Operations Management

The Art & Science of Making Things Happen

James Cooke

• Publisher: Ecademy Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781908746634
• eBook ISBN: 9781908746825
• Topic: Betriebswirtschaft
• Subtopic: Betriebswirtschaftliche Kenntnisse

What the business schools don't teach you to survive and flourish. Putting management theory into practice faces some major challenges. Some of the raw realities of modern work environments require a high level of intuition and judgement over and above scientific methodology alone. This book sets out the hard learnt experience of a senior Scotland Yard officer and centres on three themes: How to develop and look after yourself as an individual manager; how to make operations happen and work successfully; how to develop a high performance team around you. This book has many important messages for new managers, enabling them to survive and eventually flourish whilst guiding more experienced Directors to secure the holy grail of truly exceptional performance. It has equal relevance to those in the public, private and voluntary sector who have to translate strategy into action.

Section 1

You as an Individual Manager

Introduction

The strength and effectiveness of a department depends on the skills, aptitude and drive of its leader. He or she sets the tone of the entire show and that someone is you.

Appreciate this and your mind will stay focused on developing and maintaining yourself as an individual who is the best they can be

But to do this, you need to first know yourself completely and utterly. All your foibles, idiosyncrasies and underlying characteristics must be laid bare to yourself and often to others - a humbling and awkward experience but vital and necessary.

This requires you to use analytical methods to completely dissect yourself and then to formulate a plan of self development that will amplify your strengths and control your weaknesses.

This plan must cover every area of your life from health and wellbeing through to your own standards of personal and professional conduct.

Conversely, if your self-awareness is only vague you will undermine your own authority and influence, quickly becoming a ‘hostage to fortune’ losing any sense of control as you blow in the wind.

Knowing Yourself Inside Out

If you are to become the best operations manager you can be, you need to know what makes you tick and to do that you must begin a process of self-understanding that comes from listening to your inner voice and knowing your values and beliefs.

Your Inner Voice

Talking to yourself is said to be the first sign of madness. I say ‘Nonsense!’ If used positively, it’s both a natural and reassuring thing… and something I do all the time.

We all have an inner voice, one that whispers to us as we bump along the journey of life. It’s our conscience - it is what holds us back from danger and pushes us forward in times of need - as such it represents both the light and dark of our nature.

Remember Gollum in the film Lord of the Rings?

He gazed into the water pool and saw the two sides of his character reflected back, vying with each other for control over his actions. One side was selfish, malicious and violent, the other side protective, selfless and kind. This was one of the most brilliant representations of the inner voice’s struggle in human psychology I have ever seen and for which Andy Serkis, the actor who played him, quite rightly won several awards.

This inner voice talks inside your head discussing the rights and wrongs of a situation. I use this ‘debate with myself’ to assess the relative merits of a course of action or, just as importantly, to encourage myself with words of praise and support - a type of mantra that’s fully recognised by psychologists.

Unfortunately, self talk can also have a very negative side too, with words of praise just as easily turning to self derision, over-caution and despondency.

For some reason, my inner voice has always spoken in a way that has given me a sense of exceptional self-belief even in the most difficult circumstances when all the evidence was telling me to give in. Yet this belief in myself did not prevent me from falling into periods of serious depression when I could literally not move my mind and body; almost a state of paralysis. But even in these darkest moments I knew my strength and ability was still there to achieve, contribute and to help others.

Where does such self-belief come from?

The answer lies I believe partly in how we are brought up; partly in how we are then tested by experience; and partly, as you might expect, in our DNA.

However, even if you don’t have such self-belief and are the world’s biggest pessimist, you will be heartened to hear that there are many ways to improve your inner voice so that it becomes a positive power for growth. For instance, trained counsellors, coaches and mentors use Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and Neurological Linguistic Programming (NLP) to help train your mind so that it acquires a habit of positive, solution seeking, self-confident thinking.

Your Values and Beliefs

How we behave and interact with the world is guided by two sets of criteria.

The first focuses on what is truly important to us - our core values. For me these are integrity, a high work ethic, loyalty and a love of adventure. Once instilled during childhood and through contact with relatives and friends, these core values remain largely unchanged throughout life.

The second is our belief system. This determines how we interact with others and, in turn, they with us. Our beliefs are often very inconsistent and can lead us to into contradictory behaviours.

My beliefs about the world around me have changed a lot as I have gone through life. Assumptions that I once had have now been tested and found wanting. For instance, the sanctity of marriage which I thought was something that should never be broken was, when after 25 years of marriage, it became clear to both my ex-wife and I that we were staggering on as two completely incompatible personalities. Experience changes belief, particularly in what I call ‘Crucible Test Moments’.

Crucible Test Life Moments

In everyone’s life there come moments that truly challenge our very nature and inner strengths and weaknesses. These defining moments - ‘crucible tests’ - are often only recognised as such much later.

