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Open Book Management practicioners say that it usually takes 4 years to implement OBM. I would say that the implementation period for TPM depends on the initial state of the company. Sometimes it happens that a given company wants to implement TPM but is already managed by total participation. On other occasions, systemic limitations render the implementation virtually impossible.

We must also remember that it is Americans who mention 4 year implementation period. In Poland, taking our mental structures into consideration, I would say we have to add 2 years on top of that. I think it is mental bareers and communist fallout that determine a rather small number of companies managed by total participation in Poland. 

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Being a scientist myself for about 20 years now, and observing my colleagues in the academia, I would say rather not. Personally, I wouldn't let a scientist into my company. There's one simple reason: management and business are arts, while science requires a mixture of freedom of thinking and methodological rigor. My experience of hiring scientists for working with clients are far from encouraging. They usually discover a huge gap between what they did as researchers and, well, reality. They might discover interesting phenomena while doing a research, but what's in it for the client? A lot of time must pass untill companies will be capable of directly using scientific research in their practice.

Some might say: "But prof. Stocki, with this entry, you are undermining everything you do, with the entire concept of your company employing promising PhD students etc." Well, not necesserily, as I consider myself a consultant doing science and not the other way round. Once, as I was taking part in MATRIK program, a president of the program asked me: "What would you choose if you had to, consulting or academia?" - without hesitation I replied: "Consulting". As a consultant, I feel I have direct influence on reality. I come here not to learn the truth that might prove useful someday in the future, but to use it for the good of people, here and now. Doing science is extremely helpful, but under condition that we stay in the domain of applied science. 

As both consultants and researchers, our perspectives are wide, we are familiar with the most recent literature on the subjects of management, organizational science etc., we go to international conferences, we know what are the development trends in other countries. By mastering a given knowledge domain, we still have our feet on the ground; we know the practical limits of even the most sophisticated research. 

There is also one important issue at stake. Had my priorities focused on knowing the truth or reality itself, I wouldn't have hesitated and left abroad. Science transcends borders and the US is probably the place that is fit the best for practicing it.

Of course, one can ask a legitimate question: how to distinguish a scientist practicing consulting from a consultant practicing science. I think that the answer is simple: by looking at their results, both scientific and pracitical. 

I don't want to sound too critical about science and scientists. There's nothing more practical than a good theory, as Kurt Lewin once said. Scientists are those who make the work of people like me possible. Sometimes I envy their freedom but on the other hand I feel sorry that in Poland it is sometimes hard for them to make the ends meet. Finally, there is third category: teachers, couches and trainers. They seem to stand across the gap, but this is a different topic.

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It is like with repairing a car or medical examination. You can have periodic examination or you can end up in the hospital during your holidays or get stuck in a broken car in the middle of the road. It is very similar in companies. You can place diagnostic process and consulting in your management system or you can call a consultant when the company is almost a bankrupt or when half of the employees quit and there is nobody to work. The choices are quite rational.

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I remember that when I got my very first client, Wawel, I analyzed the entire Polish confectionery industry. The offer I prepared was really good and everyone at the company seemed to be really impressed. Well, there was maybe one small detail - I learned that the company I was supposed to work for wasn't actually the confectionery firm, it was the Wawel Royal Castle. It was 1992. Since then, the market has evolved. I've noticed an interesting trend - the training sector was developing really fast. Everyone wanted to be a trainer, but noone actually offerede anything after that, there was no analysis of the initial state of the company nor the implementation of the solutions. This is how the offer of Stocki Associates was created.

For the first couple of years we were focused mainly on trainings. This was a bit frustrating, as usually when we met with the group we found out that they needed something entirely different from what we were suppose to give them. To make things worse, no one wanted to have a decent training needs analysis. Right now I am fully convinced that it is better to do a good diagnosis and save money on training than the other way round. It is very common for organizations to have a number of people who would do very good at conducting trainings. On the other hand, the diagnosis process requires a kind of outsider view on the organization. Let's give an example. We want to conduct a customer service training for sales representatives. How do we know what they need if we don't ask the customers about their basic shortcomings? In order to conduct such training in the responsible manner we have to do a decent customer satisfaction research. Having a report like that in our pockets, we won't have any problems with designing a training program or better yet a full sales strategy.

But immediately after we introduced diagnosis as part of our product portfolio, our clients started to complain that we leave them with the hardest part of the process. This is why we were virtually forced to offer transition consulting, which later evolved into total participation consulting and OpenProfIT for IT companies.

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It is not easy to find companies that are managed by total participation. I'm sure that they exist in Poland. Recently, I have been invited to do a consulting project for X-tech, an IT companies that proved to be TP managed. Ekolan is another company that it close to being managed by total participation. I am convinced there are hundreds of similar organizations. Very often they create original management systems.

