Complexity in designing an impeccable service

I learned some management and life lessons in my recent trip to Halong Bay, Vietnam.  I took a local two-day-1-night cruise at Halong Bay. It was a very enjoyable vacation.

There are three basic components in the cruise that provide comfort and enjoyment to me during the cruise.

(i) Scenery - most people go to Halong Bay for its unique scenery.  This is the environment more or less uncontrollable  independent of the cruise one takes;

(ii)  Operating company of the cruise which provides the hardware including the ship itself, the operating logistics and support such as programs, the food, registration process, the convenience, sense of security and so on;

(iii) Front-line staffs who actually perform the services during the cruise.

I highly rated the scenery. It is just magnificent.   For number (ii) the company, it got high rating from me too. The registration and waiting room before embarkation are of 5-star, high class private club like with its own private prier. It is far way from the crowds.  The company has a good name in the industry and owns several well maintained ships. The staterooms are large, luxurious, clean and well equipped. 

Halong Bay and Honoi area was part of the communist regime.  Such cultural background does not land itself to good services.  So the front-line service can be better.  Small nuisances like missing utensils at the dining table, lukewarm coffee, delays in program schedule, impolite and arrogant managers. 

In short, (i) external environment - excellent; (ii) the company - excellent; (iii) service - poor.

In traditional manufacturing, the interface between division of work is precise and can be clearly defined. The "distance" from a designer to a customer is large. The same is true for the distance between a production unit and a customer. The concerns in manufacturing are low cost, product reliability, and product usability. These clear and well designed interfaces are needed to produce millions of products and are essential for out-sourcing.

In service industry, on the other hand, there is no distance between customers and service people. The back-office, the supporting logistics and the front-line serving staffs are an integrated whole. The interfaces are complicated and changing. It is almost impossible to clearly define the line between one functional group to another. A good service company must integrate the many variations of processes in a real-time and immediate responding customer needs. The workers need to be high quality knowledge workers. The company must implement communication, logistics support, alarm and reporting, knowledgeable beyond his/her functions supervisors. Take the case of the Halong Bay cruise. The back-office should know exactly the quantity of utensils required. They should know immediately there was a lack of Tai-chi coach to fulfill the program requirement.  High-quality front-line + real time support back-end are essential.

Thus I concluded, a good service company must be a well integrated tightly-knitted entity. The complexity comes, if the company (i) has a broad service range; (ii) reduce back-office process man-power and delays; (iii) reduce front-line influence of adversity. This is trading front-line complexity (costly serving personnels) with supporting back-end offices and logistics. By moving the remote front-end to internal controllable back-end. 

I will address the issue of service automation based on the above observation.

Complexity and choice

Choices and decision
Marketing people knows too well that when customers are given too many choices, they become indecisive because the decision making process is becoming too complex for them. Have you ever go to a shop that sells consumer type digital cameras or that sells mobile phones or that sells TV sets? You will experience the difficulties in making an intelligent choice. 


In consumer product designIn electronics product design, a market follower adds extra functionalities and lower the price to gain market share from the product leader. Examples are plenty, the ebooks, the phones and cameras. These product designers are too lazy to really find out what the customers want. The way to avoid feature overload is to set a limit on the number of features on the device. Apple is a product leader and has stubbornly set feature limits. In so doing, the engineers (or designers) have to make the features easy to use. One cannot rely on features as a selling point.


The Y-gen not knowing what they want
In the society, the young people are offered 10 millions choices. They have no power of independent judgement. Yet, the socialists, the educators and the parents insist not to guide guidelines to them. 


Education do not include knowing right and wrongI talked to a Business School professor on business ethics recently. He insisted that educators should not make ethical decisions for the students. True! The students, when they graduate and become professionals, they should make their own ethical decisions. But it is our duty and responsibilities to tell them what is right and what is wrong. The decisions are they to make. The real joke is, the professors in this school insist "profit maximization" is right. On the one hand, they do not want to tell students what is right and wrong and on the other hand tell the students to go and maximize profit which we all (non-professors) know to days sad situation is partially some people makes too much profit.

