People or System

It is common these days to view people as the cause of performance (or lack thereof) in an organisation.

When performance is low, people get the blame they may even get the sack. At General Electric under Jack Welsh, they had a policy that the top 20% would be promoted and rewarded, the middle 70% would be left as they are and that the bottom 10% would be “managed out”, whatever that means. It is also common, therefore, to think that the key to improving performance is to focus on people issues. Issues such as pay, motivation, incentives, team synergy and the like.

It is unfortunate that this is the case because as W. Edwards Deming said, over 90% of performance comes from the system of work. If this is true, and I believe strongly that it is after my working experience as a worker, manager and consultant helping companies apply this thinking, then the managers of today are working very hard on the 10% or less that is the people and not getting much return from their efforts. Actually that is not true, they are getting a return. The return is that staff get demotivated from constantly being motivated while the work does not change.

Managers spend too much time trying to “get them to do it”, and not enough time “improving the system of how they do it”.

Deming also said, “There is a better way.”

The better way is to focus on the system. Study the system with the aid of theory (Lean Thinking in this case) and change it to deliver a better service as judged by your customer.

And here comes the paradox. Your front line staff must be heavily involved in the improvement process. In fact they are the ones who will provide all the best ideas for improvement. If you let them.

This calls for a switch. Management must think differently and this can be hard. Management must stop thinking that they are the thinkers and involve staff in decisions about how the business operations work. Managers must become supporters and resource providers. While they think they are the only thinkers in the business they are sitting heavily on the lid of the well that holds the biggest potential source of improvement that they have access to. That well is in the heads of their staff.

I forget where I read it, but I think it was a quote from a worker in one of the big three US car makers who said, as he was being made redundant, “They paid me for my hands for 25 years. They had my brain for free, but never used it.”

Think about it (or not if you are in management!!).

Best,

Rob