Unfortunately, it is really hard to find TPM companies, as they are usually rather small. It you know such organizations, please let us know, we will be happy to write about them here on our webpage. 

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For many people the concept of "minimum salary" or "fair salary" seems to be political one or strictly connected with social Church teachings - in general it is not useful in management, for some people it is even harmful. However, examining many different companies and organizations I realize that there is such thing as "minimum salary" that has a crucial meaning for management. It is threshold value, below which there is no sense in talking about reward systems, motivating people, bonuses etc. At this moment that salary in Poland is about 1800 zloty's (net pay). There are of course some fluctuations in different regions and professions. This is the salary that allows people who live economically not to fall into poverty. If an employer can not afford to pay such salary to his employees, they should exactly know why is it happening and what needs to happen to change this situation. Every employee has a right to know this information because he or she needs it to plan his or her life and future occupation. If he or she knows it,  it is Total Participation Management. The work becomes motivating. There is however the level of payment over which money is not an issue anymore - it is all about challenge, about doing something new. It is hard to estimate that level, much depends on accumulated fortune, family situation etc., it can be even 5000 zloty’s right now in Poland. Motivational meaning of Total Participation bases on the fact that employee knows where he/she is at the moment, and where he/she can get in achieving goals. Traditional management systems are like walking in the mountains with eyes being closed.

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If you take a strip of paper and join both ends with a single half-twist you will receive Möbius strip. It is a geometric figure with interesting characteristics. One of them is that when you take a small sector of the strip it seems to have two sides: head and bottom. But when you try to draw a line around the strip by your finger you will notice that you can touch both sides and the line that meets the starting point will have double length of the original paper. For me Möbius strip is a symbol of a holistic approach. I think, that if we see some contradictions it is because we take too narrow perspective. In a broader context everything is sensible and makes sense. While diagnosing organizations we try to look at them from a holistic perspective.

Ryszard Stocki

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The notion of Rationality asymmetry was first introduced by a renowned Polish sociologist - prof. Jagwiga Staniszkis. In her book, The Power of Globalization, she writes about flattening the historical time into the universal time of Western civilization, in terms of economic and political systems. Simply put: what is deemed rational in the UK might not be seen as such in Poland, as the two countries have reached a different level of cultural development. In my opinion, the same phenomenon applies to management. When a Western corporation starts business in Poland, it is possible to observe the rationality assymetry. What is rational in the eyes of an MNC, might not be considered rational in the eyes of a small Polish company. It is our task to translate those rationalities and studying Polish companies in this respect. 

Of course, a similar phenomenon can be observed in human development. There are no good, universal movies for children and adults (although the creators of the Shrek series might beg to differ). What is rationally good for kids is usually boring for their parents, and what is good for parents is usually irrational, or even harmful, for their kids. This is why responsible parents don't allow their children to what TV indiscriminately. And this is why responsible CEOs and managers do not apply human practices that proved useful in the UK, to Poland.

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Conducting focus group interview both with business partners and employees requires a moderator that fulfills several difficult conditions – he needs to love people, accept them as they are, be curious about their opinions and way of thinking. That is the way a moderator as a listener can gain confidence and makes people say what they think. A good moderator can achieve this goal in 10-15 minutes. If a moderator works only to earn some money and does not have positive attitude toward others the material he will collect during FGI is not worth much. Using FGI also requires ensuring that participants will not loose their jobs due to their honest opinions. It may happen that even if the board supports our activities, the middle level manager has a grievance against employees for what they said about his doings. Of course interview has to be prepared well and you can read about it in my book.

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Our motto "Organizations are humans" has its advantages, as people are the most important element of organizations, but it is not entirely true. As for the "genetic" nature of organizations the motto should sound something like "Organizations are animals". When I try to explain this joke, I usually compare the work of a diagnostician to that of a veterinarian (and not that of doctor!). Why? Because every company is not a member of the same species - it IS a different species. My intuition born out of experience with many organizations has been confirmed by people like Prahalad i Bettis or Drucker. In Poland, at least Obłój and the author of these words have focused their attention on this basic fact.

It that's the case, this genetic character of organization must be studied every time. Organizational DNA is a questionnaire that provides with all the basic information we need about what is going on in the company; this is our way of reading its code. But the DNA metaphore has its limits - while you cannot change the genetic code of living organisms within their lifetime, it is absolutely possible in case of organizations. Organization is more of a process than matter, but that is a different story.

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It all depends on the size of the company, time reserves in the company as well as the size and competencies of the research team.

