Many of today's managers got their start welding on the factory floor, clearing dishes off tables, helping customers fit a suit, or wiping up a spill in aisle 3. Similarly, lots of you will start at the bottom and work your way up. There's no better way to get to know your competition, your customers, and your business. But whether you begin your career at the entry level or as a supervisor, your job as a manager is not to do the work but to help others do theirs. Management is getting work done through others. Pat Carrigan, a former elementary school principal who became a manager at a General Motors car parts plant, says, “I've never made a part in my life, and I don't really have any plans to make one. That's not my job. My job is to create an environment where people who do make them can make them right, can make them right the first time, can make them at a competitive cost, and can do so with some sense of responsibility and pride in what they're doing. I don't have to know how to make a part to do any of those things.”5
Pat Carrigan's description of managerial responsibilities suggests that managers also have to be concerned with efficiency and effectiveness in the work process. Efficiency is getting work done with a minimum of effort, expense, or waste. For example, how do millions of Girl Scouts from over 200 councils across the United States sell and deliver millions of boxes of cookies each year? In other words, what makes Girl Scouts so efficient? The national organization, Girl Scouts of America (GSA), licenses only two bakers, so when GSA changes or improves its cookie offerings by adding new flavors or making healthier, sugar-free options, it can do so quickly and consistently nationwide. GSA has also designed Girl Scout cookie packages to maximize the number of boxes that can fit in a delivery truck. The national organization optimizes its overall cookie inventory by tracking sales by type of cookie and troop. Because GSA operates efficiently, 2.9 million scouts can sell and deliver over 50 million cookies in an 8-week period.6