Improvisations

It was the airline industry’s travails that particularly occupied MIT professor and leading workplace dynamics thinker Thomas Kochan in a Q&A interview published in the Fall issue of MIT Sloan Management Review. Since that interview, Kochan has Gone Washington (at least for a spell), first as an advisor to the Obama campaign—and author of numerous interesting commentaries as a Huffington Post blogger—and now as co-leader of an Obama transition team reviewing certain aspects of labor relations practices. See the Review interview for Kochan’s insights into the emerging demands on both employers and employees who want to survive, and possibly thrive, in challenging times.

Today’s Wall Street Journal features an article that highlights a subtle but interesting difference in management style between Toyota Motor Corp. and Detroit’s Big Three. Toyota in the U.S. currently finds itself with excess capacity for models such as pickup trucks. Rather than paying its workers but not requiring them to show up when they are not needed on the factory floor — as the big U.S.-based auto companies often do — Toyota is, yes, paying those workers not needed on the production line – but is using the down time to send them to classes to improve their productivity and quality skills and generate new ideas for improving production.  For example, during this down time, one assembly worker has developed a Teflon ring that may help avoid damage to vehicles’ paint that can occur during one phase of production. 

The article brings to mind an essay by MIT Sloan School professor Thomas Kochan in the Summer 2006 issue of MIT Sloan Management Review. Kochan argued that U.S. companies face a choice.   One option is what he called “taking the managerial high road” and investing in becoming a “knowledge-based, high-trust organization — which requires training and empowering employees and harnessing their full motivation and talents to generate innovative solutions that drive productivity and service quality.” The alternative? Focusing on controlling labor costs.  Kochan cited Toyota as an example of a company that has competed successfully by taking a cooperative approach to working with its U.S. workforce.

Mixed news this week from American Airlines: On the plus side for most people, American plans to respond to flight attendants’ concerns and ban porn on its in-flight Wi-Fi system. On the negative, the company plans to charge for more amenities once considered part of a ticket price, such as blankets and soft drinks. What’s next as an a la carte item: the SkyMall catalog?

Two recent publications of MIT Sloan Management Review have particular relevance to the vagaries of managing in the no-longer-so-friendly skies:

In the fall issue of the Review, editor Michael S. Hopkins talks to longtime airline industry watcher Thomas A. Kochan in search of The Management Lessons of a Beleaguered Industry. You can guess Kochan’s solution from the title of his new book: Up in the Air: How the Airlines Can Improve Performance by Engaging Their Employees.

Dan Ariely has a book of his own making noise these days, Predictably Irrational, and, in the latest issue of Business Insight, which we produce with The Wall Street Journal, he talks to the Review’s Alden M. Hayashi about The Irrationalities of Product Pricing. Whether it’s airline amenities or some of the pungent examples Ariely uses from technology (TiVO, iPhone), what we think something is “worth” may be all in our minds.

Remember that next time you need to pay $5 for a two-hour rental of a tiny blanket.