Gene Taurman in LO15083 writes, in part:
>If management does not know what results are important to the business
>and then measures those then will get whatever. Management's decision
>about what to measure ranks at the very top of the list of management's
>responsibilities. Your management abdicated that one. Which is also
>fairly normal. Many managers do not even include this in their list of
>self expectations.
>What is measured drives what happens.
Yep. That's what my consulting was about for 10 years, implementing
behavioral interventions focused on feedback systems (mostly) and
recognition and reward systems (in part). Most of the managers were more
concerned with the latter than the former, even though the former were
driving most of the improved behaviors.
But there were also problems.
Envision, if you will the staff person at her desk with the idea balloon
of a wagon with triangular wheels. Ideas and divergent thinking are
important and we want to encourage everyone to think of different ways of
getting things done. But not all ideas are good ones.
Yet, sometimes these staff people have the positional influence to get
things done. So, envision her observing the new operational paradigm.
Thump....Thump....
So, even though we all know that:
A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world,
We get
Square Wheels to Triangular Wheels is a 25% cost reduction
and it simplifies procurement and manufacture. We think they will be more
resistance to breakage and will thus increase uptime. Now if we make them
out of carbon fiber and put new teflon bearings in there...
AND, coming back to Gene's thoughts on measurement, we get:
One Less Bump Per Revolution.
Something wrong with this picture? Methinks we must continually *
evaluate our efforts based on the impact on Human Capital and we need to
understand that just because we can MEASURE an improvement doesn't mean
that it is an actual improvement.
* almost said "constantly" but that root word is constant -
one of the "inertia words?"
Actively engage the workers in the process improvement,
-- For the FUN of It!Scott Simmerman Performance Management Company 3 Old Oak Drive, Taylors, SC 29687 (USA) 864-292-8700 fax 292-6222 SquareWheels@compuserve.com
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>