The No Tool Zone

This has nothing to do with relationships or a possible sexual harassment suit.  Organizational peacocking has to do with getting credit for putting out fires in an organization.  In the past, I have seen statistics that for every 100 people in an organization there is one that will create a problem so he/she can get credit  for solving the problem.

Time after time I see too many workers and managers putting together extraordinary efforts to end the latest crisis.  Most are rewarded or recognized for their efforts in dealing with said crisis.  The worker or manager that prevents problems by fixing the system so the crisis never happens is too often overlooked.

Steven Spear in his book Chasing the Rabbit describes this type of behavior as one seen in low velocity organizations.  Employees that do great deeds because the system is broken and the need for heroic efforts are mandatory for these systems.  Poor work design and outdated management thinking are responsible for these types of systems and thinking.

This is not to say that there will be a perfect system, but when fighting fires becomes a predictable event . . . one can be assured that the system is failing them.  Ultimately, this leads to burn-out and low morale where worker and manager alike just can’t muster the energy to fight a fire one more time.  Blame is usually sought and organizations seem to look for the “who” rather than the “what.”

It has long been discovered that to improve performance, you must improve the system.  The system can only change when our thinking changes too.  This means that management has to change as well as the design of the work.  Poor work design makes for poor performance.

If an organization is stuck in perpetual organizational peacocking be sure that the first step is a hard look at the system (structure, work design, measures, technology, etc.).  Do this before engaging in an organizational witch-hunt for the culprit or rewarding the individual or group for averting a crisis.

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Make the new decade a profitable and rewarding one, start a new path here.  Download free from www.newsystemsthinking.com “Understanding Your Organization as a System” and gain knowledge of systems thinking or contact us about our intervention services at info@newsystemsthinking.com.  Reach him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/TriBabbittor LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/trippbabbitt.

As frequent writer for several internet magazines, I love to read what others write.  No subject is more important to CEOs in forums and management articles than how to get to the truth.  The larger the organization . . . the more difficult this becomes.

The first tip is to do this:  walk out of your office, lock the door, tell the admin you are playing golf and go straight to the point where your customers transact business with you (service) or go to the place your product is being used (manufacturing).  This sounds simple enough especially the golfing part, people will believe you unless it is raining.

The show Undercover Boss is not what I am talking about here.  If the CEO has that little recognition in a company . . . well . . . let’s just say it isn’t good.  CEOs need to know what is really important in an organization and it is not those marathon meetings discussing the balance sheet and income statement.  There is a need to get context to the data that you can only get by observation and this can not be delegated.

Yes, people will be nervous at first, but that is no reason to avoid doing the job of CEO.  Recently, I spoke with a CEO that was proud that she met with every new employee and made sure that the employee knew that he/she was welcome to come to her office.  When I inquired about how many had shown up, she said “none.”  And so it is with CEOs that sit in their offices, you have to get out there and see for yourself.

Once a CEO gets to the work just observe what a customer might see and after a while can begin to ask questions.  Like:

• What types of demands does a customer make?
• What matters to customers about those types of demand?
• Are the types of demand of value to the customer or the result of failure to do something or do something right for a customer?
• What do the managers pay attention to about the work?
• What drives the workers thinking is it the customer, procedures, targets . . . ?

Seeing the gap between what happens upstairs and what happens where it matters is crucial to get perspective of the customer and those that deliver value to them on the front-line.  This needs to be an activity done on a consistent basis to work through the show that is performed on your first few visits.  The truth will be found with this approach.

You can learn more by reading the Fit for the Future series to help you begin to find a better way to make the work work. 

Leave me a comment. . . share your opinion!  Click on comments below.

Make the new decade a profitable and rewarding one, start a new path here.  Download free from www.newsystemsthinking.com “Understanding Your Organization as a System” and gain knowledge of systems thinking or contact us about our intervention services at info@newsystemsthinking.com.  Reach him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/TriBabbitt or LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/trippbabbitt.

Systems thinking is both simple and profound and one of the issues I run into often is managers and respect.  The command and control system has the managers making decisions and workers working.  Respect is earned by being tough by wielding coercive control or more common today silver-tongued managers that deploy psychological or rational arguments.   

Instead of these traditional methods I have found a better way to get respect and that is to relinquish control to the worker and allow them to particpate in or make the decisions about the work they do.  In a management paradox this gives a manager the respect they seek.  Counter-intuitively, this also gives managers more control and not less.

Workers are held accountable for their work, so why can’t we allow them the ability to participate in decision-making?  Participation means creating a culture that is enjoyable to work in, better decisions and innovation.  No longer do workers have to check their brains at the door when they enter the workplace.

Workers with a different view of the work because they interact with customers (instead of reports) give us insight to better decisions.  These insights into customer purpose (e.g., what matters to customers), and customer measures that are derived from this purpose are the pillars for improvement and innovation.  As innovation comes from experimentation with method and not from strategic plans or technology.

