measured his work by how good a job he did on the drywall, whether
the work was done on time, and whether he made his profit. In doing his job, he
did not consider how his work fit into the overall plans for the house -- he
didn't care whether the walls were insulated or not.
Similarly,
in high-technology companies, design engineers traditionally measure their work
by the elegance of their designs, whether the design of a new product include
all of the latest technological advances. Their product designs may win
industry awards, but if a product is not what the customer wants, if it is
loaded with features than raise costs but that few customers will ever use,
there is little point to the design exercise.
"Functional
myopia" exists when an organization -- or a person -- becomes so focused
on its local or group goals and standards that it loses sight of the overall
goals of the company. No individual or group is exempt from this syndrome, from
the petty-case clerk to the legal department to the engineering manager to the
sales person to the drywall contractor. I'm sure that you have experienced, and
been frustrated by, the functional myopia of many people and groups you deal
with daily in your personal and professional lives.
Functional
myopia can undermine any and all company efforts at transformation or renewal.
At best, it can slow progress toward company goals. At worst, those goals may
not be reached at all. If I had not happened to visit the building site on that
day, I wouldn't have known that anything was wrong until I noticed how cold the
dining room was during the winter. In the case of the high-tech manufacturer,
the myopia of design engineers often results in products that customers don't
want or that are priced so high they are noncompetitive in the market.
Functional myopia can subvert the best-laid plans of any organization. For
example:
The
purchasing department, in seeking the lowest-cost supplier (its traditional
measure of performance), may overlook product quality or timeliness of
delivery, thereby foiling the company's attempts to improve quality or reduce
time to market.
The
materials managers in one factory may hoard a key material so that it is always
in stock locally, even while another of the company's factories may have to
shut down for several weeks because of a shortage of that material.
The
legal department may hold up a key industry alliance for months, arguing with
the other company's over minor, inconsequential wording changes in the
partnership agreement.
The
training department may stall sales of a new product by sticking so rigorously
to its standards for course development that training is not available on the
new product until six months after it is ready to ship.
The
list of ways in which functional myopia can hurt organizations is endless. But
if everyone is working for the same company, how does functional myopia happen?
The Roots of Functional Myopia
New
companies don't suffer from functional myopia. In a startup company, there is a
small group of entrepreneurs who work together constantly with a united purpose
-- to develop that first product or service and sell it. But as the startup
grows, the small initial group expands, and with that expansion comes
functional specialization. As each function expands, departments become larger,
and the focus tends to narrow to the work of the department, with employees
often losing sight of the company's overall goals. Research, design,
manufacture, marketing, and service become sequential activities, with each
group waiting for the previous group to finish its work before passing it on.
Functional myopia stems from three basis roots:
CULTURAL
ROOTS - Cultural issues, dealing with the norms of behavior for the overall
corporation and for individual functions and organizations within the company,
can take many forms. They may appear as stereotypes of various functions, some
traceable to long-standing rivalries, others to actual differences in status as
reflected in salary scales and perquisites, such as office size. Each
profession has its own standards by which it measures the quality of its work.
At the most simple level, one could say that design engineers are measured on
the elegance and performance of their designs, manufacturing on how
inexpensively a product can be made, service engineers on "mean time to
repair," purchasing people on getting the lowest prices from suppliers,
and so forth. These goals are often in conflict with each other. For example, a
design feature may boost performance but also increase manufacturing cost, or a
certain method of manufacture may lower production costs but increase servicing
costs. Resolution of such conflicts cannot always be made on the basis of
objective technical criteria. More often, it is a political process, where
politics is defined as "the art of the possible."
ORGANIZATIONAL
ROOTS - Many manufacturing companies have grown up as hierarchies in which each
function has its own department, and communications between the functions take
place primarily at the tops of the respective departments -- the vice
presidents of engineering and manufacturing may meet regularly to discuss
issues, but managers and individual contributors lower in their groups don't
often confer. These are commonly called "stovepipe" organizations.
Because members of each organization cannot see beyond their respective stovepipes,
their focus is local or myopic. To succeed, they must adhere to the standards
and practices of their respective functions. Even if they thought that there
would be some benefit from working more closely with their counterparts in
other functions, the boundaries of their respective stovepipes bar this from
happening: "Just do your own work and let the other department worry about
theirs."
ADMINISTRATIVE
ROOTS - Because companies are oriented to the achievements of individuals,
there may actually be disincentives for most employees to remove their
functional blinders. "If my performance and salary reviews are based on
the standards and goals of my own organization, I had better make certain that
I play by the rules." So trying to cooperate across functions or
organizations can actually result in a poorer performance review, even if it is
better for the overall goals of the company.
Correcting Functional Myopia
Given
the root causes of functional myopia, how can organizations overcome these
barriers to get employees at all levels to work together, to consider the
larger picture, and to optimize overall company results, rather than
individual, functional goals? Functional myopia can be overcome only addressing
all three root causes. To accomplish this, a three-pronged approach is
required:
EDUCATION
AND TRAINING programs can help to overcome cultural barriers and to develop
cross-functional teamwork. Charting business processes to understand how each
group's work is codependent on other groups' work is a good place to start.
Changes
in ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN can help to eliminate stovepipes and open up lines of
communication across functions and groups.
Changes
in ADMINISTRATIVE POLICIES AND PROCEDURES to tie individual measurements and
rewards more closely to overall company goals can help people focus more on
helping the company as a whole to reach its goals.
To
correct functional myopia, organizations must examine their economic value
chains, both internal and external, in order to maximize overall productivity
and profitability. When functions operate only to maximize their local goals,
they lose sight of the larger picture and often make decisions that cannot be
justified in the larger context.
Dan Tobin
welcomes your reactions to and comments on this article. To send him e-mail, click here
or send email to DanielTobin@att.net.