MacGregor

MacGregor. Author: Carlisle, Arthur Elliott. Source: Organizational Dynamics v. 24 (Autumn 1995) p. 68-79 ISSN: 0090-2616 Number: BBPI95086560 No question about it--some managers are better organized than others, but how often have you run into a really well organized manager--I mean really well organized? Not too often, I bet! In the course of my work I run into hundreds of managers a year, yet I can think of only one who managed to be superorganized--to the point where he had time to play an enormous amount of golf. As further proof of his organization, consider this: About two years after I ran into MacGregor, which incidentally is not his real name, he was promoted to the post of chief of operations at the corporate level--a fact I discovered when I saw his face looking out at me from the financial section of my newspaper above the announcement of his new executive assignment. My encounter with MacGregor came about during the course of a study of the extent to which operating managers actually use participative management techniques in their dealings with subordinates. The problem with an inquiry of this nature is that nearly every manager either says that he uses a participative approach (because isn't that what every good manager does?) or maybe honestly believes that this is his preferred modus operandi; in any event, what I was interested in was information about behavior, not about beliefs (pious or otherwise). So I had to develop an indirect approach for use with the managers being interviewed and follow it up with some questions directed at the subordinates they supervised. Accordingly, I developed a questionnaire that I used in interviewing more than 100 managers in ten major U.S. and Canadian firms. The first item on the questionnaire asked whether the interviewee held regular meetings with his subordinates; if so, how often; and what was the nature of the matters discussed. Finally, it tried to determine whether subordinates were offered the opportunity to initiate discussion and actively participate in the decision-making process or were merely afforded the opportunity to hear about decisions the boss had made. MacGregor, who at the time was manager of one of the largest refineries in the country, was the last of more than 100 managers I interviewed in the course of the study. Although the interview had been scheduled in advance, the exact time had been left open; I was to call MacGregor at his office early in the week that I would be in the vicinity and set up a specific date and time. Here's how that phone call went: The switchboard operator answered with the name of the refinery. When I asked for MacGregor's office, a male voice almost instantly said, "Hello." I then asked for MacGregor, whereupon the voice responded, "This is he." I should have recognized at once that this was no ordinary manager; he answered his own phone instantly, as though he had been waiting for it to ring. To my question about when it would be convenient for me to come see him, he replied, "Anytime." I said, "Would today be all right?" His response was, "Today, tomorrow, or Wednesday would be okay; or you could come Thursday, except don't come between 10:00 a.m. and noon; or you could come Friday or next week--anytime." I replied feebly, "I just want to fit in with your plans." Then he said, "You are just not getting the message; it makes no difference to me when you come. I have nothing on the books except to play golf and see you. Come in anytime--I don't have to be notified in advance, so I'll be seeing you one of these days," and then he hung up. I was dumbfounded. Here was a highly placed executive with apparently nothing to do except play golf and talk to visitors. I took MacGregor at his word and drove over immediately to see him without any further announcement of my visit. MacGregor's office, in a small building at one corner of the refinery, adjoined that of his secretary--who, when I arrived, was knitting busily and, without dropping a stitch, said to me, "You must be Mr. Carlisle; he's in there," indicating MacGregor's office with a glance at a connecting door. MacGregor's office was large and had a big window overlooking the refinery, a conference table with eight chairs arranged around it (one of which, at the head, was more comfortable and imposing than the rest), an engineer's file cabinet with a series of wide drawers, two easy chairs, a sofa, a coffee table with a phone on it, and a desk. The desk had been shoved all the way into a corner; there was no way a chair could be slipped in behind it, and it was covered with technical journals. A lamp stood on the desk, but its plug was not connected to an outlet. There was no phone on the desk. MacGregor, a tall, slender man with a tanned face, stood by the window peering absently into space. He turned slowly when I entered his office and said, "You must be