Beyond Reengineering by Michael Hammer

Author:Michael Hammer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 1996-06-12T16:00:00+00:00

JIM MARR OF TEXAS INSTRUMENTS—COACH

Texas Instruments is not only becoming a process-centered organization through reengineering, it is using the structures and techniques of process centering in the reengineering effort itself. Jim Marr plays a leadership role in this effort and serves as a coach for a reengineering-related center of excellence.

I have a dual role in our reengineering effort. I’m one of four members of the process and resource leadership team, whose job is to manage the overall reengineering effort. Centers of excellence bring together people with common skills, then enlarge those skills through constant coaching and development. They’re the basic building blocks of our reengineering effort. They enable us to assign the right person to the right project at the right time. I’m also a coach for our leadership center of excellence, which is made up of our ninety-five reengineering leaders. I coach about thirty of them.

In our new organization people with common skills and duties—who may, until now, have been in far-flung corners—are grouped together in centers of excellence. The COEs range from advertising to business-programmer analysts to system architects to network engineers. Every skill is represented, and all the leaders in the organization belong to the leadership COE. Everyone has a coach, someone who supports them, as opposed to an old-style boss. Mine is the head of the process and resource leadership team. The coach is the person people go through to set their priorities and get their assignments, but the focus is on long-term growth, helping with skill development. We want to help facilitate the transfer of best practices and knowledge across the organization. In addition coaches assist the project leaders in finding the best available people to staff their projects.

A coach doesn’t have to have the same skills as the folks he’s coaching. It certainly doesn’t hurt, and some knowledge of the skill is essential, but a coach’s most important skill is people development: the ability to go in there, really listen, explain what the change is all about, drive home its importance, get people behind it, and get them excited. It’s all about having a full-time, hands-on person helping folks develop their potential, as opposed to an old-style manager who had a wider sphere spread across many skills—jack-of-all-trades, master of none.

After a new project is identified and funded by management, it must be staffed. The COE coaches generate lists of qualified people. They know what skills everyone has, and can anticipate any skill gaps that might impede the project. At this point, coaches put together a training plan to bring deficient skills up to what’s needed or to teach new skills altogether. In other words, whatever needs to be done to make that project run smoothly, the coach will do. This frees project leaders from bureaucratic hassles so they can concentrate 100 percent on getting the project done well and on time.

We try to avoid pulling people off current projects where their leaving could be disruptive. Our centers of excellence give us a much larger talent pool for looking for the best person.

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