What’s important though is that you reflect carefully back on these moments, drawing out from them learning and insight, a lesson I was taught by my former Police Cadet School Commandant.

Such moments, and for me there have been a number, test the strength of our values and beliefs both in ourselves and towards others.

The Police Cadet Corps

In 1976, aged 16, I left home in Hereford and joined the Metropolitan Police Cadet Corps. I was drawn there by a mixture of adventure and excellent mentoring from my future brother-in-law (a serving officer at Paddington Green) and in the knowledge that a relative had been in charge of the Grantham police area of Lincolnshire.

As well as providing an opportunity to continue my A level, the Cadets instilled in me relentless self-discipline towards my own physical and mental upkeep as well as self-reliance, since I was now responsible for all my own laundry, sewing, uniform pressing and time keeping.

The endless routines of fitness training, team activity and inter-house competition, forced me into constantly having to think ahead with a thoroughness and selflessness I had not been accustomed to.

I always remember the absolute frustration of having to build a daily bed pack out of my sheets and blankets, all to a particular order and shape. A task that took weeks of learning, practice and attention to detail to master, but what was the point? On reflection, it was probably learning the importance of good order, detail and organisation - standards that were expected of everyone without exception.

The Cadets also ingrained in me endurance and resilience. Long crosscountry runs, night marches and punishment details got me into the habit of keeping going at all costs for fear of letting down anyone in the team. Learning how to show a good example is something the military do extremely well and was all part of preparing me for the challenges ahead.

Camaraderie and Esprit de Corps

There come rare moments in everyone’s career when you join or develop a team of outstanding quality and performance.

Why one team works better than another is not always immediately obvious, but the hallmarks of the special camaraderie and performance that bind it together are always present. It’s enriching going into work each day with such characters, a strange but perfect mix of personalities, skills and attitudes.

For me this happened twice: once at Paddington Green (1978-80) and then Notting Hill (1990-94) and I will forever have good and fond memories of the people and the escapades in which we were all involved

Humour, character, courage, friendship and trust all bound us in the same way as the company of men in the World War II TV drama ‘Band of Brothers’. We worked extremely hard for each other with dedication, but the laughter and fun we had at the same time was extraordinary. It made going into work a joy, not a job.

Brixton Riots 1981

In July 1981 I was working on a series of contingency plans for important diplomatic and economic key points within the Paddington Green area. It was an eerie humid summer with swathes of low cloud. In Brixton, South London, there had been an extensive operation to tackle the massive problem of street robberies involving knives and guns. Unfortunately the stop and search tactics used, which was based on limited intelligence, had really infuriated the young black community in the area and major disturbances had broken out several weeks earlier. This had led to copycat rioting elsewhere, particularly in the Toxteth area of Merseyside. In July another spate of rioting started in Brixton and all riot trained officers were put on standby, including myself. Eventually, one incredibly humid July day, third-wave reinforcements were called for and I remember assembling with nine other officers in the back yard of Paddington Police Station. We were driven down to Brixton in the van with just our normal uniforms, helmets and a simple truncheon, nothing else.

What followed totally astounded me in its ferocity and violence. On the way, the main radio channel was crackling with calls for urgent assistance from fellow officers in various parts of Lambeth. One call has completely stuck in my memory. A police inspector was calling from inside a police vehicle which was being attacked by a JCB digger. This had been stolen and was being used to attack the police lines. His van had been surrounded and the digger had pushed it onto its side and was now attempting to ride over the officers inside. Clearly an attempt to kill as many as possible. Desperate attempts were being made to reach the unit in time. We arrived outside Brixton Police Station at about 7pm and all seemed completely quiet. Nobody was in the street, but the police station was completely shuttered - almost like a medieval castle with the drawbridge drawn up. We then noticed crowds of young people in the side streets peering out, huddled together. Just as we stopped the van, there was an enormous explosion as the front windscreen was shattered by a stone and the driver was caught full in the face by the debris. With blood pouring out of several facial wounds, we helped him out to the refuge of the back yard of the police station. As we did this, the front doors of the station opened and ranks of riot clothed officers emerged with long shields pacing slowly towards the street. It felt completely surreal to me, almost like a Bernard Cornwell depiction of Agincourt. After leaving our driver with the medics, we were then directed to the back of the station where a full scale hand-to-hand battle was taking place. The crowds, sensing a breakdown in police lines, were attempting to release the prisoners being taken off police buses before they could get into the Brixton police station building. With absolutely no time or resources to make further arrests, we were literally fighting for our lives and my truncheon became lost in the various struggles to beat off machete and knife-carrying rioter...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Reviews
• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Summary of Main Themes
• How to Use This Book
• Section 1 You as an Individual Manager
• Section 2 Making Things Happen and Work Successfully
• Section 3 Developing Your Team
• Conclusion All Pull Together
• References
• About the Author