People Are Central to Success

Look to gemba to add value, create a learning organization

“People are our most important resource.”  “Our team is the source of our success.”  “Our people enable our success.” These and similar sayings are found in entrances and lobbies and posted on walls everywhere around the world.

The problem is that for most traditional-thinking organizations, it is little more than something put into a statement, then promptly forgotten when sales demand goes down, or the economy falters, kaizen activities are used to walk people out the door, or when some robotics company convinces them automation is the silver bullet to their problems.

This is when leadership has to walk the talk and truly act like employees that are central to the organization’s success.

Over time people appreciate and machines depreciate. This means that automation should be used in two circumstances:

  1. Where the work or work environment is hazardous to the health of human team members. Some examples are facilities that are hot, have poor air quality, or have high noise levels.
  2. Where a human is not capable of building the required level of precision into the process. An example of this is microchip production.

We need to resist the temptation to use automation as a quick win for throughput or efficiency gains in our operations.  The reality is that quick decisions about automation and equipment usually result in lower throughput and efficiency.

Machines can’t learn or think, which means higher costs for additional programming and interfaces. Typically, machines and automation are hard to move around without additional costs so they become a monolith that impedes the ability to make improvements or changes in a process.

While there is a time and place for automation, building the capacity and capabilities of people will result in long-term organizational success.

Develop Staff

People have limitless capacity for innovative, imaginative improvements and problem solving.  A relentless daily (and hourly) focus on kaizen moves an organization along the right path.

Developing the capacity of employees and leaders is critical to developing a learning organization, and getting staff to change the way they do their work is crucial for long-term improvements to safety, quality, quantity, cost, morale, and the environment.  Developing employee capacity has to improve the functioning of the organization as measured by these types of metrics.

Capacity development does not occur in a straight line; it occurs when time is allocated to support problem solving, allowing time for reflection and identification of opportunities for improvement on a daily basis.

When kaizen activities result in displacement of employees, keep these valuable resources to work on future business or to help improve other areas.

Develop Leadership

Hand in hand with the development of people, we have to develop the capability of leadership to sustain this kind of culture.  In this culture of learning, leaders are not traditional command and control managers who dictate what, when, and how team members should do things.  Rather, they are coaches that guide the team members through specific activities to change their habits and behaviours over time.

The role of coach and mentor is the most critical aspect to leadership within a learning organization that is committed to business excellence.

This nontraditional role of leaders can be difficult for many companies to get used to because replacing old, traditional accounting management (by the numbers) to target condition thinking (which includes cost) sometimes is hard.

Creating a space where failures or problems aren’t viewed punitively but rather as a chance to provide additional coaching and learning is crucial.  If perfection is demanded at every turn, better-than-current condition is an impossible goal.

Looking at the total system cost, versus individual or process cost, based on customer demand (and not accounting) is much more important and allows an organization to think of things in terms of an integrated system, not just point kaizen (the dramatic overhaul of a single system).

New leaders must be relentlessly focused on the gemba (where the value-added operations take place), which is where all of the value is added, not behind a desk, analyzing reports or data.

While careful analysis sometimes is necessary, gemba focuses on doing and gaining respect from the people who perform the critical work every day.  This respect is gained when improvements make sense, make things better, and are consistent with an organization that puts its people first.

With the basic framework of an integrated organizational culture of improvement in place (people, technical, management, and philosophical), we can now start progressing to simple actions, activities, and behaviours that leaders can develop to make things better.

Matt Elson is founder of True North Thinking, 705-796-4853, www.truenorththinking.ca.