As awe inspiring as the take charge leaders of yesteryear were like Patton and MacArthur or Alexander the Great and Attila the Hun.  There are newer and better leadership strategies to be used in managing this generation of workers than those deployed by the leaders in history books.  Different thinking needs to be used today to gain respect and the added benefit is improved organizational performance.

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Tripp Babbitt is a speaker, blogger and consultant to service industry (private and public).  His organization helps executives find a better way to make the work work.  Read his articles at Quality Digest and his column for CustomermanagementIQ.com  Download free from www.newsystemsthinking.com “Understanding Your Organization as a System” and gain knowledge of systems thinking or contact us about our intervention services at info@newsystemsthinking.com.  Reach him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/TriBabbittor LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/trippbabbitt.

There’s a sucker born every minute.  – David Hannum (and not P.T. Barnum as many think)

Let me take all the drama away right from the start . . . service organizations are looking for something that doesn’t exist.  There is NO BEST PRACTICE!  The only thing organizations need to understand is that there is ALWAYS a better way and the pursuit of that should fit into organizational purpose.

Let me be so bold as to say that those pursuing best practice in the software they buy for economies (cheaper to buy what’s already developed) are searching for fool’s gold.  Quite simply . . . you are the fool.  Having contracted with Fortune 500 software companies they want to sell what they have . . . not what is required for each individual system.

The need to “save money” and simplify things does nothing to allow service systems to absorb variety of demand or find better ways.  The end result is to increase costs as the search continues for that best practice instead of getting in touch with the unique system they have in place.  Customers pay in poor service and with few alternatives, accept poor performance with reluctance.

Unfortunately, the path is covered with fools.  Some from ignorance and some from stupidity (they need to sort themselves).  There’s a sucker born every minute and we seem to be creating more of them.

Leave me a comment. . . share your opinion!  Click on comments below.

Tripp Babbitt is a speaker, blogger and consultant to service industry (private and public).  His organization helps executives find a better way to make the work work.  Download free from www.newsystemsthinking.com “Understanding Your Organization as a System” and gain knowledge of systems thinking or contact us about our intervention services at info@newsystemsthinking.com.  Reach him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/TriBabbittor LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/trippbabbitt.

I have posted many times before about the importance of demand for service.  It is something that practitioners of manufacturing-based improvement methodologies like lean six sigma seem to miss.  As manufacturing facilities have closed in the US, the movement of people from manufacturing to service has brought this thinking with them.

What have they brought?

Standardization as the place to begin improvement activities.  Something that I have learned is not a good place to start.  Yet, most service books I read that have applied these manufacturing techniques to service industries like hospitals, contact centers, break-fix organizations and many more.

Service may improve as order is made out of chaos with this thinking, but I often find that demand has a way of changing over time and that the service variety is much greater than manufacturing.  I would also include that most of these manufacturing techniques were deployed on the front-line and the important changes to management thinking never took hold or place in manufacturing.  This hits at the heart of sustainability as in order to improve management thinking has to change too.

With service having greater variety, standardization doesn’t make much sense until we understand demand.  In fact, standardization inhibits absorption of the variety found in service without the insightful study of demand.  It is (in essence) putting the cart before the horse when we start with standardization in service.

A study of demand allows us to discern customer wants and needs to truly design the system to give exceptional service.  The absorption of variety allows costs to be reduced.  When variety isn’t abosrbed like say in an IVR (Interactive Voice Response), customers have to call back with great frustration or they don’t call back which results in loss of business.

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Want to learn more about designing against demand?  Check out Finding out “What matters” to your customers under the down loads tab or click here. 

Tripp Babbitt is a speaker, blogger and consultant to service industry (private and public).  His organization helps executives find a better way to make the work work.  Read his articles at Quality Digest and his column for CustomermanagementIQ.com  Download free from www.newsystemsthinking.com “Understanding Your Organization as a System” and gain knowledge of systems thinking or contact us about our intervention services at info@newsystemsthinking.com.  Reach him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/TriBabbittor LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/trippbabbitt.

Just like a stale piece of toast, service organizations miss a huge opportunity to improve their systems by experimenting with method.  My observation is that there are way too many management projects (top-down), policies, rules-based cultures, control issues, and entrapping technology.  The familiar theme is that service organizations have to do these things to gain control.

The truth (and management paradox) is that all this effort to control leaves management with no control.  Instead they are saddling their organizations with some of the biggest boat anchors and paperweights that do nothing but weigh down the corporation and stifle innovation.  Maybe not the intention . . . but the outcome is predictable.

As entropy takes over these stagnant (and I might add boring to work in) systems things deteriorate.  This the law of nature.  So more time controlling systems will do one thing . . . lead your service organization to ruin.

Quite simply, workers need room to grow.  They need simpler systems that allow freedom to think and innovate.  The result is more interesting work and greater innovation with more profit.

Workers that understand customer purpose and are allowed to experiment with method can really provide new ways to improve the work or even redesign the work to better absorb customer demand.  The possibilities are endless and the work is exciting especially when compared to those stale toast “do as I say” systems.  Management that commands employees through rules-based thinking or control through targets can’t compete against systems with freedom to move.