Carlisle. The head office told me you wanted to talk to me about the way we run things here. Sit down on the sofa and fire away.". MACGREGOR'S MODUS OPERANDI"Do you hold regular meetings with your subordinates?" I asked. "Yes, I do," he replied. "How often?" I asked. "Once a week, on Thursdays, between 10:00 a.m. and noon; that's why I couldn't see you then," was his response. "What sorts of things do you discuss?" I queried, following my interview guide. "My subordinates tell me about the decisions they've made during the past week," he explained. "Then you believe in participative decision making," I commented. "No--as a matter of fact, I don't," said MacGregor. "Then why hold the meetings?" I asked. "Why not just tell your people about the operating decisions you've made and let them know how to carry them out?". "Oh, I don't make their decisions for them and I just don't believe in participating in the decisions they should be making, either. We hold the weekly meeting so that I can keep informed on what they're doing and how. The meeting also gives me a chance to appraise their technical and managerial abilities," he explained. "I used to make all the operating decisions myself, but I quit doing that a few years ago when I discovered my golf game was going to hell because I didn't have enough time to practice. Now that I've quit making other people's decisions, my game is back where it should be.". "You don't make operating decisions anymore?" I asked in astonishment. "No," he replied. Sensing my incredulity, he added, "Obviously you don't believe me. Why not ask one of my subordinates? Which one do you want to talk to?". "I haven't any idea; I don't even know how many subordinates you have, let alone their names. You choose one," I suggested. "No, I wouldn't do that--for two reasons. First, I don't make decisions, and second, when my subordinate confirms that I don't make decisions, you'll say that it's a put-up job, so here is a list of my eight immediate subordinates, the people who report directly to me. Choose one name from it and I'll call him and you can talk to him," said MacGregor. "Okay--Johnson, then. I'll talk to him if he's free," said I. "I'm sure he's able to talk to you. I'll call him and tell him you're on the way over." Reaching for the phone, he determined that Johnson wasn't doing anything, either, and would be happy to have someone to talk to. SUBORDINATES' VIEWS OF MACGREGORI walked over to Johnson's unit and found him to be in his early thirties. After a couple of minutes of casual conversation, I discovered that MacGregor and all eight of his subordinates were chemical engineers. Johnson said, "I suppose MacGregor gave you that bit about his not making decisions, didn't he? That man is a gas.". "It isn't true though, is it? He does make decisions, doesn't he?" I asked. "No, he doesn't; everything he told you is true. He simply decided not to get involved in decisions that his subordinates are being paid to make. So he stopped making them, and they tell me he plays a lot of golf in the time he saves," said Johnson. Then I asked Johnson whether he tried to get MacGregor to make a decision and his response was:. "Only once. I had been on the job for only about a week when I ran into an operating problem I couldn't solve, so I phoned MacGregor. He answered the phone with that sleepy 'Hello of his. I told him who I was and that I had a problem. His response was instantaneous: 'Good, that's what you're being paid to do, solve problems, and then he hung up. I was dumbfounded. I didn't really know any of the people I was working with, so because I didn't think I had any other alternative, I called him back, got the same sleepy 'Hello, and again identified myself. He replied sharply, 'I thought I told you that you were paid to solve problems. Do you think that I should do your job as well as my own? When I insisted on seeing him about my problem, he answered, 'I don't know how you expect me to help you. You have a technical problem and I don't go into the refinery any more; I used to, but my shirts kept getting dirty from the visits and my wife doesn't like washing all the grime out of them, so I pretty much stick in my office. Ask one of the other men. They're all in touch with what goes on out there. . "I didn't know which one to consult, so I insisted again on seeing him. He finally agreed--grudgingly--to see me right away, so I went over to his office and there he was in his characteristic looking-out-the- window posture. When I sat down, he started the dirty-shirt routine but when he saw that I was determined to involve him in my problems, he sat down on the sofa in front of his coffee table and, pen in hand, prepared to write on a pad of paper. He asked me to state precisely what the problem was and he wrote down exactly what I said. Then he asked what the conditions for its solution were. I replied