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IF YOU’RE familiar with the Japanese style of quality and
productivity management, chances are, you’ve come across the term
muda (waste) when referring to anything that does not add value to a
work process or system.
The Japanese have systematically classified them
to eight categories which include the muda of information and
people’s talent, but only if they’re not used properly.
Comes now the “numerati”—a new buzzword
that is prodding many businesses to mine their databases, analyze
them and translate the complexity of numbers to help management come
up with excellent decisions.
Stephen Baker, author of book The Numerati
(Houghton Mifflin Publishing 2008) says one example of this approach
is to build mathematical models of people, pile up their skills
inventory, and then calculate how best to deploy them like what IBM
is doing in general to improve labor productivity and automate
management in the process.
As you can imagine, IBM is one big exemplar on
management strategies. To the best of my knowledge, in all the time
I studied management since college, IBM is often cited as a
trailblazer that manufactured a wide range of products including
employee time-keeping devices that helped in the development of the
computer.
So anyway, IBM, according to Baker is set to
“commoditizing the workers” by using mathematical equations and
algorithms to “build detailed models for each worker, each one
complete with a person’s quirks, daily commute, and allies,
perhaps even enemies.
“These models might one day include whether
the workers eat beef or pork, how seriously they take the Sabbath,
whether a bee sting or a peanut sauce could lay them low . . . or
some of them thrive even in the filthy air in Beijing or Mexico
City, while others wheeze.”
“If so, the models would eventually include
this detail, among countless others. The idea is to build richly
textured models that behave in their symbolic realm just like their
flesh-and-blood counterparts. The planners can manipulate them,
looking for the most efficient combinations.”
Baker says IBM’s “numerati” scheme is
ambitious. This is how it works: “Picture an IBM manager who gets
an assignment to send a team of five to set up a call center in
Manila.”
“She sits down at the computer and fills out a
form. It’s almost like booking a vacation online. She puts in the
dates and clicks on menus to describe the job and skills needed.
Perhaps she stipulates the ideal budget range.”
“The results come back, recommending a
particular team. All the skills are represented. Maybe three of the
five people have a history of working together smoothly. They all
have passports and live near airports with direct flights to Manila.
One of them even speaks Tagalog.”
Bingo! Then you’ll probably blurt this out
loud—“Why? Numerati is not exactly new!” Filipino managers
since 1956, the founding year of Personnel Management Association of
the Philippines have been using this approach when personnel
managers were called “personnel managers” and not “human
resource managers” or “people managers.”
We have been using this so-called “numerati”
approach since time immemorial even in the absence of calculators
and computers. We, who have tasted both PM and HR work must eat,
sleep and breathe “numerati” as we attempt to professionally
manage our workers.
The only thing we don’t do with “numerati”
is actually analyze the numbers with computers, simply because there
were none available at the time except for some main frames, the
size of which is equivalent to that huge building called the RCBC
Plaza.
Otherwise to get the results, you have to do
about 247 of mathematical calculations which means that by the time
you actually get to the identity of one candidate alone to be part
of a team under special assignment, this person is about to retire
in two weeks.
“Numerati” works wonders if you love math.
Otherwise, you’ve to rely much on the work of highly credible
mathematicians and tabulators who are not tainted by anything.
Obviously, this works wonders only in the private sector.
Rey Elbo is a business consultant specializing
in human resources and total quality management as a fused
specialty. Reader’s feedback may be sent to kairoshq@info.com.ph
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