Stamping out Cookie-Cutter Managers

People who use the same approach to any challenge can hinder your business. Here's how to spot them -- and how to improve their performance

by Liz Ryan

A few months ago, my husband and I sold our house. Based on advice from a few friends, I called in a "stager" -- a person who would help us spruce up the place and get it ready to go on the market -- and asked for her recommendations.

The stager looked around, asked a bunch of questions, and left. Later in the week, she came by to review her proposal. It's a good thing we were sitting down, because she suggested nearly $50,000 worth of home improvements.

"But why would I do this and that and this other thing right now, when I'm about to sell the house?" I wanted to know. "Won't the buyers just ask for those items if they're important to them, or ask for a credit on the sales price?"

CONFLICTING VIEWS.

"Oh, no," said the stager. "If your house isn't one of the best-looking ones on the market, people won't even make an offer. It's a competitive market, and your house has to stand out from the others in its price range. It must look new."

I couldn't see it. So I planted some shrubs, replaced the walkway to the street, and left it at that. Even our house painter, when I called to ask him for a bid on repainting, was skeptical. "I could make some money painting your house," he said, "but I couldn't do that to you. You just painted a year ago. It looks fine." We held onto our money and put the house on the market. We sold in three days for 99% of our asking price.

What did the stager miss when she saw our home? That we had the last unrenovated (and thus more modestly priced) house in our neighborhood. If we had spent the time and money to make all those improvements, the house would have read "newly done" to a prospective buyer, and we believe we might have lost buyers.

As it was, the buyers could feel that they were getting a great value for a not-recently-renovated, down-at-heels place (the correct real estate term is "deferred maintenance," by the way) in a terrific location. But the experience got me thinking a lot about context -- the way that people look at new situations.

LOVE MY SYSTEM.

Our staging friend had a one-size-fits-all mentality about houses: When you want to put a house on the market, you simply have to improve it until it squeaks, because only the best-looking houses sell. That might be good advice for some situations. Clearly, it wasn't right for ours. Thank goodness my husband and I have sturdy-enough gut instincts (raising five kids helps) to ignore the advice and save our money. Not every situation is the same, and not every solution works every time.

There's a certain type of business manager who approaches the job this way: This is how one does marketing, or this is how one does sales. In every job situation, regardless of the industry, strategy, or climate, this person's approach is the same. You can spot these managers a mile away because of one telltale characteristic: When they start a new job, they hit the ground running.

Week One: A new organization is announced in their department. Week Two: They've revamped a couple of key processes, and probably dumped and replaced the central data-management system. In short, these aren't managers who waste a lot of time collecting data. Their mantra is: Love Me, Love My System. They've done it before, and they'll do it again -- over and over, at job after job.

LIKE SNOWFLAKES.

Such managers, to my mind, are dangerous to an organization. Without regard for external realities, they proceed through a business career implementing the same plan in company after company. Everyone knows someone like this: brimming with confidence, married to their process, bringing their time-tested approach to one employer after another. Free from the need to investigate their new surroundings before plunging into their renovation project, they're able to replace, build, and tinker, assuming that what worked before should dang sure work again.

The problem is that business situations, like houses, aren't all alike. Every organization's context for action is different. Companies are like snowflakes in that respect -- even in the same industry, no two enterprises are alike.