Preparing
for Conversations with Bob Buckman
Road from Command
and Control to Knowledge Sharing
Robert H. Buckman
Chairman,
Buckman Laboratories
 Introduction
We are fortunate
to have with us in the January 2003 session of the STAR Series
Dialogues, Bob Buckman, whose personal business philosophies
and leadership played a major role in bringing credibility to
what would eventually be known as Knowledge Management.
Buckman
Laboratories
has been a leading manufacturer of specialty chemicals for aqueous
industrial systems and other more recent for over 50 years. In
1978, at the age of 69, founder and CEO Dr. Stanley Buckman died
of a heart attack in his office. His son, Robert (Bob), who had
joined the company in 1961 after earning a degree in chemical
engineering from Purdue University and a MBA from the University
of Chicago, became the new chairman and CEO.
Founded in 1945,
the company, from its beginning, emphasized its abilities to
create and manufacture innovative and unique solutions for the
control of the growth of microorganisms in customer processes.
During the decade
of the 1950s, the company's customer base expanded to include
the leather, paint, sugar processing, agriculture, paint, coatings
and plastics industries. In the 1960s new manufacturing and sales
companies were formed in Mexico and Belgium. This expansion was
followed in the 1970s with the opening of sales and manufacturing
companies in South Africa and Brazil and a sales company in Australia.
New products were introduced for water treatment, ranging from
swimming pools to fresh water, and a new international headquarters
housing all corporate activities, including Research and Development,
were built in Memphis, Tennessee, US.
The timing of Bob's
assumption of leadership at Buckman was fortuitous, because it
came as business enterprise was to begin a revolutionary transition
from the Industrial Age to the Knowledge Age. From the beginning
of his leadership, Bob wanted to change the way the company operated.
As he put it, "We were getting our lunch eaten. We were
a multinational organization and needed to be a global organization."
He also wanted to
change the management style of the organization. "I knew
I didn't want to do it Dad's way. Every single business decision
had to be approved by my father. I thought, this is too much
work." Even though the company had adopted the slogan "Creativity
For Our Customers" in the 1960s, Bob was convinced that
the company was too product-driven. The company now sought to
become "customer-driven."
This shift reflected
Bob's belief that "cash flow is generated on the front line
with customers, by associates who have built relationships of
continuity and trust, face to face with the customer, one individual
with another, over a significant length of time."
Today, Bob Buckman
has turned the helm of Buckman Laboratories to another family
member, but is far from retired. He travels the world sharing
his knowledge about knowledge enterprise. That's what he will
be doing during his two weeks -- January 20-31 -- in the STAR
Series Dialogues.
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Case
Studies
Bob Buckman is not
a preacher of favorite theories. He is a practical man with practical
experience based on his own personal philosophies and experience
which happen to be very like those of KM theorists and practitioners.
Accordingly, Bob has declined to pick a "favorite topic"
or thread to begin our Conversations. He wants the members to
pick.
But here are three
Harvard case studies that should get the conversation going.
Virtual
Teaming Using Buckman's K'Netix
If you can't
maximize the power of the individual, you haven't done anything.
If you expand the ability of individual members of the organization,
you expand the ability of the organization.
--
Bob Buckman
A major Buckman
customer in Australia announced plans to commission a new alkaline
fine paper machine in 1998. Not only was it always attractive
to get "start-up" business but this particular machine
tended to use more chemicals than most paper machines. In addition,
the customer's tender was broken into two areas machine hygiene
and retention and they wanted one company to provide both. Buckman
was a world leader in the area of machine hygiene but had no
experience with alkaline fine paper. In fact, the on site person
in Australia was young and only had a few years of general experience.
Furthermore, Buckman
was not a dominant player anywhere in the world in retention,
especially for alkaline fine paper machines. Peter Lennon, national
sales manager for Australia, and Maria Conte, Area Sales Manager,
knew that unlike all of their competitors they could not put
together a physical team to work on the proposal so they decided
to try a "virtual" global team. Maria sent out a call
via K'Netix the Buckman Knowledge Network for help answering
very specific questions. She received responses from more than
30 associates worldwide. From that group a team of 10 people
from Asia, Africa and North America (U.S. and Canada) agreed
to commit to the project on a continuous basis.
Buckman won the
contract.
Bob Buckman considered
K'Netix to be "the greatest revolution in the way of doing
business we have seen in our lifetime." He attributed much
of the company's 250% sales growth (over $300 million in 1998)
in the past decade and high percentage of sales from products
less than five years old (34%+) to knowledge sharing. $7,500
per person per year to implement K'Netix was a significant investment
for a company the size of Buckman Laboratories. Yet, over the
past five years the company had been able to keep net income
in the 3 to 6% range, operating income from 7 to 10.5% and gross
profits from 52 to 55%, in spite of worldwide currency fluctuations.
By early 1999, however,
there were growing financial pressures. In the words of one Buckman
executive, "our three target industries are in the tank."
With price pressures in all market segments some executives were
starting to question whether the value Buckman Laboratories added
with K'Netix made sense. According to one, "Is it ill timed?"
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Culture,
Language = Multiple Forums
As we have eliminated
the technical barriers to communication and the sharing of the
tacit knowledge of the company across time and space, we have
run square up against the cultural barriers to this process.
That has resulted in multiple forums.
I understand the
frustration of some of our associates about the time it takes
to keep up with multiple forums. This is particularly true now
that the volume of sharing has increased. However, we have to
keep in mind what is important. It is not convenience or some
grand scheme to have one world, but the sharing of the tacit
knowledge of the organization across time and space that is important.
We have to continually look for ways to improve this process.
To do this, we have to address the cultural barriers to communication
across time and space.
We have had as one
of our (desired) characteristics of an ideal system for a long
time now, the free flow of ideas unrestricted by language. Each
individual would use the language of their choice and anything
received by them would be in that language. Also anything sent
to someone else in the organization would be received by that
other associate in their language.
We do not have such
a system yet, but we would like one. It is not as simple as saying
everything should be in English, because a majority of our associates
have this as their primary language. That works for us in the
US, but does not work for the rest of our associates. If you
want to understand what it is like to communicate in another
language, then visit the Foro Latino and try and share your innermost
thoughts on a technical question. The fact that someone can speak
English to some degree does not make for good written communication.
We have to recognize
that this is a barrier that we have not been able to cross. We
have not forgotten about it, though. We are working on it. How
do you encourage communication across a diverse group of associates?
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Virtual
Trust with Customers
One element of Buckman
Laboratories' new strategy of customer intimacy was to explore
more aggressively the potential contained within its' customer
forums. One idea was to allow a specific customer's employees
worldwide to communicate among themselves and with those Buckman
associates with whom they interacted.
Each company would
be allocated one section, with both parties responsible for nominating
those of their respective associates who could have access to
the section. Associated with each customer section would be a
related "Buckman only" section where those Buckman
associates who interacted with the customer could discuss some
things privately.
Bob Buckman hoped
to build "virtual trust" not only with employees but
customers. In his view "the climate of trust that fosters
proactive knowledge sharing within the company is the same climate
that we want to create with our customers." Everyone recognized
that it would be a big challenge to get some customers involved
in the new way. According to one associate, "Customers are
scared of security and losing trade secrets. Their own mills
don't even talk to each other."
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