Endeavors magazine: Normal: the enemy of great

Normal: the enemy of great

by Mark Derewicz

Left: Cover detail, Change to Strange.

[filed under: business; article date: january 2008]

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Change to Strange: Create a Great Organization by Building a Strange Workforce. By Daniel Cable. Wharton School Publishing, 174 pages, $25.99.

The mechanics at the General Electric airplane engine factory in Durham, N.C. are strange. They’re obsessed with being the best. They devise new ways to assemble engines so they can limit defects and save time. They create teams that are in charge of their own budgets. They rearrange their schedules to meet delivery goals. They report directly to the plant manager — no middle managers. They meet for an hour every single morning, and they themselves hire new mechanics, spending twelve hours on a single candidate. They also rotate into leadership roles so that every one of them attends GE business meetings.

These are bizarre traits for a group of mechanics, says UNC business professor Daniel Cable.

In his new book, Change to Strange, Cable shows how to create a strange band of workers that will make something valuable and difficult to imitate.

During a five-year stretch, those GE mechanics reduced the cost of producing a CF6 engine by 10 percent every year. They reduced the average number of defects by 75 percent — from four per engine to one.

“They did not miss one on-time shipment in thirty-eight months and five hundred engines,” Cable says. “Do you think that Boeing, their largest customer, noticed 75 percent fewer defects and immaculate on-time delivery?”

You bet. During the airline slump between 2001 and 2003, the Durham Engine Facility did not lay off one mechanic and remained profitable when other factories slumped.

Cable’s book has dozens of strange examples that all have one thing in common: they show that creating and keeping a strange world-class workforce isn’t easy. Otherwise, everyone would do it.

Daniel Cable is Townsend Distinguished Professor of Management and Behavior/Strategy at the Kenan-Flagler Business School.