Standard work
I found an interesting post about standardisation in public services.
The post argues that standardisation doesn’t work in the service industry. Each customer or citizen is different and because each citizen is different they want different things. So if you standardise everything and then force your staff to follow the standard process you create lots of failure demand. This is also known as “the computer says no” phenomenon — many a true word is said in jest.
Standards, the blog went on to say, originated in the manufacturing industry where everything is the same. So the logic shouldn’t be applied to the service industry where everything is bespoke.
I’m not sure I agree but…
The counter argument
If you standardise work you can create best practice and ensure that your staff are following it. Once you create uniformity and order it is easy to measure performance and tell if people are doing the work the way they should be doing it.
From there it is a very short step to:
If you do all of that then you can hold onto your best performing people and create competitive advantage.
I am not entirely sure I agree with that position either
<<Insert expletive of choice here>>
Management isn’t — make that shouldn’t be — about controlling people. Any student of history will tell you that controlling people will end badly. Management is about creating the environment for people to be able to do their best work.
But, in the same breath, nobody can do their best work if they haven’t got a clue what good work looks like…
So should you standardise or not?
A little moderation is a good thing.
In The Checklist Manifesto Athul Gawande shows how checklists (aka a list of things to do) make phenomenal improvements in medicine.
An operating theatre is as bespoke a professional environment as you are ever likely to encounter. So why do standards work in hospitals and not other public services?
The problem isn’t the standard it is the manager.
The world is full of overzealous managers who lose sight of the purpose of their organisation, blindly pushing their initiative of choice. If you don’t have any standards you will end up with anarchy. But if you standardise everything you will create a mindless bureaucracy. Neither is a great place to be.
How to make standards work
- Standards are a tool to help, not an outcome in themselves. If a task goes wrong because different people do it in different ways then standardisation is a way of solving the problem. That doesn’t mean you should standardise everything for standardisation’s sake.
- The standard should change. It shouldn’t be limiting, it should be helpful. The aim is to provide a “current best way” that people can use, discuss, challenge and build upon. Standards should change as processes improve. They are not there to ensure decades of unthinking conformance.
- Standards shouldn’t be enforced by external “thinkers“. They don’t have to live with what they have “thought” up. The people who do the work should create the standard.
- Standards should be as short as possible whilst remaining useful. Too often the emphasis is placed on how and who should do something rather then worrying about the why and when. If the standard is so detailed that people who have to use it ignore it — then, surprise surprise — it will be ignored. A standard doesn’t have to be a long detailed procedure.
- Standards are not a weapon. Lastly, and maybe most important of all, a standard isn’t a tool to hit your staff around the head with. Sooner or later your standard will be wrong. It will then tell your staff to do something stupid. If you hit them if they don’t follow the standard, then they will continue to do something stupid. This isn’t a good outcome.
The wisest standard of all
Maybe the cleverest standard of all comes from the production line — where everything is allegedly the same. They call this standard “andon”. It says that if the standard approach isn’t working hit the stop button. Then get some help to work out what to do next.
After all, only a fool would follow a standard blindly.
Standards make good servants but poor masters
Maz Iqbal
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