that I didn't know what he meant by that question. His response was, 'If you don't know what conditions have to be satisfied for a solution to be reached, how do you know when you've solved the problem? I told him I'd never thought of approaching a problem that way and he replied, 'Then you'd better start. I'll work though this one with you this time, but don't expect me to do your problem solving for you because that's your job, not mine. . "I stumbled through the conditions that would have to be satisfied by the solution. Then he asked me what alternative approaches I could think of. I gave him the first one I could think of--let's call it X--and he wrote it down and asked me what would happen if I did X. I replied with my answer--let's call it A. Then he asked me how A compared with the conditions I had established for the solution of the problem. I replied that it did not meet them. MacGregor told me that I'd have to think of another. I came up with Y, which I said would yield result B, and this still fell short of the solution conditions. After more prodding from MacGregor, I came up with Z, which I said would have C as a result; although this clearly came a lot closer to the conditions I had established for the solution than any of the others I'd suggested, it still did not satisfy all of them. MacGregor then asked me if I could combine any of the approaches I'd suggested. I replied I could do X and Z and then saw that the resultant A plus C would indeed satisfy all the solution conditions I had set up previously. When I thinked MacGregor, he replied, 'What for? Get the hell out of my office; you could have done that bit of problem solving perfectly well without wasting my time. Next time you really can't solve a problem on your own, ask the Thursday man and tell me about it at the Thursday meeting. ". I asked Johnson about Mr. MacGregor's reference to the Thursday man. "He's the guy who runs the Thursday meeting when MacGregor is away from the plant. I'm the Thursday man now. My predecessor left here about two months ago.". "Where did he go? Did he quit the company?" I asked. "God, no. He got a refinery of his own. That's what happens to a lot of Thursday men. After the kind of experience we get coping with everyone's problems and MacGregor's refusal to do what he perceives as his subordinates' work, we don't need an operating superior any more and we're ready for our own refineries. Incidentally, most of the people at our level have adopted MacGregor's managerial method in dealing with the foremen who report to us and we are reaping the same kinds of benefits that he does. The foremen are a lot more self-reliant, and we don't have to do their work for them.". I went back to see MacGregor. His secretary was still knitting. The garment she was working on was considerably more advanced than it was on my first visit. She motions me into MacGregor's office with her head, again not dropping a stitch. MacGregor was in his traditional office posture, looking vacantly out of the window. He turned and asked, "Well, now do you believe that I don't make any decision?". I said, "No, that could have been just a fluke." He suggested I see another subordinate and asked me to pick another name from the list. I picked Peterson who, when phoned to see whether he was available, said that he had nothing to do. So I went to Peterson's office. Peterson was in his late twenties. He asked me what I thought of MacGregor. I said I found him most unusual. Peterson replied, "Yes, he's a gas." Peterson's story paralleled Johnson's. MacGregor refused to make decisions related to the work of his subordinates. When Peterson got into a situation he could not deal with, he said he called one of the other supervisors, usually Johnson, and together they worked it out. At the Thursday meetings, he reported on the decision and gave credit to his helper. "If I hadn't," he added, "I probably wouldn't get help from that quarter again.". In reply to a query on what the Thursday meetings were like, he said, 'Well, we all sit around that big conference table in MacGregor's office. He sits at the head like a thinned-down Buddha, and we go around the table talking about the decisions we've made and, if we got help, who helped us. The other guys occasionally make comments--especially if the particular decision being discussed was like one they had had to make themselves at some point or if it had some direct effect on their own operations." MacGregor had said very little at these past few meetings, according to Peterson, but he did pass on any new developments that he heard about at the head office. HEAD-OFFICE ASSESSMENT OF MACGREGORBy the time I had finished with Johnson and Peterson, it was time for lunch. I decided I'd go downtown and stop in at the head office to try to find out their assessment of MacGregor and his operation. I visited the operations