"I have an open door policy. Come on in any time the door's open." Is this enlightened leadership or another example of mediocre modern management philosophy? The problem with the majority of managers that have an "open door" policy is twofold. First, there's not just a physical door between the manager and her staff, but also a figurative one. Doors, even when they are open, create a separation and an isolation that is more perceived than seen. Often, the employee that wants to share an idea, complain or just talk to the manager won't go anywhere near the door to even see if it's open or not.
The second problem involves relationships and geography. The manager that doesn't spend time away from his office and the meeting room is like a king sitting in his throne room. He can't establish a relationship of open communication if he isn't making an effort himself. If a manager sits in his office most of the day, and nobody comes to visit, should he assume that no one has anything important to say to him?
The enlightened leader (EL) doesn't have an open door policy. ELs don't give their employees a reason to seek them out. The EL is seeking out opportunities to communicate with employees on a regular basis. The EL goes to the where the work is being done and interacting with the people that do the work. Without going to the places where the company's products and services are being produced, a manager cannot expect to have meaningful sharing of important information. By making an effort to understand what's happening outside the walls of her own office, the enlightened leader creates:
1. Improved trust
2. Higher morale
3. A better understanding of her business
4. Better follow-through on agreements
5. Higher productivity and quality
6. Faster problem resolution
Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, the founders of HP, are credited with bringing the concept of Management by Walking Around to American management. In the Lean Enterprise world, we call the concept the Gemba Walk (gemba is a japanese word that means the real thing at the real place). Whatever you call it, it is important that it is done with the right intentions and methods; that the leader isn't wandering around, just to be seen, without any interaction with the people or the processes. By making an effort to seek knowledge in the right location, even if there are some early stumbles, a business leader can take their misguided open door policy and stick it where it belongs: in the past.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Thursday, August 4, 2011
The Trouble with Empowerment
The existence of empowered employees can be a tremendously powerful asset for any organization. It can also be a detriment. Empowerment becomes detrimental when the leadership has a poor understanding of what empowerment is. I recently witnessed an example of a misguided, but well-intentioned leader, trying to impart empowerment to his employees. The Operations Manager had an all-hands meeting in order to reinforce the management's support of the lean enterprise transformation they had recently begun. He recognized and complimented a few teams that had shown some marginal improvements in their work areas as the result of some kaizen workshops, and let the rest of the employees know that their time was coming. They would all be on a kaizen workshop team in the future. He then closed the meeting with the words that often make me cringe: "Remember, you don't have to wait to be on a workshop team. You are all empowered to make improvements in your areas. Now get back to work and make your production numbers."
He didn't actually say the last sentence, but that's what he was thinking. Unfortunately, he believed that simply by saying, "You're empowered", some sort of new world would be magically created. A world in which the employees know what empowerment means, have the knowledge and opportunity to make improvements, and somehow have a new authority they didn't have before. The result is normally a workforce that is more frustrated with management than before, and a diminished belief that the leaders actually mean what they say. Unfortunately, this company will continue only to see improvements as a result of formal kaizen workshops, with the improvements being nominal due to a lack of follow-up by the faux-empowered employees.
To help companies understand what empowerment is, here are the 4 elements of an empowered organization:
1. Ability: Employees need to have the knowledge and skills of the lean enterprise principles that apply to their business. They need training and experience in problem solving - identifying, analyzing and solutioning the problems they face in their areas every day.
2. Expectation: Is continuous improvement optional or required. Contributing to the efforts of improving one's own process should be a part of everyone's job. In fact, it should be written in their job requirements, discussed during new hire interviews, and included as a portion of the employee's performance evaluation.
3. Opportunity: Quite simply, people need to be given the time to solve problems and make changes. If you expect them to find "free time" to work on improvements, they won't.
4. Authority: It is important to define the level of authority the individual or the team has. There are 4 levels of authority you can impart to a team:
Level 1, Directed: The team must comply with whatever decision management makes
Level 2, Consultative: Management will decide what to do, but want ideas from the team.
Level 3, Participative: Employees need approval by management before making changes.
Level 4, Delegated: Employees are delegated to make decisions and act without approval.
As you go from Level 1 to Level 4, empowerment and trust increase, and the changes are more likely to stick. Ideally, you will never accept Level 1, use Level 2 in rare circumstances, and apply Levels 3 and 4 appropriately as the leadership matures and employees develop their abilities.
Creating an culture of empowerment doesn't need to be difficult. It takes time and a commitment from the company leadership. The first step is for the leadership to understand what they need to say and do to create all four elements of empowerment that will allow their team's creativity to flourish.
