I had an interesting dream this morning; I woke up thinking that my mother, my brother and I should go to Louisiana and walk our land, just to make sure that everything is as it should be. As I told my mother of this dream, she laughed. She enjoyed the obvious influence her recent story of how my grandfather would walk his property everyday. His purpose was to make sure the fence was okay and that no animals were wondering around where they should not be. Animals were money for my grandfather and he was not the type to let money go wandering around unattended.
I also laugh at the modern day version of this management approach: “You have to inspect what you expect”. As a sales manger, I can’t begin to tell you how many times, I have heard this expression, and when you are selling food products through this nations 30,000 plus grocery and convenience stores, there is no substitute for getting out into the marketplace and seeing what the consumer sees first hand. It is the reality of managing a collection of people, separated by distance, time, and awareness of facts, who all have separate decisions to make about how to get the product on the shelf. In this environment evidence of performance, becomes critical to avoid paying for nothing. Read more