Friend of Simplicity - Mike Gardner

My 'Friend of Simplicity' interview today is with Mike Gardner who lives in Shepherd, Michigan in the US.

Mike and I have been exchanging e-mails and comments on various Blogs for over three years now and I always love my exchanges with him. Mike doesn’t always agree with me and often corrects (as he sees it) the error of my ways. The great thing about Mike is he always does it in a nice way.

Mike and I have promised each other that the next time Mike and his wife Keiko are in England or the first time Annie and I get to the States we will all meet up for a beer and/or a Red Wine! - I look forward to that.


TREVOR: Hi Mike – can you tell me a bit about your career history?

MIKE: I sort of “fell” into manufacturing about nineteen years ago. I attended university for several years until I ran out of money then got work in a restaurant. I ended up managing the kitchen for several years, which was a valuable lesson in how NOT to be an effective leader. The company I currently work for is Japanese and they opened their first North American facility in the late nineteen eighties. I heard they were hiring in 1989 and decided that anything had to be better than the restaurant business, so I applied. I started working on the assembly line and was promoted to Team Leader in 1993. Since then I have worked as a Supervisor, and as a Manager in different roles. I am currently responsible for education, development, and training in lean manufacturing systems—emphasizing Total Productive Maintenance—in our seven North American facilities. This has been a rewarding career and I will always be grateful to those who gave me so many opportunities to develop as a leader. We manufacture automotive electrical motors such as wipers, power window motors, cooling fan systems, and starters. Many of our processes are highly automated so if we do not have reliable equipment we can not meet our customers’ expectations. We try to run a “lean” production system, which means we do not carry excess inventories of either raw material or finished product. Everything must flow. Our focus is to constantly see where the flow stops and correct the root cause of the problem. I have had the chance to study the theories of lean manufacturing and implement much of it in our various facilities over the years. I am a perpetual student and am always learning about several different things at once.

TREVOR: I know you and your wife Keiko visited London a couple of years ago. What were your impressions of London in particular and England in general and when is your next visit and, most importantly, did you like our Beer?

MIKE: Keiko and I were only in England for four days, so we did not get a chance to see much of it. We attended the wedding of some friends in Epping. Epping was a wonderful town and very accommodating to tourists. Keiko and I both play competitive-level darts and one of her dreams was to play darts in a real English pub, which we had the chance to do in Epping. London was great, but hideously expensive. We bought food at Harrod’s and had a nice picnic lunch in Hyde Park near the Guards’ barracks. We are planning a return trip in the next few years.

I have always loved English beer. In the past, I had to travel to a larger community to find an import store that stocked it, but now I can buy it at the local liquor store near my home. I have always been a fan of Newcastle, Bass, John Courage, Old Speckled Hen, Tadcaster, and many other brews. I used to make my own beer and I based many of my recipes on traditional English pub ale.

TREVOR: You and I have been known to disagree occasionally about management, leadership and customer care. Here is your chance to put me right. What do you see as the big challenges for managers in 2008? – I promise I won’t interrupt! Your focus on the front line employees is the key,

MIKE: A manager in the future must be of the empowerment school to succeed. The old “boss management” style of leadership simply will not work with the tech-savvy, free agent nation folks of the 21st century. I am firmly convinced that empowering all employees to do more, become more, and develop meaningful careers is the key to success. In automotive manufacturing we often look to Toyota as a model for success. One of the two key pillars of the Toyota Production System is Respect for People. Toyota defines respect as giving people meaningful work and engaging them in continuous improvement of their job. That does not require a Japanese culture to implement. It only requires leaders committed to engaging all employees in achieving the vision, building a teamwork culture, and listening more than speaking.

TREVOR: I love the way you challenge Tom Peters on his Blog sometimes. You definitely call a spade a spade as we say in England. What is your opinion of Tom Peters’ contribution to management and business in the last 30 years?

MIKE: Dr. Peters has made a significant contribution to management through his writings. There was a time about twelve years ago when I was having a lot of difficulty understanding what my career was supposed to be about and where I was headed. I discovered Tom Peters’ work at that point and I was heartened and reassured by what I read. I learned that not only was it OK for me to be who I was and to chart my own course, it was essential for my success. I don’t visit his blog much any more because I think the Tom Peters brand has moved away from that philosophy and toward the glorification of Tom Peters. I think he has become a little too full of himself and rather dogmatic in his views.

TREVOR: What is your vision for the future of the auto industry in the US?

MIKE: The US automotive industry will be smaller, leaner, and more efficient in the future. It will include GM, Ford, and Chrysler, but in different roles than they have enjoyed in the past. The “Big Three” have lost their leadership due to poor vision, poor leadership, and poor focus over the last two decades. It is a very rough time for them and for their supply base. There will be many hard times coming in the next few years until the new versions become stable. Even the Japanese powerhouse automotive companies in the US, such as Toyota, Honda, and Nissan, are going to have to adapt to changes very quickly. There is always a new competitor to watch out for. The Korean manufacturers are making a significant “splash” in the US market right now, and even the Japanese are looking over their shoulders at the impact of the Chinese producers.

TREVOR: What would be your advice to a young up and coming manager just setting out on their management career in the auto industry on 2008?

MIKE: Don’t. Not unless you really want to be in a rough environment. If you do, be a change agent. Really live Winston Churchill’s paradoxical statement that “to improve is to change, to be perfect is to change often.” Empower your people, engage them in continuous improvement, and make change happen. It can be very frustrating, but also very rewarding.

TREVOR: Finally Mike – Why do you folks in the US believe you have the right to call the game played by fully grown men all wrapped up in padding ‘football.?’ You know deep down real ‘football’ is played by real men without padding and it originated here in England. We invented the game you decided to call ‘soccer.’

MIKE: I expect it to be a priority for the new incoming President to change the belief you folks have in the US of what ‘football’ really is! Considering the current crop of presidential candidates, I don’t think they will be changing anyone’s beliefs about anything. I am seriously considering voting “third party” again for the first time in many years. The reason American football is superior to “soccer” is that they actually score points during regulation play. American football is truly an outgrowth of our culture. Our ancestors were kicked out of every civilized country in Europe because they were unruly, loud, violent, and super-competitive. After we stopped shooting at each other all the time we needed a controlled outlet for our passions. Football became America’s game. Soccer is trying to gain a foothold in the US and is becoming more popular with time. There is a very large youth soccer movement here now, which there never was when I was a child. This will increase the popularity of the sport as those children grow up. At the same time, American football is gaining a following in Europe through the minor-league system of the EFL. I think that both of those are good signs for the future. I think we should both recognize the Aussies, though. They play American-style football without padding. That’s tough!