He didn't actually say the last sentence, but that's what he was thinking. Unfortunately, he believed that simply by saying, "You're empowered", some sort of new world would be magically created. A world in which the employees know what empowerment means, have the knowledge and opportunity to make improvements, and somehow have a new authority they didn't have before. The result is normally a workforce that is more frustrated with management than before, and a diminished belief that the leaders actually mean what they say. Unfortunately, this company will continue only to see improvements as a result of formal kaizen workshops, with the improvements being nominal due to a lack of follow-up by the faux-empowered employees.
To help companies understand what empowerment is, here are the 4 elements of an empowered organization:
1. Ability: Employees need to have the knowledge and skills of the lean enterprise principles that apply to their business. They need training and experience in problem solving - identifying, analyzing and solutioning the problems they face in their areas every day.
2. Expectation: Is continuous improvement optional or required. Contributing to the efforts of improving one's own process should be a part of everyone's job. In fact, it should be written in their job requirements, discussed during new hire interviews, and included as a portion of the employee's performance evaluation.
3. Opportunity: Quite simply, people need to be given the time to solve problems and make changes. If you expect them to find "free time" to work on improvements, they won't.
4. Authority: It is important to define the level of authority the individual or the team has. There are 4 levels of authority you can impart to a team:
Level 1, Directed: The team must comply with whatever decision management makes
Level 2, Consultative: Management will decide what to do, but want ideas from the team.
Level 3, Participative: Employees need approval by management before making changes.
Level 4, Delegated: Employees are delegated to make decisions and act without approval.
As you go from Level 1 to Level 4, empowerment and trust increase, and the changes are more likely to stick. Ideally, you will never accept Level 1, use Level 2 in rare circumstances, and apply Levels 3 and 4 appropriately as the leadership matures and employees develop their abilities.
Creating an culture of empowerment doesn't need to be difficult. It takes time and a commitment from the company leadership. The first step is for the leadership to understand what they need to say and do to create all four elements of empowerment that will allow their team's creativity to flourish.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Can Government Think Lean?
Times are tough for governments trying to satisfy the needs of the people they serve. They are positioned with shrinking budgets, diluted employee morale, and increased public scrutiny. And as governments deal with an aging population and a greater demand for services, the additional costs of providing services can be monumental. But taking the traditional government approach of cost-cutting, hoping for 2% or 3% savings isn’t good enough to close the gap. Public sector organizations need to completely transform the way they produce their services in order to meet current taxpayers’ demands. Although the need to provide value and services in the most efficient manner should be a priority for all levels of government, it presently isn’t. Public sector productivity continues to lag behind the gains the private sector is experiencing.
A few progressive-thinking government organizations are starting to see real benefits by using Lean Enterprise principles to make significant gains in productivity. Lean Enterprise thinking was initially a set of tools and principles used successfully by Toyota and hundreds of other manufacturers around the world. However, in the past decade we have seen a renaissance, of sorts, in numerous non-manufacturing industries using Lean principles. Hospitals are using Lean to reduce paperwork, move patients more quickly through the emergency room, increase the number of operations performed in a day, and numerous other improvements that benefit the hospital, the patient and the insurance companies. Non-profit care providers are using Lean to reduce paperwork, ensure their clients get more face time with case workers, and serve more clients with the same amount of resources. The military is using Lean to reduce the turnaround time to service and repair mission-critical equipment so the equipment is available when necessary and to allow for less equipment needed overall. Construction companies are using Lean to reduce the time to complete a project, while using fewer resources and materials. Unfortunately, government appears to be the last of the major employment sectors (although it’s the largest) to embrace this well-proven approach to enterprise transformation.
Many a civil servant will react to the non-government improvement examples with indifference, and explain that public sector organizations are different. “We don’t make things or sell things or have a profit motive.” But in reality, they fit right in to the model of a lean enterprise. One performance measurement shared between private and public sector organizations is productivity. Productivity is defined as the amount of output in relation to the level of input required. Output can be a product or a service. For a manufacturer, it’s a widget. For a city, it could be a permit or public transportation. For a state, it could be a driver’s license or Medicaid reimbursement. Input is the other factor in the equation. For a manufacturer, input is mostly overhead, material and labor. For the city or state, input is mostly overhead and labor. By taking a lean approach to productivity improvement, teams will discover that there is an abundance of time (input) spent doing things that don’t add value to the service being performed. Examples are: searching for information; waiting for approvals; correcting errors; seeking clarification; duplication of effort; unnecessary approvals; repeated trips to printers, copiers and filing cabinets; creating unneeded reports; excessive information; waiting for people to respond to email or voice mail; trying to find someone; unnecessary meetings; and more. By eliminating or reducing some of these non-value added tasks, capacity will increase. Increased capacity can then be used to produce more services - of higher quality - with the same amount of resources. A few examples:
• The State of Missouri used lean principles to reduce the time to receive a tax refund to 2 days without adding any costs.
