Having no problems is the biggest problem of all
Taiichi Ohno
You have done all the analysis and drawn up some beautiful charts. They highlight the critical areas for improvement. Now you need to talk about it. But it needs to be more than just a chat and some observation; it needs to drive some action. It is one thing to realise what your inadequacies are. It is another thing altogether doing something about them.
The Americans have a beautiful verb to “fess up”, or admit what the issue is and take responsibility for it. All the data and analysis in the world is worthless unless you “fess up” to it.
Are you ready to do that? What does it feel like to “fess up” to your boss?
Learning to Run
Running is easy; you put one foot in front of the other, increase the pace, and off you go. It is so easy that my 2-year-old daughter can do it; she does it everywhere.
Running a long way is not so easy. The first time you do it, your heart starts to pound. You get hot, and your lungs feel like they will invert. Then your brain screams at you to stop. It is not a pleasant experience. But some people can run marathons, plenty of them. How do they do it?
When I started to run, I picked a route and started running. After about ½ a mile, I got all the symptoms and stopped. I stopped by a post box. Two days later, I ran again. I ran to the post box, and then I ran a couple of hundred yards further until I came to the ring road. Then I “had” to stop to cross the road, and as I had “had” to stop, I had a bit of a walk; it seemed wasteful not to. The next time I went that bit further. I knew the furthest point I had reached, and I just ran that bit further.
I would be lying if I said I was a world-class runner, but I can complete a half marathon without any problems. Why? Because I held myself to account and pushed myself just that little further each day. I “fessed up” It would have been easy to have a beer instead, watch the TV, and read a book. But I didn’t
What is the moral of the story? Unless you “fess up” to yourself and those around you, you will never get better.
The Scientific Method
There is an improvement concept called the Deming Cycle. The terminally dull call it PDCA (plan, do, check, act). It is the process that scientists use when they are working.
- First, they plan. They write what they want to test. They think through how they could prove it and then develop an experiment.
- Second, they do. They run the experiment.
- Next, they check. They measure the results, analyse, and work out what happened. Did they prove or disprove their theory? What did they learn?
- The last stage is to act. They build on the experiment or throw it away and start again.
- Finally, they go back to stage one and start planning again.
There is nothing new under the sun. Francis Bacon first wrote down the method in 1620. The process is not revolutionary; it is just sophisticated “fessing up”, But it is powerful and, I would argue, the only way to drive improvement. It forces people to face their performance and do something about it.
It is all about iteration. Trying things out gives you feedback. Feedback increases your knowledge, and knowledge improves your performance. The alternative is to go into analysis paralysis trying to get it perfect the first time. But you never will. The most crucial point is that this isn’t a one-off. It is a routine. Try, learn, improve, try, learn, improve, try, learn,
If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got
~ Anon
There is no failure, only feedback
Robert Allen
Bored? Hold a Meeting
Most of what we do at work is a team sport. We don’t work in isolation. So if you are serious about “fessing up”, you need to have somebody to “fess up” to. The people you work with will help you improve. There is a downside; you need to hold a meeting. Unfortunately, there is no other alternative. But it shouldn’t be that bad if you are clear about:
- What you are trying to do
- How you are going to do it
- Who needs to be there
- How often it should be
A committee is a group that keeps minutes and loses hours
Milton Berle
What are you trying to do?
A review meeting is not a forum to preach the good news. It is somewhere to discuss issues, not hide them in the long grass. Reviews should be open and honest, not cloaked in a fog of denial.
How are you going to do it?
The agenda is all-important; sorry if that is teaching you to suck eggs.
- Check recent performance (look at the numbers). What is the goal? How are you doing? What are the trends?
- Discuss the reasons for that performance. What is the cause? Why is that the case? What has changed?
- Talk through the activity that the team has completed to improve performance. Did it work? If not, why not? What did you learn?
- Talk through last month’s actions. Did you do what you said you were going to do?
Who needs to be there?
The answer to that is simple; the smallest number of people that are required to get to a decision. No more and no less. If people don’t have a clear role to play, don’t invite them to the session. The more people you have, the longer it will take. People feel the need to give their opinion, to “pile on”. Don’t invite people out of courtesy. Invite people because they need to be there.
How often should it be?
That depends on the rate of change. There is little point in discussing the shift in the direction of a supertanker every 30 seconds. If you don’t expect change since the last discussion, don’t give yourself meeting angst. Likewise, there is no point in discussing the next motorway junction after driving past it. Reviewing operational performance every minute is too frequent; once a year isn’t often enough. Where the happy medium is dependent on your organisation.
But once you have decided, be consistent. If the meeting is sporadic, people won’t take it seriously. Actions won’t get completed. Progress won’t happen. If your session should happen once a month, make sure it happens once a month.
Why is this so hard?
Trust
Performance is dependent upon people. Holding yourself accountable is one thing. It is only down to you. But being open and honest in front of others is another story, particularly if the others include your boss. If you don’t trust those around you, then rather than “fess up”, you will spin a line and gloss over the truth. This works both ways; if you are the boss and lambast people for poor performance, they will hide the truth. People are scared stiff of being shown up, even by straightforward objective measures. They will resist being under the spotlight.
The only way to deal with this is to make sure that issues are discussed in a non-threatening way, without looking for somebody to blame. This is not an easy tightrope to walk and is dependent on trust. Without trust, you are wasting your time.
Reviewing has one advantage over suicide: in suicide you take it out on yourself; in reviewing you take it out on other people
~ George Bernard Shaw
Homework
Improve your management reviews.
- Critique the current review meetings that you have. Do they constructively focus on the right things? Are they timely and repeated, concentrating on the same issues? Are they open and honest? Do they lead to systematic improvements?
- If the meetings are not where you would like them to be, pick the area you want to improve. It might be customer complaints, speed of service delivery, or cost performance. Choose the top-level key performance measure for that area.
- Draw two charts:
- A line or trend chart that shows performance over time.
- A bar chart or Pareto chart (80:20 chart) that shows what is driving that performance and the critical areas of discussion should be.
- Schedule a meeting to discuss performance in those key areas. Review the project activity that will improve performance.
- Repeat the session the following month. Follow up on the actions from the previous session.
- Make sure the environment is open, honest, and blame-free.
It is a bit hard work and formulaic, but it works.
In the next lesson, we will discuss operational costs and how to reduce them.
Thank you for reading.
Related Posts:
- Discuss the work: The big difference between “who caused that?” and “what caused that?”
- Red is good green is bad: How do you declare your RAG status?
- Continental management reviews: What can driving on the continent teach you about management?
- How to improve at just about anything: An introduction to plan, do, check, act.
More Information:
- The scientific method: The Khan Academy explanation. The primary mechanism behind performance reviews.
- Plan Do Study Act 101: British Medical Journal video that explains the improvement process.
Post Script
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