Last week, a bit of a discussion occurred on the blog, in response to my post, "Raising Awareness of ROWE and Lean" I was happy to see all of the comments, and especially enjoyed the points of view from some those whose primary background is in Lean. While I still think there's a significant place within Lean for ROWE-based management styles, I also found the challenges to some of my assumptions to be quite thought-provoking. Clearly, this is not an idea that has reached its full maturity.
In case you missed it, here are some tweet & re-tweets of articles & other things that caught my eye last week: MUST READ: From Dan Markovitz (@timeback): Respect for people — treating them more like machines. bit.ly/zVyKew From Others: From Boston College Center for Work & Family (@BCCWF): Need more leadership support + manager training: Flexible Hours Aren’t Working As Well As Companies Say businessinsider.com/flexible-hours…#workflex From Joe Dager (@business9o1)RT @jchyip: w/out a clear overall shared vision, “improve” tends 2 B a lot of random ideas until everyone eventually gets bored & gives up From Dan Feliciano (@DanFeliciano): IndustryWeek : Demand Surges for Lean...
How well do you fail? Can you fail positively? Kind of interesting questions, aren’t they? Regardless of what you hear, organizations really don’t welcome failure. Many ignore it until it’s too late. Others seek out the guilty with a vengeance and fuel an atmosphere of fear and mistrust. A few actually see failure as an opportunity to improve. There are clear differences in how different organizations cope with failure. More importantly, there are big differences in how individuals and groups of people change as a result of failure. How you react and change when things go wrong is an important key...
Respect for people extends beyond the workplace and into the personal lives of employees. Certainly, there are a great many people (if not most) who argue that personal concerns have no place in the workplace. If an employer is willing to understand that employees are people, however, and believes that all people have concerns that involve family issues and other areas of fulfillment, that demonstrate a much deeper understanding of just what respect for the individual is.
I had a conversation recently with someone who is clearly very smart, and a successful business owner. I was taken by surprise, however, when I asked this person how they control for spuriousness in their claims that a particular action led to improved performance. The reply was: I operate more on gut and intuition than science, and because crunching numbers doesn’t delight our customers, I don’t do it. I found that particularly curious, and remarked that it is at odds with most process improvement schools of thought. (I did make a mental note, however, that it might be possible...
If your analysis stops only at what activities took place, without an understanding of how people, organizations and people within organizations work, you will never correct the underlying problem. You have to look at the behavioral elements.
In case you missed it, here are some tweet & re-tweets of articles & other things that caught my eye last week: From Others: From @tedcoine: YES!! RT @shawmu: Actually give a S### about the development of individuals.ow.ly/8SkuB via @kris_dunn From @ShingoPrize: Robert Miller said Shingo Prize focuses on more than just culture, it focuses on how to change culture #lean#ShingoPrize From @DemingSos: “Stamping out fires is lot of fun, but it is only putting things back the way they were.” “Manage cause, not result. #Deming#quick-fix From @TheOnion - Area Man Uninterested In Creating A Better Community Even Though This May Benefit Him In...
I have a dilemma. Since I have been blogging about ROWE and contemplating the virtual workspace, it is at odds with my affinity for Lean Thinking and, especially, the concepts of going to Gemba and Leader Standard Work. If process excellence is facilitated by having Leaders go to where the work takes place, how can this same process excellence be gained when workers are at home in their pajamas, banging away on laptops?
It's not acceptable to say that today's misery is acceptable as long as it's not as bad as what the other guy is doing. Even if we do not know of a better way, we should be diligent in our minds about whether or not something is tolerable. How often do we see underperforming departments, but continue to let them limp along? How often do we see wasteful practices and ignore the problems? Worse yet, how many senior members of the management team actively thwart their subordinates' attempts at sharing information and voicing criticism?
I suspect just as much work gets done just as well by those in small companies working in converted strip malls. I'm also certain good work gets done (especially in those white-collar industries where there are more knowledge workers who could work anywhere, any time) by people who are sitting on their couch, in a coffee shop, a library, or on the beach. After all, if you believe people are dedicated and intrinsically motivated, then you have little reason to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a building that adds nothing to the value of the...
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