管理者的「法理性」 從時事看管理

新聞背後

近期多則新聞引起了社會廣泛的關注：「富士康十三跳的管理危機」，「樓價屢創新高而引起的仇富情緒」，「馬尼拉旅遊巴的浴血事件，突顯菲律賓政府的無能」及「市井市民對香港政府施政報告之扶貧措施的質疑」。

這些「怨恨仇視」的社會新聞中，有沒有共通之處呢?

筆者希望在事例分析中，闡述一些德魯克的管理基礎理念作為引證。上列事件的共通點是「有權」和「無權」者兩方的對立和互動。富士康的管理層代表權力的一方，低層員工代表沒有權力的一方；控制樓價的少數地產商和支持商界的政府代表擁有權力一方，想置業或繳付昂貴租金的巿民代表無權的一方；馬尼拉政府代表有權卻無能的一方，被殺害無力拒抗和在電視旁眼巴巴看著而無能為力的大眾是另一方；直接影晌民生及經濟的香港政府和財團代表有權有勢的一方，等著接受「施捨」「援助」的窮困市民代表另一方。

社會的「法理性」

讓我們從「法理」(legitimacy) 、「地位」 (status) 和「功能」(function) 這幾個觀念來分析上面的事件吧。

 Legitimacy網上的定義是：

1 : lawfulness by virtue of being authorized or in accordance with law 憑著被授權或依法而獲取的合法性 

2 : undisputed credibility 不受爭議的信譽

後者的定義是關乎有權勢一方的信譽，當信譽被另一方質疑，當措施多次不被接受，影響力和權力便被受削弱；其實，即使權力是從立法或授權而來（定義1），最終還是要得到另一方的認同，否則權力最終會被（積極或消極的）抗拒。

「法理性」觀念始於古時的政治哲學家，也是社會學家所研究的範疇。 韋伯 (Max Weber)指出四種建立社會秩序的「法理性」理由，就是：傳統、感情、價值合理性 (value-rationality)以及合法性(legality)。這四種理由可單一、也可互相揉合成為統治者(管理者)的力量基礎。在家庭中，父母的權威是傳統和感情的；社團的運作建立在價值合理性等等。

德魯克先生的企業理念備受韋伯和德國社會學家斐迪南‧杜尼斯 (Fredinand Toennies)的保守主義影響，建立在社群理念的基礎上，因而對一個過度單一的社會及偏袒某方的社會是無法容忍的。他認為現今的社會是從多元化變成單一方向，如現今的經濟發展方向，是一種錯誤的發展，而這種錯誤卻大大削弱了社會的「法理性」。在他的早期著作《工業人的未來》中肯定地指出

「…從政的重大挑戰就是要平衡眾多面向。然而為了做到這一點，社會一定要健全地運作才行，必須讓個人擁有地位和功能。而且，社會的力量必須具有正當性，為眾人接受。」

這幾句話包含了三個重要的論點，是他的「以人為本」的管理理念的基礎。第一、二點關乎社會裡的每個人的「地位 」和「功能」，第三點就是上面所引用的「正當性」。地位不是中國人認為高高在上的那種權力，地位是讓人知道自己是屬於社會、是其中一份子的描繪，沒有地位是沒有平等、沒有公平和沒有自尊的。一個人在社會上沒有地位和功能，他就是一個無根的流浪者，不屬於這個社會。

個人在社會上的「地位」和「功能」

德魯克把社會學的理念延伸到組織學和管理學，成為了他的管理學重要的支柱。在《工業人的未來》他再說:

「我主張工業社會的基本機構必須兩者 (重視個人 being, 也就是重視地位的社群, 跟重視實做 doing, 也就是重視功能的社會) 兼具。」

現在，我們已經超過了「後工業社會」及「後資本主義社會」，進入了「知識型社會」。在知識型社會裡，個人對地位和功能的要求和追求比前更甚。而社會上有權的羣體，無論是政府或是企業的管理層，也需要給予他們在這方面的認同。

