I have worked in defense: military (enlisted) & DoD employee, I have worked in regulated/restricted goods (firearms), and in medical device manufacturing. Every place has biases and quirks one must get around. Particularly I have been struck by how often change initiatives fail. How frequently proven systems for creating improvement are mistrustsed. How even organizations with the time, resources, and people to make qualitative improvements….don’t.
A few general observations about all these situations.
- Leadership didn’t understand their role in the efforts, resulting in the failures.
- Outside consultants or new personnel who used lots of jargon (lean/6-sigma type) were almost universally ignored, shunned, or starved of support.
- Too much was attempted at once.
- Culture in the organizations was not considered.
- Tools, techniques, and systems to facilitate improvement were not deployed for maximum effect.
Most of these all filter into a few categories.
- Leadership
- Operations
- Culture
Every failure I observed was driven by one or more of these elements lacking adequate attention.
I participated as memebers of some of these initiatives and saw first hand how they poisoned later attempts. I witnessed people losing enthusiasm when a well-launched activity was denied follow-through from leadership. I have seen what it does to morale when ideas are accepted and then it is two months later and the idea falls flat.
A second piece of this relates to job satisfaction. Too many people do too many jobs where they do stupid, pointless work. Sometimes this work is necessary. Way too often, how the work happens hasn’t been given any thought about how it might be done better or smarter. I’ve had to do the crappy jobs and I sat there the whole time thinking about how it could be smarter and yet…it wasn’t. And in those days, nobody would even consider listening to young (16) me about how to manage the grocery store.
So my program is from over 25 years of observation, some innovation where I was able, and lots of thought and consideration about HOW to get improvements done. And keep them done. And provide a system people can use over and over again to keep moving forward.
The most important component of what I’m trying to do is approachability. Despite lots of reading, understanding, experience, and education, I am caught off guard when people just start tossing jargon at me. Lots of organizations don’t have the time or the budget to worry about “getting up to speed” on the lingo. So I don’t use it.
Start. Somewhere. has very little technical jargon. I wanted something people at all levels of the organization could understand. So plain english is what I used. The system will prepare you to move into more complicated quality ideas. If you don’t want to…don’t.
The foundation of Start. Somewhere. is highly technical. I have based it on essential lean manufacturing tools and techniques. Organizations that emploly this system will be closer to lean implementation than many companies who brag about it. I have a separate post about the bones of each system element, so I won’t go too far in the weeds here.
On top of these reasons, I find it incredibly sad to encounter organizations who dismiss systems of improvement (lean specifically) because “they don’t make cars”. Toyota doesn’t just make cars, they have accounting people, marketing people, all elements of the business can make use of lean tools.
Start. Somewhere. is intended for anyone who want to get going on an improvement initiative. No matter where they work.
If you found any of this interesting, please reach out. I’d love to talk. Let’s Start. Somewhere. together.
