Article 49. Practices that Encourage Teamwork and Continuous Improvement.
Continuous improvement comes from employee teamwork and small steps in improvement in their work processes. However some practices can get in the way. One of these is performance measurement. The rule here is “what you measure is what you get”. You should never measure individual performance or its corollary pay individual incentive pay it pits employees against each other causing them to horde information about the work being done stifling continuous improvement. The converse is to always measure group productivity and reward group performance. But make sure that what you are measuring and what you are rewarding are what you want as a result. An example is don’t measure vehicle or machine utilization they may driven or used just to collect the miles or hours to meet the standard for performance a waste of equipment and employee’s time. Measure only a few items needed for improvement other measures can be used just for monitoring activities but don’t have too many performance measures they will be confusing and get employees working at cross purposes.
Change the role of supervisors from “directing activities” to becoming coaches supporting individuals and groups. Reduce or eliminate the practice of “toll gating” making personnel wait until approval is granted. Supervisors should be close enough to the work activities to grant immediate approval. They should encourage innovation and allow small failures so that a few successes can be found and adopted throughout the organization. This is a tough role change so its up to senior management staffs to provide role models. Actions speak louder than words managers can’t fool employees. They watch for patterns in the manager’s most minute actions, and are able to distrust words that mismatch deeds. This is why in being a role model for change the manager must truly believe in the process and his actions must demonstrate his words.
Continuous improvement may be thought of as being done in small steps and usually involves those improvements that an individual or group can change in their work processes. Innovation is generally thought of as bringing bigger and more dramatic change to work processes. This is usually through the way that an entire function is performed and can be by technological breakthrough. Innovation can also bring more disruption to the work place eliminating some jobs adding new jobs but when warranted can bring significant productivity improvement in a shorter time.
As I have stated elsewhere you should tear down office walls and put in more conference rooms just in case people want to get together to solve problems. Introduce what some call “tight coupling” between different disciplines. It all means that people talk about their problems and get them solved rather than posturing and debating and causing delay. This is also an added benefit for Work Improvement Teams (WIT) when they meet with other disciplines.
There is also an advantage to WITs over individual employees in the way work is assigned. In the bureaucratic system individuals are assigned tasks for which they alone are responsible. In most cases the tasks occupy only part of the individuals time resulting in a great deal of inefficiency. The WIT studies the various tasks to be done in a Function and determines the most efficient way of doing the tasks. The cost savings can be significant.
