Expectations develop discipline; therefore, people not having the discipline to follow standards and procedures are merely a symptom of leaders that lack an expectation of the team to follow them. Whether from the customer or from a boss, when there is pressure to cut costs, there is a tendency to evade standards and resort to a “by any means necessary” approach. Before you know it, standards only exist for documentation and the organization is out of control. Complaints and non-conformances become the norm, and the vicious cycle of firefighting sets in.
Permission to not follow one procedure opens the door for more procedures to not be followed and fuels a numbers focus mindset. As leaders and managers, it is important to remember that you get what you focus on, and if you’re constantly pressuring the team for numbers, they will focus on numbers. Focus on understanding the data and the facts of the delta. Failure to meet the target or the number is just an indicator that something is wrong.
6 Signs leaders are driving a numbers focus:
- Productivity is referred to as “the numbers.”
Pay close attention to the language of the team and the language used during communication with the team. Powerful people ask powerful questions because questions steer focus. Rather than ask if the team made the numbers, instead ask:
What is the target condition?
What is the current condition?
What obstacles are preventing you from meeting the target?
One of the most effective methods to set the tone and establishing focus is to set up coaching / development cycles between all levels of leadership. (i.e. frontline team to team leader, team leader to value stream leader, value stream leader to production manager) It is important that these cycles be structured, intentional, and consistent.
- Scheduled preventative maintenance is being bypassed.
Shutting the machine down for planned maintenance is the first and most costly standard to be broken in a numbers focused organization. Before long, weeks, months, and in extreme cases, years pass without proper machine maintenance. This short term thinking creates long term risk for the organization with its internal and external customers. An organization’s processes are its sources of income. Instability on the front line creates a deficit on the bottom line.
- The ultimate goal after breakdown is to get the machine back up.
When maintenance is not being performed, downtime is sure to follow. When determining the root cause and preventing recurrence are not at the forefront, the making of a toxic culture has begun. Problem processes cause people problems in the form of aggravation, poor morale, disengagement, and disrespect. Problem processes cause organizational problems in the form of turn over, poor quality, and high costs. In case it didn’t sink in, read that again, because that was a GOLDEN NUGGET. All of the symptoms being treated from bad managers, toxic work cultures, to missed bottom line metrics stem from problem processes. Problem processes stem from systemic failure. People, Processes, and Systems are interdependent.
- Adherence to standards is not a leadership priority – too busy.
If leaders are too busy to confirm standards are being followed and have become blind to the indicators that standards are not being followed, the organization is out of control. The leader is lost, consumed by firefighting, and the only plan is to work overtime until the situation resolves itself, most times in the form of decreased orders. Once the orders begin to decrease, the customer is executing its exit strategy to receive its product elsewhere.
- Incentives are driven by numbers and short term goals.
One of the worst things leadership can do in a numbers focused environment is to directly link an incentive to making short term production numbers. This is a recipe for a PRR nightmare from the customer. Focus instead on fixing the problems that are stifling productivity and link incentive to long term goals and objectives. When incentives are linked to short term goals, the tendency is to apply short term fixes. Long term goals encourage creating stability and valid growth.
- There is no focus on continual improvement.
One of the hardest tasks of a leader in is to counteract the vicious cycle of firefighting. It takes a different mindset to lead a culture of continuous improvement where even when it’s not broke, it gets shut down to improve it. The frontline team, including frontline leadership, must be the primary source of problem identification and initiation of improvement. When the leader is lost in the shuffle, improvement is nonexistent, and the ultimate goal is to simply stay the same by hitting “the number.”
Old habits die hard. All of the aforementioned practices are what leaders have been trained to do directly and indirectly by tradition. This approach to management keeps organizations stuck in stagnation and threatens the very livelihood of its ability to remain competitive. The key to change is knowing better, “seeing” better, and choosing to do better.
Deena Boyce is an experienced productivity management and improvement coach with over twenty years of experience in lean management within American, Japanese and German owned organizations. Her mission is to end management and lean implementation failure in the manufacturing organization. She is passionate about proactive management and developing others via a robust, bottom- up management system. As a traditionally trained manager that now “gets it,” she shares her insight and expertise in an effort to heighten the awareness of the importance of the management system and the leadership behaviors within it to drive organizational culture and fix our broken traditional foundations. It’s Renovation time!
When we lead in purpose, we win on purpose!!
Stability on the FRONT LINE is leverage on the BOTTOM LINE.