14,000 Brains
2 views
Skip to first unread message
Jerry Hunter
Oct 14, 2009, 9:53:14 PM10/14/09
to Mind Power
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"
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"
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages