Book Review: The Ice Cream Maker

The Ice Cream Maker: An Inspiring Tale About Making Quality The Key
Ingredient in Everything You Do

I was reading the WSJ a while back and was intrigued by a book
recommendation by Chrysler’s Robert Nardelli (you
can read that article here, a PDF).

They [Chrysler] also saw a tendency for the company to
use the cheapest parts available, even if that compromised quality.
In an effort to turn the situation around, people familiar with the
matter said, Mr. Nardelli had dozens of top Chrysler executives
read “The Ice Cream Maker,” a book by quality consultant Subir
Chowdhury.

I couldn’t believe it.
Nardelli, who has the reputation of being an imperial, top-down
leader, the man who is blamed for
killing morale and customer service at Home Depot through his
Six Sigma tyranny…. he’s recommending a book about quality,
service, and employee engagement.

Either this book can’t be any good, or Nardelli has had a major
awakening and change of heart as a manager.

The only thing I could confirm first hand was if the book was any
good…. so I bought and I read. And, I have to say, I *loved* this
book.

The Ice Cream Maker is a quick read, at just over 100 small pages.
It’s the type of book you can read in a single flight (or a single
runway delay). It’s a business novel. I know, you might groan at
that tired genre (thank you,
The Goal),
but it’s amazingly short on melodrama and “failing marriages
subplots” (again, thank you, The Goal).

Long story short — the tale is about a plant manager who runs an
ice cream factory. Business is not exactly booming and he’s trying
to help get their product carried by a gourmet grocery chain that’s
very clearly patterned after Whole Foods. When he goes to pitch his
product, he runs into an old friend who is a store manager at Whole
Foods. And hence the business education begins.

Lessons learned include:

• Quality is defined by the customer
• The surest path to improved quality is getting your front-line
  employees involved
• Take care of the employees and they’ll do the right things for
  your customers

Some of the lessons are a bit heavy handed and the book is pretty
pollyanna-ish in the way the improvements at the ice cream factory
are all just automatically bought into by the staff. A longer and
more complex story would have covered some of the more delicate
change management issues that are inevitable even when it’s clear
that change is needed. That’s my only criticism of the book — it
really is a good read.

While the book isn’t about “Lean” per se, the author, Subir
Chowdhury, is a famed quality and Six Sigma expert. I would
highly recommend this book as a companion to more technical books
about Lean implementations. I shared this book with Norman Bodek,
since much of the message is right in line with his “Quick and Easy
Kaizen” approach of employee engagement improvement (and Norman
liked it very much).

There are some pages that I dog-eared for reference and for
pointing out here:

Pg 30 — the grocery store manager says, “We have over two hundred
team members in this store alone. There is simply no way I could
play policeman for every worker if they’re determined to undermine
the business. Instead, we utilize a friendly form of peer pressure
to get everyone going in the same direction.”

Pg 39 — the ice cream manager says, “Like a lot of managers… I
blamed my company’s lack of focus on quality on the workforce or
our aging equipment. But, quality, I realized, starts with strong
leadership. It starts with me listening more closely to our
workers, and to our customers.”

Pg 52 — there’s a great story here about an airline flight
attendent blindly following policy and not getting a drink of
water, before a flight, for an old man in the front of coach
because water was for “first class only.” It’s a great example of
making sure that people aren’t hampered by policy — they need to
be engaged to use their brains and to do the right thing for
customers.”

Pg 60 — talking about innovation and how the ice cream company
doesn’t have a Steve Jobs, the grocery manager says, “We don’t need
a Steve Jobs. We need clerks and stock boys and department heads
with their eyes open and their brains working.”

Pg 68 — “If you want their input, there are no dumb ideas…. the
key is to create an environment that doesn’t penalize creativity,
but rewards it.”

Pg 70 (reminscent of Toyota and andon) — the grocery manager
explains, “The team members who work in our bakery have the
authority to stop the production line at any time if they see
something amiss….”

Ok, there are many more tabbed pages, but I don’t want to be a huge
copyright infringer. I hope I’ve included enough to whet your
appetite for a book about ice cream (pun intended).

You can use this link to buy it. It’s only $12, check it out:

The Ice Cream Maker: An Inspiring Tale About Making Quality The Key
Ingredient in Everything You Do