Total employee involvement: Is this at all possible?
Entrepreneurs, managers, wouldn't you like your people to be: responsible, accountable, efficient, dedicated, cost-conscious, committed to quality and actively participating in improving your business processes? In a nutshell: Wouldn't you like your...
Entrepreneurs, managers, wouldn't you like your people to be: responsible, accountable, efficient, dedicated, cost-conscious, committed to quality and actively participating in improving your business processes? In a nutshell: Wouldn't you like your people to "perform"? Few would say no.
In spite of such a basic aim, very few managers succeed in the purpose. The majority of managers believe that employing "performing" people is almost impossible. When something goes wrong, the majority of managers still use the universally recognised excuse "...with these people, what do you expect?" Yet, it is possible to have or nurture fully performing industrial people.
There are some conditions. Managers must be well aware of the implications of the change, the change that took place in the industrial world several years ago, and must manage the change accordingly. If a manager today is not a "change" manager, he or she won't get very far. Normally, when I begin a Total Employee Involvement course, I ask my delegates what they expect from it. Possibly the best answer I ever received was recently in India, by a top-level manager: "I am here to see if I can learn and improve ways of changing myself - if I can do that, it will be easy to change others, including my people....". Fantastic answer! Another condition is to be prepared to scrap the formula. What is the formula? It's the recipe to success, the past success. Every good enterprise was once successful. The formula is that cocktail of ingredients that made the success: the rules and policies to be respected - the procedures to be followed - etc.
Every enterprise has a formula and every manager has one. Some are simple formulas, some are very heavy ones. But every formula is a braking force when it comes to change, to the extent that some enterprises prefer to die rather than scrapping the formula, and some managers stick to it until it's too late.
According to their formula, managers label their people: it doesn't take long for a manager to appraise a collaborator and assess his/her merit. Once the assessment is made on the basis of the manager's past experience and of the consolidated formula a collaborator gets labelled, a label that will remain with them, regardless of their actions.
There is also something very important to understand. In industry we find four main models of organisational structures and an infinite number of hybrid combinations. Well, only two out of four models allow people (and therefore the enterprise) to perform better. The other two simply do not. Unfortunately, most industrial, commercial and business organisations fall within the two models that just do not allow people growth and better performance! Entrepreneurs and managers don't know about it - and even if they do, they don't realise the enormity of the drawback and the impact of belonging to an inadequate model - the strongest "braking force"!
Yet, they push: for change, for better performance and improvement... but generally it's like pushing a lawn-mower too fast through thick lawn after heavy rain... the lawn-mower engine will just stall. In the past, the strategy was to replace the petrol engine with a more powerful one, which worked for a while, until the lawn became thicker and thicker, taller and taller. Today, we realise that we cannot keep increasing the engine horse-power indefinitely: it will simply not work! Sooner or later the lawn will become a jungle - there is no lawnmower that can cut through that. We have to go for a totally different cutting style!
The conclusion is that entrepreneurs and managers need to start thinking differently if they want to cope with a rapidly changing environment and succeed in it. When all (or most of) the braking forces will be removed, not only people will begin performing better: the entire enterprise will benefit!
'Totally Involved' employees are not a myth. There are some enterprises in which change is managed adequately on a daily basis, and formulas and other braking forces have been minimised; where the organisational structure has gradually been flattened and adapted to a higher level of people - managers have become coaches - people have been empowered, not simply delegated to - improvement actually takes place in a continuous and systematic fashion - people are involved, committed, dedicated, enjoying what they do and people, at all levels, are not only "doers", but also and primarily "thinkers". These enterprises are called lean enterprises.
Mr Scodanibbio will present a course on Total Employee Involvement, organised by the FOI, on October 14 and 17. For more information call the FOI directly on 2122 2074/2123 4428 or visit http://www.scodanibbio.com.
In spite of such a basic aim, very few managers succeed in the purpose. The majority of managers believe that employing "performing" people is almost impossible. When something goes wrong, the majority of managers still use the universally recognised excuse "...with these people, what do you expect?" Yet, it is possible to have or nurture fully performing industrial people.
There are some conditions. Managers must be well aware of the implications of the change, the change that took place in the industrial world several years ago, and must manage the change accordingly. If a manager today is not a "change" manager, he or she won't get very far. Normally, when I begin a Total Employee Involvement course, I ask my delegates what they expect from it. Possibly the best answer I ever received was recently in India, by a top-level manager: "I am here to see if I can learn and improve ways of changing myself - if I can do that, it will be easy to change others, including my people....". Fantastic answer! Another condition is to be prepared to scrap the formula. What is the formula? It's the recipe to success, the past success. Every good enterprise was once successful. The formula is that cocktail of ingredients that made the success: the rules and policies to be respected - the procedures to be followed - etc.
Every enterprise has a formula and every manager has one. Some are simple formulas, some are very heavy ones. But every formula is a braking force when it comes to change, to the extent that some enterprises prefer to die rather than scrapping the formula, and some managers stick to it until it's too late.
According to their formula, managers label their people: it doesn't take long for a manager to appraise a collaborator and assess his/her merit. Once the assessment is made on the basis of the manager's past experience and of the consolidated formula a collaborator gets labelled, a label that will remain with them, regardless of their actions.
There is also something very important to understand. In industry we find four main models of organisational structures and an infinite number of hybrid combinations. Well, only two out of four models allow people (and therefore the enterprise) to perform better. The other two simply do not. Unfortunately, most industrial, commercial and business organisations fall within the two models that just do not allow people growth and better performance! Entrepreneurs and managers don't know about it - and even if they do, they don't realise the enormity of the drawback and the impact of belonging to an inadequate model - the strongest "braking force"!
Yet, they push: for change, for better performance and improvement... but generally it's like pushing a lawn-mower too fast through thick lawn after heavy rain... the lawn-mower engine will just stall. In the past, the strategy was to replace the petrol engine with a more powerful one, which worked for a while, until the lawn became thicker and thicker, taller and taller. Today, we realise that we cannot keep increasing the engine horse-power indefinitely: it will simply not work! Sooner or later the lawn will become a jungle - there is no lawnmower that can cut through that. We have to go for a totally different cutting style!
The conclusion is that entrepreneurs and managers need to start thinking differently if they want to cope with a rapidly changing environment and succeed in it. When all (or most of) the braking forces will be removed, not only people will begin performing better: the entire enterprise will benefit!
'Totally Involved' employees are not a myth. There are some enterprises in which change is managed adequately on a daily basis, and formulas and other braking forces have been minimised; where the organisational structure has gradually been flattened and adapted to a higher level of people - managers have become coaches - people have been empowered, not simply delegated to - improvement actually takes place in a continuous and systematic fashion - people are involved, committed, dedicated, enjoying what they do and people, at all levels, are not only "doers", but also and primarily "thinkers". These enterprises are called lean enterprises.
Mr Scodanibbio will present a course on Total Employee Involvement, organised by the FOI, on October 14 and 17. For more information call the FOI directly on 2122 2074/2123 4428 or visit http://www.scodanibbio.com.