Does this sound familiar – “Everything was going fine until you came in and messed everything up!”? I’ve seen this more times than I can count in my career.
Everyone Has Problems
EVERYONE has problems. The best run organizations in the world have lots of problems. Toyota’s manufacturing processes are world-famous, and yet if you visited one of their facilities you would probably be shocked by how many problems they’re dealing with. Everywhere you go in Toyota you would see employees discussing and trying to fix problems. On the assembly line, you would see flashing lights and hear sirens going off constantly as employees pull the andon cords when they encounter problems.
The assembly line of Toyota’s manufacturing and assembly facilities is relatively simple. Yes there are a lot of pieces (the average Toyota has 30,000 parts!) but the ability to test those parts and the interactions between those parts is much easier than testing and managing the interactions between people. If Toyota’s still wrestling with tons of problems in their manufacturing and assembly processes after decades of continuous improvement, imagine how many problems your systems and processes have.
Problems Are Not the Problem
As captain Jack Sparrow said in The Pirates of the Caribbean movie, “The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude about the problem.”
The 4 most common attitude problems about problems are:
- Expectations: Some leaders foolishly expect there to be no problems. They seem to think daily perfection in every process is possible and they berate their employees for falling short of this standard.
- Ignorance: Other foolish leaders assume their ignorance of any problems is proof that there are no problems.
- Hatred: Making problems the enemy and talking about problems the way an old high school football coach might talk about his cross-town rival.
- Solutions: “Don’t bring me problems, only bring me solutions.” This might sound like good leadership, but it isn’t. This might be the right approach for simple problems, but how often are we dealing with simple problems? Do you really want problems to fester in secret while employees struggle to think of a solution?
Problems Are Opportunities
What happens when employees work for leaders with “attitude problems” about problems? They’re probably going to hide them! Is that what you want???
In contrast, the wise leader views problems as opportunities. At these organizations, when employees encounter problems, they don’t sweep them under the rug, they raise them up high for all to see! They shout, “Look what I found! Help! Let’s fix this!” (hat tip to Freddy and Michael Balle for teaching this concept in their book “The Gold Mine”)
Eliminating waste is a much easier way to grow profits than increasing sales. And yet we exert great efforts to increase sales while devoting little to no resources to surfacing problems.
Example
I recently spoke to a trusted friend who began a new position earlier this year. After starting this position, she discovered there were some major problems in her department. It’s like those home improvement shows where they go to make a simple renovation and then discover black mold, asbestos, and structural problems. Recently she met with the CEO who expressed his disappointment in her performance. “Things were going fine before you got here! Then you started and now our sales numbers are down and every day I’m hearing about a new problem.”
This is a CEO who needs to watch Pirates of the Caribbean! Why berate the leader who found the problem and is trying to fix it? Would this CEO rather go back to a state of ignorance and let the underlying problems get worse?
A Boat and a Lake Full of Rocks
Some companies not only celebrate problems, they create them! On purpose!
There’s an old story about getting a boat across a lake full of big rocks. The easy way to solve this problem is to add more water to the lake. But water in this area is expensive, rare, and valuable. In business, this is the equivalent of fixing problems by spending money and adding more resources. (Have a problem with invoices not being sent out on time? Hire more billers!)
In a perfect world, employees would first remove the rocks and then lower the water accordingly (and then sell the water). Unfortunately, in the real world that rarely works. People tend not to deal with the rocks until they have to. This is why companies like Toyota deliberately lower the water level to the point that their “boats” start running into “rocks.” They believe in the ability of their people to solve problems, and they know they need to create a little urgency to motivate their employees to solve those problems.
Solution
So what is to be done in a situation like this?
- Attitude: First and foremost, fix your attitude problems about problems.
- Visible: Make the problems visible. One great approach is to map out your main process on a board for all to see and encourage the team to identify where problems are (using sticky notes or other methods). Another great approach is publicly displayed control charts, Kanban boards, and scorecards.
- Leadership Attention: Next, the leaders need to be reviewing the visible displays of problems on a regular basis and building a culture of celebrating problems as opportunities.
- Process: Develop a systematic process for solving problems. Don’t overestimate you or your team’s abilities to solve problems by shooting from the hip. Use a structured process for selecting which problem to focus on, getting to the root cause of the problem, implementing a solution, and not moving on until the data shows the problem has been fixed.
- Repeat: As soon as one problem is solved, go back to the board and work on another one. If you’re doing it right, I promise you’ll never run out of problems. And you’ll be continuously improving the value of your organization, the satisfaction of your customers, and the morale of your employees.
You Can Do It. We Can Help!
If you’re ready to take a big step at improving your organization, please contact our team at DPX Consulting. Our experienced team of executives has been through the war and has the tools and skills for helping your team diagnose, prescribe, and execute your biggest problems opportunities! We don’t rely on cookie-cutter approaches. We can save your team a lot of time and help them unlock value by accelerating the discovery process and using proven processes and techniques adapted to your needs.
