Hiring and Keeping Great People

Great employees want to:

1. work on something they find worthwhile
2. work with great people
3. work in a management system that lets them do those things without lots of hassle (bad management systems - see Dilbert for lots of examples)

Money and benefits matter, but especially for retaining people, providing an environment where they can take pride in their work matters more. For recruiting it matters but is often difficult for potential employees to appreciate.

Post on building a great team

As far as motivation, if you hire and manage right this isn't something you need to do. You need to eliminate de-motivation not to worry about motivating employees.

In response to Clarity question: What's an alternative to equity based compensation that recruits, motivates and retains employees?

Related: Let employees take pride in their work by eliminating de-motivation in the management system - Hiring the Right People

"I Know"

What did you learn? by James Lawther:

My daughter (11) has developed another irritating habit. Whenever you say something to her she replies “I know” Your sister needs help. – “I know” We are late for school – “I know” E = MC squared – “I know” The cat is on fire – “I know”

My preferred countermeasure to the "I know" mentality is to ask a question. You can quickly learn you don't know as much as you thought you did when you try to explain what you know.

Often attempts to encourage kids along takes more energy and especially if we are wiped out by work taking more energy to engage kids and help them discover cool knew things is hard.

A strategy for kids, or executives, is to have them predict and explain their prediction and then see what actually happens. After events it is easy to say "I knew" that would happen. Predicting before they happen is often not as easy.

If the kid takes on the I know role play the kid in the soap story below or this post on naturally curious children.

Related: Encouraging Curiosity in Kids - The Education System - Sarah, aged 3, Learns About Soap

Create a Continually Improving Management System - not the Perfect Management Solution

My response to a LinkedIn question*
> Hi everyone, i have a question in relation to Lean, what steps will i
> take if i wanted to apply Lean to an engineering firm?

In most instances I think a PDSA approach to the approach to use it best. Test out various options in parts of the company. See what works. Build and improve the process and spread it more widely.

There are some advantages to a wholesale, uniform CEO led unified effort. But the drawbacks of a centrally driven process to start a transformation without a powerful CEO (or close, COO...) directly involved is likely to have problems.

Instead try approaches on smaller scale, build on what works, adjust based on experience... Depending on how big you are many times different focus will be needed. What the call center uses and what the research department uses may be fairly different. There should be unified principles that hold true everywhere but honestly those are almost always useless words at first (in the cases where they actually start as real guiding principles that is great - it just seems rare in my experience).

A decade later maybe a company will really be guided by respect for people, data based decision making, going to the gemba, customer focus, continual improvement... And those really will be the core behind some fairly different processes in divergent parts of the company. But at first it is usually just word that don't connect to actions.

Some of the most important things about the initial plans (off the top of my head - I may be forgetting some things...) in my opinions are

• continual improvement - a rigid approach is likely to fail (unless you get really lucky). Build the plan with the idea that we are putting forth our first approximation and we will be continually evolving this approach. Therefore the plan most importantly needs to be adaptable based on what we learn (more important that being "right" at the start).
• a focus on experimentation and all that means (providing people training if needed, providing expertise if needed, understanding variation, using data properly...)
• go to the organization gemba and user gemba
• focus on accessing what is working and what isn't and adapt
• respect for people

My suggestions in a post for the Deming Institute blog:

My suggestion in such a case is to start slowly, learn as you go and build on successes. Learn directly from Deming (the books and videos) and from other great books by those that worked with him. My favorites include: The Leader’s Handbook by Peter Scholtes, Fourth Generation Management by Brian Joiner, The Improvement Guide by Gerald Langley, Kevin Nolan, Clifford Norman, Lloyd Provost and Thomas Nolan.

Start using the tools (PDSA, control charts, flowcharts, cause and effect diagrams, visual job instructions, …), focus on respect for people and move toward evidence based decision making. Focus on doing a few things well. Don’t try to do everything at first. Concentrate on getting a few tools and new concepts well understood and effectively used in the organization. Then build from there. As part of this build an appreciation for systems thinking (seeing how interconnected things are is important to moving forward).

* I would link to the LinkedIn discussion but they chose not to provide sensible options (closed group anyway so you couldn't see the conversation). Even so a web site designed with usability in mind could make this work usefully (and use links that would work if the group discussion became public later). It is pitiful how poor huge internet companies are about programing usable websites.

System Imposing Burden on Customers Driven by Pointy Haired Boss

When Begging for Customer Service Scores Hurts Customer Service

I always think… you want patients to say you give “excellent” service and care… then focus on providing excellent service and care! Don’t guilt trip me or don’t manipulate me… that makes me feel a bit worse about the service, when that’s not the intent. Employees shouldn’t be put in the position of begging for scores… help them provide the best service possible, instead.

The practice of telling your customer they must save you from horrible management is terrible. Managers designing a system that puts a burden on customers to rescue people from harsh treatment is about as lame as management can be. Definite Dilbert's pointy haired boss level idiocy.

Any company with this setup likely has little clue about how to use data. When you mistake the data for the proxy indication it is suppose to be a measure of you can't manage at all. Giving huge incentives to people to make the number good (like having employees impose a burden on customers to have a number better which directly burdens the customer) is idiotic.

Relate: Managing to Test Result Instead of Customer Value - Distort the data instead of improving the system - Jiro Dreams of Sushi

The Tendency for Lean Experts to Distrust Technology

My thoughts on Why can't we use technology to accelerate Lean adoption across my company? [the broken link was removed]

I think biggest objection is how often and badly technology efforts fail. This makes a knee jerk reaction against jumping to technology fairly wise.