• The City of Cape Coral, Florida used lean enterprise principles to reduce commercial site permit approvals from 27 days to 5 days.
• In Grand Rapids, MI, a team of city employees used Lean to reduce the time to get a construction plan reviewed from 22 days to 9 days.
By focusing on productivity (doing more with the same or less), a city, state, or other public sector entity increases its capacity to provide services to the public. One of the benefits of using a Lean approach is that the additional capacity is gained without the need for additional people, equipment, facilities or money. The needed capacity has always been there. It’s hidden until the right team of people, with the right motivation and knowledge, is given the opportunity to identify and eliminate the non-value added tasks. The results are similar to what most private sector companies can expect:
• Improved customer (taxpayer) experiences
• Reduced wait times
• Reduced costs
• Improved morale
• Higher quality services
• Increased equipment utilization.
• Reduced facility space needed
The operational benefits that a city or state realizes from their Lean Enterprise initiatives can then support more strategic benefits, like economic growth, advancing social goals (health care, poverty) and improved faith in government. Once civil servants get past the mindset that private sector ideas won’t work in the public sector, the opportunities to improve government are nearly endless.
A few progressive-thinking government organizations are starting to see real benefits by using Lean Enterprise principles to make significant gains in productivity. Lean Enterprise thinking was initially a set of tools and principles used successfully by Toyota and hundreds of other manufacturers around the world. However, in the past decade we have seen a renaissance, of sorts, in numerous non-manufacturing industries using Lean principles. Hospitals are using Lean to reduce paperwork, move patients more quickly through the emergency room, increase the number of operations performed in a day, and numerous other improvements that benefit the hospital, the patient and the insurance companies. Non-profit care providers are using Lean to reduce paperwork, ensure their clients get more face time with case workers, and serve more clients with the same amount of resources. The military is using Lean to reduce the turnaround time to service and repair mission-critical equipment so the equipment is available when necessary and to allow for less equipment needed overall. Construction companies are using Lean to reduce the time to complete a project, while using fewer resources and materials. Unfortunately, government appears to be the last of the major employment sectors (although it’s the largest) to embrace this well-proven approach to enterprise transformation.
Many a civil servant will react to the non-government improvement examples with indifference, and explain that public sector organizations are different. “We don’t make things or sell things or have a profit motive.” But in reality, they fit right in to the model of a lean enterprise. One performance measurement shared between private and public sector organizations is productivity. Productivity is defined as the amount of output in relation to the level of input required. Output can be a product or a service. For a manufacturer, it’s a widget. For a city, it could be a permit or public transportation. For a state, it could be a driver’s license or Medicaid reimbursement. Input is the other factor in the equation. For a manufacturer, input is mostly overhead, material and labor. For the city or state, input is mostly overhead and labor. By taking a lean approach to productivity improvement, teams will discover that there is an abundance of time (input) spent doing things that don’t add value to the service being performed. Examples are: searching for information; waiting for approvals; correcting errors; seeking clarification; duplication of effort; unnecessary approvals; repeated trips to printers, copiers and filing cabinets; creating unneeded reports; excessive information; waiting for people to respond to email or voice mail; trying to find someone; unnecessary meetings; and more. By eliminating or reducing some of these non-value added tasks, capacity will increase. Increased capacity can then be used to produce more services - of higher quality - with the same amount of resources. A few examples:
• The State of Missouri used lean principles to reduce the time to receive a tax refund to 2 days without adding any costs.
• The City of Cape Coral, Florida used lean enterprise principles to reduce commercial site permit approvals from 27 days to 5 days.
• In Grand Rapids, MI, a team of city employees used Lean to reduce the time to get a construction plan reviewed from 22 days to 9 days.
By focusing on productivity (doing more with the same or less), a city, state, or other public sector entity increases its capacity to provide services to the public. One of the benefits of using a Lean approach is that the additional capacity is gained without the need for additional people, equipment, facilities or money. The needed capacity has always been there. It’s hidden until the right team of people, with the right motivation and knowledge, is given the opportunity to identify and eliminate the non-value added tasks. The results are similar to what most private sector companies can expect:
• Improved customer (taxpayer) experiences
• Reduced wait times
• Reduced costs
• Improved morale
• Higher quality services
• Increased equipment utilization.
• Reduced facility space needed
The operational benefits that a city or state realizes from their Lean Enterprise initiatives can then support more strategic benefits, like economic growth, advancing social goals (health care, poverty) and improved faith in government. Once civil servants get past the mindset that private sector ideas won’t work in the public sector, the opportunities to improve government are nearly endless.
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