解讀時事的背後

就以富士康的例子論說：工人在工廠內只有工作功能doing，個人的地位 being 並不被重視。若德魯克今天看到這現象，他會歸類這些工人為失根的流浪者，在他的《工業人的未來》裡，他這樣描寫他們：

「失根的流浪者看到（社會）邪惡的力量，一半通情達理，一半毫無意義，一半顯現，一半隱藏，但永遠無法測度。它們決定了他的生命和生計，他干涉不了，甚至也不明瞭。」

對幾十萬的低層工人，或至少對這十多位跳樓而死的員工來說，以上說法正反映了他們的感受。他們看不到富士康的「法理性」，最後只有以死抗議。富士康必須從新建立它的「法理性」，讓每一個員工知道也感受到他／她的貢獻和地位。

又以香港普遍人的「仇富」情緒來説，跟政府的政策肯定是有關連的。政府的扶貧、支援措施明顯缺乏了德魯克所認為的「法理性」社會的考慮。政府的決策，是為了方便官方執行及運作，他們假設社會充滿了騙子，若是不防範，老百姓便會為了一千元的生果金而欺騙政府；執政者看這一千元為救濟金，而不是為這些貢獻了幾十年青春給社會的老人家，所給與的一種感謝和回報。最可悲的是一班為這些人爭取更寬鬆居港期限的社工們，都把這敬老金看為救濟金。而被救濟的人在社會上是沒有地位、沒有功能，更沒有自尊可言！

管理應用 德魯克在《後資本主義社會》裡定義組織為 : 組織（與企業等同）是人的團體，是一群專家為了一個共同的任務而一起打拼的團體。《後資本主義社會》 組織的「正確性」是為了一個共同任務而一起，這任務(我們稱之為使命)必頒為眾員工所認同。組織必須肯定每一個員工的地位和功能，為他們設置盡用其強項的職位，讓他們有所成就。當組織有正當權力和具備威信便能激發自律，實現有秩序的組織生活。員工便會積極地讓自已對組織的績效有所貢獻，這貢獻必須能夠被確定和賞識。這是管理 21世紀知識工作者的原則。

Necessary but not sufficient

Life is multi-dimensional. Management is a complex process concerning the behavior of multi-dimensional human being. Management is therefore a liberal art and not an exact science. A mature managers needs breath and height.

Yesterday in my Buzz and Facebook "management friends" I talked about change and restoration. In business we like to talk about the former aspect and in churches we like to talk about the later (gradually the voice is becoming fainter and fainter). This brings in the concept of necessary but not sufficient. Some people thinks in a linear fashion, some in two dimensions. The conditions that are satisfied in two-dimension are often necessary but not sufficient. The Maslow triangle of needs (Needs Hierarchy) is two dimensional. It is a good description of human needs and motivation. These are necessary conditions especially in the days of or in countries with under-developed living conditions. With a new dimension, (in Peter Drucker's concept of Contribution and in Bible's self-giving and love) the needs are still there but changed shape entirely.

We can take the story of Jesus talking to the Samaritan woman as an example that illustrates that a new dimension of life will overshadow the needs. This story illustrates when you add to the necessary (needs of human) a new dimension (spirituality in this particular story) it becomes complete (sufficiency).

The story starts with the woman came for water, physical water that quenches thirst. (1st level of Maslow's need hierarchy.) Then she talked about her husbands and boyfriend which indicates her great urge for friendship (3rd level). Jesus offered to her a new dimension, spirituality that she did not have (or ignored, like most of us do). Once she accepted it, she was elevated and fulfilled with excitement and joy (4th level). She no longer focused on need any more. She began to tell her story to others. She contributed to her community in a positive manner. Symbolically, she left behind the water container (physical) and poured out from her living water (spirituality).

Another well know example of necessary but not sufficient in management. The hygiene factor in motivation theory is necessary not to de-motivate people but it is not sufficient to motivate.

將注目自己的需要轉為

注目於別人需要的力量