Assuming that the research team is offered an unlimited access to the company, it is possible to collect as mych as a couple of thousand of questionnaires within 2-3 days. A lot depends on the level of employee dispersion. In dispersed companies one can use mail or electronic questionnaires. Focus groups usually take about 2h, so conducting 4 with 12 employees each would take appx. 8h. It means that within a week time we can learn personally the opinion of 250 persons without bringing chaos to the company. Document analysis can take a couple of days, assuming that everything is collected and ready (unfortunately, that process can take up to a couple of weeks). Simply put, it is possible to diagnose a company with a couple of thousand employees within a month in order to gain a reasonable image of company's problems and possible cures. 

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I start with a few hours' long conversation with a person who contacted me. Of course before we meet I prepare myself by collecting information about a company and specific branch. It is just a perfect situation if the first conversation in the company finishes with a walk around where I can see how everything looks like, what are the processes and products. How the whole diagnostic process should look like you can read in my book.

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First, people don't really like to argue and live in a permanent conflict. Offering employees the questionnaire is like inviting them to conversation. It gives the management the opportunity to communicate: "We would really like to know your opinion" or "We would like to talko to you".

Second, people must be presented with the results. It usually takes a while, as the results should be followed by providing solutions: "In this matter, we will do something, and this issue will be addressed differently, and here there's nothing we can do etc." People in companies think. If they see our honesty and good will, we shall have them on our side. The most difficult part of the process is the time between the report and the ideas of what and how to resolve the problems. Sometimes, this period takes as long as a couple of moths. It might be a good idea to use this time for introducing changes that are self-evident, eg. cleaning the workspace or buying an extrea coffee machine. In the eyes of the management those changes may appear superficial and trivial, but for the employees they are a sign of commitment. After developing the transition plan, employees must become fully informed and engaged in the change process - especially, they must know why does it have to take so long.

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People usually ask me what is the difference between Total Participation Management and the way that people are managed on regular basis. The simple answer is that in TPM people are treated as persons, while in HRM they are treated as resources.

But there is also more detailed answer. In companies managed by total participation the recruitment process is very long and thorough, but employees are very rarely discharged. Employees are offered full knowledge and understanding of basic financial documents. They understand business process. They are owners. They are rewarded for company's performance. They make decisions for themselves and for the company. Sometimes I hear that companies have some of these feature. It might be true. Yet, companies managed by TPM have it all.

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Every Chief Marketing Officer with a considerable experience and success history in developed countries can prove entirely helpless in Poland. Instead of driving the sales of the products, he or she can drive the company to disaster.

Corporations want to sell. Taking that simple fact into consideration it would make perfect sense to send someone with a good marketing record to sell products in Poland. Yet, the results might be opposite to expectations due to the difference in sales culture development. It is very hard to adpat sales strategies from one cultural level to another. Usually, is requires the understanding of both cultures and the means of transcending the borders between them. These compentencies are, unfortunately, very uncommon and underestimated.

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When conducting research on employees' satisfaction, very often people do not take into consideration the importance of employees' trust who need to take part in research. It may happen that in spite of the fact that they keep up with the rules the employees do not respond honestly but in accordance with their naive theory of what the research results should be like. 

This kind of phenomenon was discovered in social research some time ago. It turned out that the respondents suspected what was the hipothesis posed by the researcher and later on they tried to confirm this hypothesis (if they like the researcher) or to deny it (if they find him or her suspicious).In the research on employees' satisfaction we face similar effect. I can see that very often when business practices and the general atmosphere in the company are different than those seen in the results. Then we wonder where these low or high results came from. For example, when the questionnaire is conducted within the framework of some competition the employees may have a tendency towards overestimating  the results just to improve the position of the company. What may be troublesome later on is to use the same results in the internal purposes. 

It is good to make sure before conducting any research whether the employees look kindly on the board actions. If they do not it is useless to start the research but to focus on trust building.

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This is my firt blog entry and I must admit that I feel a bit stressed writing it. But let me get right to the point. Total Participation Management is often contrasted against Human Resource Management. Yet, little do we know that TPM approach makes Chief Financial Officer the person responsible for managing people.

Business orientation of Total Participation Management, focusing on the fundamental business process, taking into consideration proper preparation of financial data and employee business training, bring the financial services of the company to the front. All that HR department does is providing support for the CFO. 

Sometimes I wonder whether the main problem with implementing TPM is caused by the fact that the CHRO is reluctant to give up his or her power or that the CFO is not prepared for the kind of dialogue that TPM requires. One thing is certain: organization that is a battleground for CHRO and CFO is doomed to failure in introducing Total Particiaption Management.

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