Santa’s secret to success? His management philosophy, says Saint Vincent College prof
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Ever wonder how Santa Claus can cover the entire world in a single night?
The legend of Rudolph says the secret is the guidance system of the reindeer’s bright red nose.
The movie “Elf” posits the collective belief in Santa as the power behind the sleigh.
For Michael Urick, it’s about Santa embracing operational excellence.
The associate professor of business administration at Saint Vincent College defines the concept as a “management philosophy that focuses on continuous improvement, waste reduction and problem-solving.”
Applied by corporations as diverse as Toyota, Subaru and Kennametal, operational excellence — or OE for short — is a way of doing business that stresses efficiency and effectiveness, he explained.
No one relies on operational excellence more than Santa Claus, according to Urick.
“Santa has his own magic — but I think his magic comes from OE,” he said.
Urick, director of the Unity college’s graduate program in operational excellence, writes a monthly column for the faculty blog in which he uses popular culture to explain key management concepts. In the past, he has written about leadership theories in “The Lord of the Rings,” “Star Wars” and superhero movies. This month, he illustrates the three main aspects of OE by using Santa as an example.
Santa, he said, knows that he must continuously improve in order to meet the demands of his “customers” — children who expect to see the presents they asked for under the tree on Christmas morning.
“He has been managing the production of toys and traveling around the world delivering presents every Christmas Eve for quite a long period of time,” Urick said. “Through the years, I am sure that he has updated his technology to help decrease the number of defects in his elves’ toy-making processes and to respond to the changing customer demands for types of toys over the decades.”
Santa surely has had to adjust his method of delivery over the years since many modern houses do not have working chimneys anymore, he said.
Santa also believes in the OE principle of waste reduction. “Santa only has a limited amount of time to travel around the world … so he has to do so in a most efficient manner,” Urick said.
Santa is a problem-solver par excellence, Urick said.
“For example, he likely used an OE problem-solving tool … to determine the root cause of a visibility issue he encountered one particular Christmas Eve,” he said. “From his understanding of the problem, he was able to implement an appropriate countermeasure of having Rudolph guide his sleigh with his glowing red nose to light the way.”
Urick said he hopes his appeal to Santa helps people better understand operational excellence.
“OE principles can be used anywhere — manufacturing, health care, human resources and IT,” he said. “I wanted to write something for the holidays, and then I thought, ‘Wait a second — to actually be as efficient as Santa is, he has to be focused on OE.”