How does your stop button work?
If you walk around a manufacturing plant you will see that every machine has a stop button. They are easy to spot. They are big, round, red, attached to a bright yellow box and bear the legend STOP.
Hit the stop button and the machine will come to an abrupt, shuddering halt.
They are there for two reasons:
- To stop the machine if anybody gets trapped in it. These machines have no respect for life or limb. Health and safety laws demand stop buttons.
- To solve problems. If the thing you are making isn’t working out the way it should then you can hit the stop button, call for help, fix the problem and then restart the machine.
Reason 2 has a cost, the work stops but the people still get paid. Hitting the stop button is expensive — but not as expensive as making rubbish.
It is a messed up corporate culture where it is OK to make trash without hitting the stop button.
In the service industry we don’t have stop buttons
Nobody is going to get maimed by their telephone or keyboard, we don’t need stop buttons. But because there is no stop button it isn’t so obvious how to stop the machine when it is making trash.
What do your front line do when things go wrong?
- Can they escalate an issue?
- Will team mates stop to help?
- Do your staff have discretion to fix the mess?
- Can they record the problems so they get fixed later?
What does your stop button look like?
How does it work? Please tell me you have one. After all…
It is a messed up corporate culture where it is OK to make trash without hitting the stop button.
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Image by Niels Linneberg
Hello James,
My lived experience suggests that it is brave lady (mostly) who hits the stop button where the corporate culture is not only making trash but is in itself trash. These brave ladies and men are called whistleblowers. They perform a valuable service, at great personal cost, and are mostly despised and cast aside. Some are lucky: they are high up and in a position to do damage – so they get bought off and the pay off involves not talking about the trash being made and the trashiness of the corporate culture.
All the best
maz
That is so tragically true Maz, next time we have coffee I will tell you a very funny story
You’re right, James. It is a messed up culture. Unfortunately, we are all robots (or sheep) following the script we’ve been giving. Too many companies don’t allow employees to think for themselves. We hire people because of the value and experience they bring to the table (most of the time). Why can’t we then let them think for themselves? A little vision, a little guidance… and let them do what they know is right.
Annette :-)
And then we complain when they leave…
To implement a Stop button you need clear criteria, widely accepted, as to what is acceptable and what is not and in what circumstances you should press the button.
If you leave it to anybody to decide this would lead to chaos.
You can often provide timely feedback to the process owner without the need to bring the whole organization to a halt.
In business processes the Stop button is sometimes activated by professionals detecting a virus or a malfunction with high risk to the customer or to the business. This brings a whole service or application to a halt until a fix is developed and implemented.
Thanks for your comment Cornelio.
I think your point about clear criteria is a very interesting one. particularly as you say they need to be widely accepted, so it really is a cultural phenomenon.
James,
Denis Healey, apparently, came up with a good approach that, unfortunately doesn’t get followed very often. He said:
“It is a good thing to follow the First Law of Holes: if you are in one, stop digging.”
Adrian