I think the second reason is technology expertise is often not found in the same people that have lean expertise (it can be it just isn't super common). Combined that with number 1 and the fact that making technology projects successful requires great system (rare) or can be made more likely with a deep understanding of technology and management systems (but I just said they often don't have the tech expertise) so again a reason to shy away from tech.

If a good lean consultant saw the organization had great system for making technology projects, countermeasures etc. successful they would support such efforts even if they were weak on tech. I'll also say most lean consultants aren't great. They don't understand lots of stuff about respect for people, management systems, customer focus, gemba etc.. Due to fear I think many that don't have strong lean understanding will shy away from technology.

I think technology solutions can be great. There is nothing wrong with them, when conditions are right. Conditions are almost never even decent - forget right. Technology projects and efforts are much more likely to be messed up due to bad systems and lack of expertise.

Technology solutions can have huge impacts - there are many good things possible with technology. The problem is so often technology wielded inside organizations (human systems) fail for many reasons very closely tied to bad management practices. The better the management practices the less likely technology will backfire in my opinion. The stronger the management system the more likely technology projects will be managed sensible, tested at the gemba, adjusted by people with a strong understanding of the gemba, project managed by people with an understanding of lean thinking practices (deliver working code fast etc.)...

The fear of technology projects is those reasons and more. Things like the same problem with brain-dead implementations shoving down a horribly inflexible ERP program or shoving down a 10% across the board budget cut and many other such efforts. Technology efforts really are no different than others but there are some difficulty in the problems of technology often being more difficult for people to see.

Technology also is often seen as this wonderful simple quick fix by executives - letting them avoid the gemba and just put hope in a essentially magic bullet solution.

The whole effort to make problems visible is much less likely to be done well around technology (which has to do with some issues with the domain but also with the lack of technology expertise [especially software development] of management and decision makers). Lots of the efforts in lean software development and agile have very good practices for technology efforts.

Related: Deming and Software Development - Involve IT Staff in Business Process Improvement - Mistake Proofing Deployment of Software Code

Respect for People Isn't Just Being "Nice"

One of the mistakes superficial efforts make is thinking respect means being nice and avoiding anything that makes people uncomfortable. Any sensible lean effort doesn't make this error (though I do think even good efforts are too worried about making anyone uncomfortable - at least in the USA) but many lean efforts do (many "lean" efforts are not very sensible, sadly).

Some of my previous posts on the topic: Respect for People Doesn’t Mean Avoiding Any Hint of Criticism - Practical Ways to Demonstrate Respect for People - Long Term Thinking with Respect for People

Response to: What Is Respect For People?

Students as Customers

Competition in Higher Education [the broken link was removed]

A recurring theme among faculty in public higher education is criticism of the “student as customer“ viewpoint held by administrators, politicians, and others. Most of the criticism misses the mark

I find that normally the "they are not customers" crowd (doctors, government, education) are not doing a decent job of understanding what they disparage.

It is true that it isn't appropriate for many providers of services to do whatever those who are paying want. That isn't what "customer focus" means.

I can understand how people can leap to accepting the idea that understanding "customer" needs and values is problematic - it is normally a sign of destructive management practices intertwined with proclamations to "treat customers well."

As you say there is much good to be found in "customer focus" in education but it has to be part of a sensible management system.

Related: Customers, End Users and Payers - Customer Focus by Everyone - Problems With Student Evaluations as Measures of Teacher Performance

Ex-Toyota Manager Consulting with Porsche in 1994

Interesting article from 1994. Shock therapy for Porsche [the broken link was removed]: The prestigious German car firm was speeding to destruction, so its chief swallowed his pride and hired Japan's top consultants to improve outdated methods of production. John Eisenhammer charts the brutal remedies they prescribed at the company's plant near Stuttgart:

The results are already impressive. The production time of the new Porsche 911 Carrera has been reduced by a third, to 86 hours. That is still some way behind the best comparable Japanese time of 50 to 60 hours, but Porsche claims to be well on target. Whereas 70 per cent of Porsches three years ago required expensive rectification at the end of the production line, the proportion is now half that. Inventory levels have been reduced by 44 per cent: 7,000 square metres of shopfloor space have been freed and rented out. A worker suggestion scheme, which in the past generated fewer than 20 ideas a month, has now exploded to around 2,500

While respect for people is an important part of the Toyota Production System, the practice of former Toyota managers were often the "tough love" variety. Today, many people are often too timid, in my opinion, to call out things that need to be improved for fear of making someone uncomfortable. Where that balance properly lies though is based on the culture of the organization (and what needs to be done - occasionally there is a need to "shake people up" in order to make change take place more effectively).

In his own gruff way Mr Iwata agrees. 'We are not here to praise,' he growls. 'But there is hope for Porsche.'

Related: Early "Lean" Thinking - Pay Practices Say More About Respect for People Than Words Say - Respect for People and Understanding Psychology - Respect for Everyone Funny item from the story:

When not discussing production-line changes or conducting workshops, the Shin-Gijutsu people are ambushing staff. 'When I see one of Porsche's fine engineers, I do not say 'good morning',' grins Mr Nakao. 'I say, 'show me your hands. They must be dirty - engineers must always have oily hands'.' Used also to checking the soles of shoes worn by managers in the finance department, to see if they spend enough time walking around the factory, Mr Nakao was devastated to discover the trick did not work with Germans, who are used to resoling old shoes. 'We do not do this in Japan,' he says. 'How can I see if a man is doing his job properly if he keeps changing his soles?'

It is also illustrates that your practices need to adjust to the system. Time at the gemba is important and transfers. Your specific means of checking that might have to be adjusted.