That approach can get you a long way up the ladder with respect to many things, but if you can change the culture of a company by yourself without the leadership leading you are indeed a very very rare bird.
Deming’s eighth point
- Thread starter normhowe
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That approach can get you a long way up the ladder with respect to many things, but if you can change the culture of a company by yourself without the leadership leading you are indeed a very very rare bird.
Likely a rare situation...but in my experience people want a better culture most of the time, and if they can have it when dealing with you they come to you more often than to others, and then you're central, and then mgmt notices, and then you get assigned the job you're already doing (promoted), and people start coming to you more often and feel safer doing so...
Totally the long way, took me near 14yrs, but I ended up running the site together with the other person who "got it".
Then a big corporation bought us and we all fled...
Totally the long way, took me near 14yrs, but I ended up running the site together with the other person who "got it".
Then a big corporation bought us and we all fled...
Leading change from within is tough. Sometimes you can fly under the radar and get some things accomplished that a more visible manager can not. I've been a "go-to" guy for a long time now, but I still find "only desperate people come to me for help". I can't complain - and retirement is beckoning - but still have hope. I've been educating college students on stats and systems and Deming, and that has been quite rewarding. I don't know what their influence will be, but hopefully I will find out.
Sounds familiar. I did much the same at one company and over 9 years I managed to make a huge culture change in the Quality Department and made some headway with a few others in influencing change more broadly throughout the company, but in year 8 the mothership decended upon us and in a matter of months destroyed most of our progress. As a result many of us fled, too. It's a shame -- I enjoyed that work and those people (pre-takeover) a great deal; afterward I hated to go there.
Process, Process, Process. You choose the best process steps by merit, and codify them. It then becomes a basis for improvements and corrective actions. Hiring by HR is not fundamentally different than buying complex equipment. It involves a documented set of requirements that the equipment or the hiree must fill and many of those requirements deal with communication. Just like you don't buy a network communications link that negatively affects the other equipment on the network, you similarly don't hire a manager that has communication issues that will adversely affect your work groups.
If you failed by purchasing a expensive piece of networked equipment that damaged your network, you would want to create a corrective action so that this wouldn't be purchased or happen again, just the same as if you hired the wrong guy. It is inane to fail to avoid past mistakes.
Sometimes the root cause investigation will indicate that the right equipment or the right person was hired, but that other equipment or people are the root cause of the problem.
I cannot agree that finding the root cause of the interaction failures could cause more fear. People feel more secure in a fair and defined environment.
If you failed by purchasing a expensive piece of networked equipment that damaged your network, you would want to create a corrective action so that this wouldn't be purchased or happen again, just the same as if you hired the wrong guy. It is inane to fail to avoid past mistakes.
Sometimes the root cause investigation will indicate that the right equipment or the right person was hired, but that other equipment or people are the root cause of the problem.
I cannot agree that finding the root cause of the interaction failures could cause more fear. People feel more secure in a fair and defined environment.
normhowe
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The problem comes in the manner in which the root cause is pursued. In far too many cases investigators assign blame to the nearest bystander. That bystander is then perp-walked to the training room and run through the same training that allowed the error to occur in the first place. Mgt then expects a different result. What's that the definition of?
The real result is a workforce that fears to participate openly in root-cause brainstorming; this is followed by bankruptcy.
As a young employee, I was told you can either plead for permission or beg for forgiveness. If you are certain something is needed just do it. Make it happen and collect the data that stopping it would be crazy. Recruit a senior executive to your idea as an advocate and let them share credit.
In the event it doesnt work out it makes a great interview story of "Tell me a time you went against the grain to get things done."
Im only half sarcastic here.
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No, I've seen too many companies where this is simply not true - many stay in business because their competition is largely doing the same things. Such behavior certainly costs them money, market share, etc. though.
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