chief for the corporation. I had wanted to thank him for his willingness to go along with my study, anyway. When I told him I had met MacGregor, his immediate response was, "Isn't he a gas?" I muttered something about having heard that comment before and asked him about the efficiency of MacGregor's operation in comparison with that of other refineries in the corporation. His response was instantaneous, "Oh, MacGregor has by far the most efficient producing unit.". "Is that because he has the newest equipment?" I asked. "No. As a matter of fact he has the oldest in the corporation. His was the first refinery we built.". "Does MacGregor have a lot of turnover among his subordinates?". "A great deal," he replied. Thinking I had found a chink in the MacGregor armor, I asked, "What happens to them; can't they take his system?". "On the contrary," said the operations chief. "Most of them go on to assignments as refinery managers. After all, under MacGregor's method of supervision, they are used to working on their own.". MORE POINTERS ON MACGREGOR'S STYLE OF MANAGING"How do they run their own operations-- like MacGregor's?" I asked. "You guessed it. More and more of our operations are using his system.". I went back to the refinery with a few last questions for MacGregor. His secretary had made considerable progress on her knitting and her boss had resumed his position by the refinery window. "I understand you were downtown. What did they tell you about this place?". "You know damn well what they said--that you have the most efficient operation in the corporation.". "Yup, it's true," he replied, with no pretense at false modesty. "Periodically, I get chances to go to work for another major oil company--but I've gotten things so well organized here that I really don't want to take on a job like the one I faced when I came here five years ago. I guess I'll hang on here until something better comes up.". "Let me ask you a couple of questions about the Thursday meeting," I continued. "First of all, I understand that when you are away, the 'Thursday man takes over. How do you choose the individual to fill this slot?". "Oh, that's simple. I just pick the man who is most often referred to as the one my subordinates turn to for help in dealing with their problems. Then I try him out in this assignment while I'm off. It's good training and, if he proves he can handle it, I know I have someone to propose for any vacancies that may occur at the refinery manager level. The head-office people always contact me for candidates. As a matter of fact, the Thursdayman assignment is sought after. My subordinates compete with each other in helping anyone with a problem because they know they'll get credit for their help at the Thursday meeting. You know, another development has been that jobs on the staff of this refinery are highly prized by young people who want to get ahead in the corporation; when junior management positions open up here, there are always so many candidates that I often have a tough time making a choice.". "Sounds logical," I said. "Now let me focus a bit more on your role as refinery manager. You say you don't make decisions. Suppose a subordinate told you at a Thursday meeting about a decision he'd made and you were convinced that it was a mistake. What would you do about it?". "How much would the mistake cost me?". "Oh, I don't know," I answered. "Can't tell you, then. It would depend on how much it would cost.". "Say, $3,000," I suggested. "That's easy; I'd let him make it," said MacGregor. I sensed I'd hit the upper limit before MacGregor either would have moved in himself or, more likely, would have suggested that the subordinate discuss it with the Thursday man and then report back to him on their joint decision. "When was the last time you let a subordinate make a mistake of that magnitude?" I asked skeptically. "About four weeks ago," said MacGregor. "You let someone who works for you make such a serious mistake? Why did you do that?". "Three reasons," said MacGregor. "First, I was only 99.44 percent sure it would be a mistake and if it hadn't turned out to be one, I'd have felt pretty foolish. Second, I thought that making a mistake like this one would be such a tremendous learning experience for him that he'd never make another like that one again. I felt it would do him more good than signing him up for most of the management-development courses that are available. Third, this is a profit center. It was early in the budget year and I felt that we could afford it.". "What was the result?" I asked. "It was a mistake--and I heard about it in short order from the controller downtown by phone." (I realized suddenly that during the whole time I had been in the office, neither MacGregor's phone nor his secretary's had rung.). "The controller said, 'MacGregor, how could you let a stupid mistake like that last one slip throug