Summary

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Brief overview of Jimmy, his business, and family.

Image of Jimmy

Jimmy is a 38 years old American. He comes from a poor family. He got married when he was very young to his childhood sweetheart, but this did not work out. 3 years ago he re-married and they now have a young child.

Jimmy is intelligent and well educated, with lots of self-belief. He was the bright child in his family, getting a scholarship to attend university. Because of this he was constantly being picked on by his brothers and sisters when he was little, which made him toughen up to protect himself.

He is a Master black Belt in Six Sigma.

Work Activities

Look at Jimmy’s job description and role at work.

Jimmy has been working for Conglomoco in his current role for six months. He joined in September 2006 after being head hunted for the position on instruction from Max Leader. Previously he worked for Dell in the UK, who have a very successful and established Six Sigma program, with whom he did secondments to both America and Asia.

Although Jimmy does not have any experience in the Medical Devices market, he is confident he can achieve his target of 18% growth in profit over the next three years. He has confidence in the team is has appointed, especially Rebecca Marsters who reminds him of himself a couple of years ago.

A Day in the Life

Follow Jimmy through a typical day.

Today Jimmy is working in the Chicago manufacturing plant. He is concerned about the quality of lenses being produced by the plant. Normally Jimmy would charge Val Principal, his Operations Director, with sorting it out, but last week this quality issue hit his bottom line when the Medical Devices Division was forced to pay compensation to one of their key customers. Jimmy is not happy about this as it will impact his bonus, he has done the calculation (on his spreadsheet) as has worked out that this lapse has cost him about £5000 in potential bonus! He has decided he needs to pay them a visit to personally ‘sort out’ what’s going on.

When Jimmy arrives at the plant he walks round the shop floor and says hello to everyone, using their first name. He pauses to talk to Joe Regular who is supervising the day shift. He likes Joe. Joe is always able to give him an honest opinion as to what is really happening at grass roots level.

When Jimmy get to his war room, he checks his e-mail and deals with anything immediately pressing. Then he calls in Bob Li (Site Manager) to speak to him about what is going on. After a roasting, Jimmy is left with the distinct impression that Bob needs to put his house in order and therefore decides to tell Bob to cancel his holiday (arranged to coincide with his wedding anniversary) in order for the current problems to be sorted out. He communicates this news to Bob who is understandably not happy, but tries to make amends by asking asks his Personal Assistant to arrange for flowers to be sent to Bob’s wife. Jimmy apologizes to both Bob and his wife personally for the impact on their holiday plans.

To Jimmy this is quite a normal day. Most of his direct reports have had a roasting at one time or another!

Jimmy then settles down to review his Key Performance Indicators.

Goals, Fears, and Aspirations

Understand the concerns Jimmy has about his life, career, and business

Jimmy is ambitious. He has been promised Max Leader’s role when he moves on so long as he delivers a turnaround in the Medical Devices Division of Conglomoco. He is determined to get this.

Jimmy is highly motivated by money. It is not that he needs more money, it is that his background taught him that people without money are not valued. Jimmy wants to be valued. How much money he makes is the scoreboard of his value as a person.

Jimmy’s basic salary is £120, 000. He has share options in Conglomoco and is bonused on the performance of the Medical Devices Business Unit. Though his bonuses he has the capability to add a further 60% to his salary and is determined that he will be getting the maximum.

Jimmy doesn’t tolerate fools lightly. He likes people who know what they are talking about. He hates Consultants who he thinks are just for talking the talk, but not walking the walk.

Household and Leisure Activities

Get information about what Jimmy does when he’s not at work.

Jimmy drives a BMW 7 series. He is annoyed that his young family means the Porsche he really wanted was impractical.

Computer Skills, Knowledge, and Abilities

Learn about Jimmy’s computer experience.

Jimmy knows how to get exactly what he needs from his IT, and uses it lots. Although he has no formal IT training, this does not stop him arguing with his IT managers if they are not delivering what he needs.

In his career Jimmy has been exposed to most computer systems, so he knows what he likes and dislikes and tends to have a fixed toolset which he likes to use to get what he needs. This toolset has been molded to provide him the maximum amount of valuable information with the least amount of effort.

Technology Attributes

Get a sense of what Jimmy does with other technology.

The single thing Jimmy uses most is an Excel spreadsheet he has created which imports information from the Profit and Loss account, and various other production systems, and uses this to calculate his expected quarterly bonus.

Technology Attitudes

Review Jimmy’s perspective on technology, past and future.

Jimmy regards technology as a normal part of the ‘toolset’ he uses. The better the tools, the better the job he can do.

Communicating

Learn how Jimmy keeps in touch with people.

Jimmy prefers face to face communication; experience has shown that he can gauge a response or a situation far better if he is in front of the person. However, he is realistic enough to realize that this is not always possible and is open to any technology that willenable people to keep in touch.

Market Size and Influence

Understand the impact people like Jimmy have on our business.

Jimmy is the change agent of the business. He makes things happen. If it’s better this year than it was last year, the chances are Jimmy had something to do with driving it through, even if all he did was get hold of someone who was causing an obstruction and give them the hair dryer treatment.

Demographic Attributes

Read key demographic information about Jimmy and his family.

Jimmy and his family are borderline rich, though he has so much of it tied up in investments that he doesn’t spend much on a day to day basis. He lives in an enormous house, but he’s never at home to enjoy it.

International Considerations

Find out what Jimmy is like outside the U.K.

A perfectly comfortable international traveler, but does not enjoy the actual traveling. Hed almost doesn’t notice the countries he visits. Planes, offices and hotels - they all take Amex.

Quotes

Hear what Jimmy has to say.

“What’s the bottom line?”

“What’s that mean in terms of the bottom line?”

“So the bottom line is, you f*cked it up!”

“Do that again and I’ll rip off your head and feed it to my pet Piranha.”

“IT has to deliver what I want it to deliver, otherwise it fails”

“Get with my program”

“Succeed, we all succeed. Fail, and you’re going down”