Dec 12 2013
If You’re Going to Change Your Culture, Do It Quickly | HBR Blog Network | Brad Power
See on Scoop.it – lean manufacturing
“The conventional wisdom is that it takes years to change a culture, defined as the assumed beliefs and norms that govern ‘the way we do things around here.’ And few organizations explicitly use culture as a way to drive business performance, or even believe it could make sense to do so.The logic usually works the other way — make specific changes in processes, and then hope that, gradually, the culture will change.
Yet some leading organizations are turning this conventional wisdom on its head. Consider Trane, the $8 billion subsidiary of Ingersoll Rand that provides heating, ventilating, air conditioning and building management systems. By focusing first on changing their culture, Trane has been driving results — and quickly.”
The article is supposed to be about any business organization, but the example presented is only about sales offices.
What do sales offices do? They communicate and negotiate with prospects to turn them into customers. They nurture relationships; attitude and teamwork are key to success at it. In sales, working on the “targeted behaviors of associates” is working on the process.
Manufacturing is a different. It is about production, not persuasion, and I don’t know of any successful change in manufacturing that would have been driven at the cultural level. When attempted, it quickly degenerates into the kind of exhortation and sloganeering that Deming denounced so vehemently.
I don’t know any manufacturing people who would be swayed by it. Instead, they need tangible, physical changes to the way work is being done, implemented with their input and diligently. Only the experience of improvement will change their perception of the work and the organization. Talk therapy won’t.
See on blogs.hbr.org
Dec 16 2013
He got the map upside down | Bill Waddell
See on Scoop.it – lean manufacturing
“…, at Toyota and at lean companies using visual controls effectively, it [the organization chart] actually looks like this…”
The first time I saw an organization chart with the plant manager at the bottom and the workers on top was in an auto parts factory in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, back in 2001, before that city became so notoriously dangerous.
The chart had a photograph next to each name, and it was not a gimmick. The plant was not perfect in any way, but the plant manager wore an overall to the floor every morning to make his rounds, and the operators knew him.
The employment pattern in the maquiladora plants near the US border was similar to the one I saw shortly thereafter in the Pearl River Delta area of China: girls from the countryside came to work in the plants for a couple of years, saved money, and went home.
The work was tough and tedious, but the plant manager did his utmost to provide the best working conditions he could, and the workers knew it. You could tell from the way they were looking at him.
The employee turnover rate at this plant was 11%/year, compared to about 40% for the other maquiladoras in the neighborhood.
See on www.idatix.com
Share this:
Like this:
By Michel Baudin • Blog clippings • 2 • Tags: Employee turnover, Lean, Maquiladora