Leave me a comment. . . share your opinion!  Click on comments below.

Tripp Babbitt is a speaker, blogger and consultant to service industry (private and public).  His organization helps executives find a better way to make the work work.  Read his articles at Quality Digest and his column for CustomermanagementIQ.com  Download free from www.newsystemsthinking.com “Understanding Your Organization as a System” and gain knowledge of systems thinking or contact us about our intervention services at info@newsystemsthinking.com.  Reach him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/TriBabbittor LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/trippbabbitt.

It is exists in every company in great numbers but is largely an untapped organizational resource.  So few organizations know how to tap this resource because they are too busy managing it, giving it new restrictive rules, policies, procedures, scripts, appraisals, orders, etc. or entrapping technology to speed it up. 

What could be so powerful?

The front-line worker that interacts with  or does the work important to customers.

This bridled bunch has the ability to blow away the competition or reduce costs as few organizations (public or private) have learned to tap it.  These people are the organization and the way many are treated leads to calls for unions to protect their interests.  How could this be good for customers, company or profits?

Instead of being treated like the goose that lays the golden egg they are often treated as second-rate citizens or an expense to be reduced.  Often these people contain ideas so innovative that getting to them should be treated like a cure for a terminal disease that you have . . .  with urgency.  Yet they operate in systems that only allow them to check their brains at the door.

Management either invented or allowed for the invention of this system design that entrapps and belittles the front-line workers.  A reinvention of these system designs is in order.  If management invented it, then it can be undone with a focus on better thinking and design.

This can all start with putting decision-making back with the work.  Nothing is more frustrating to a worker than being held accountable for the system design management put in place where the worker had little or no input.  Front-line workers hear the complaints and anger of customers quite often in service,  they are asked to employ such non-sense as empathy or conflict resolution instead of fixing the cause of the customer failure demand.

Ultimately, organizations have a choice to perpetuate poor design and thinking in pursuit of profit or seek a different course.  We have the power of tapping our greatest resource or wallow in the other goose droppings.

Leave me a comment. . . share your opinion!  Click on comments below.

Tripp Babbitt is a speaker, blogger and consultant to service industry (private and public).  His organization helps executives find a better way to make the work work.  Read his articles at Quality Digest and his column for CustomermanagementIQ.com  Download free from www.newsystemsthinking.com “Understanding Your Organization as a System” and gain knowledge of systems thinking or contact us about our intervention services at info@newsystemsthinking.com.  Reach him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/TriBabbittor LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/trippbabbitt.

US companies have some serious issues to overcome to be able to compete on an international basis.  The most difficult is changing the mentality that unions, individuals and quite possibly aliens are at the root of our economic problems.  As Americans, we have grown accustomed to being the collective kings’ of the world. 

Unfortunately, this illusion of grandeur has been dead for a long time and marked by W. Edwards Deming as 1968 indicating the end of the US economic boom and dominance.  42 years later and we still find ourselves falling deeper and deeper behind economically.  Doing the work that makes products and services has fallen to the feet of the investment banks that profit from buying and selling rather than building.

The gold rush for greed has been the basis for organizational purpose rather than achieving value from customer purpose.  Too many organizations wallow in measures of revenue, profit and productivity without any sense of what actually creates improvement of these measures.  Some with success using old scientific management theory still believe their “success” is directly related to this thinking.

The problem lies in our thinking and Lean Six Sigma, TQM and an assortment of other improvement efforts have done little to work on the management thinking problems that exist.  Management makes the decisions with a mindset clouded by a plethora of incentives, rewards, targets and commissions.  Short-term thinking prevails to gain stock-price favor or other reward as the ship slowly or quickly sinks.

The penalty for poor management thinking manifests in outsourcing, shared services, labor cuts and other wayward make-up solutions that drive the US economy deeper into melancholy.  The solutions all pointed at diminishing the worker economically or numerically generate an “I’m OK, you’re not OK” feeling.  Sadly, the worker enjoys little power to engage in reversing the course.

This is a management problem . . . where management is guilty, but usually not to blame.  We are a victim of superstituous learning and thinking from generation after generation.  The command and control management that served us well in WWII will not and indeed has not worked for some time. 

Until we awaken from the slumber of our past more troubled waters confront us.  This means more cuts to those that do the real work and in the same breath wonder why Americans aren’t spending to support American companies.  A different approach is needed to save the next generations of Americans.

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Tripp Babbitt is a speaker, blogger and consultant to service industry (private and public).  His organization helps executives find a better way to make the work work.  Read his articles at Quality Digest and his column for CustomermanagementIQ.com  Download free from www.newsystemsthinking.com “Understanding Your Organization as a System” and gain knowledge of systems thinking or contact us about our intervention services at info@newsystemsthinking.com.  Reach him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/TriBabbittor LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/trippbabbitt.

I have worked with several break-fix (HVAC, auto repair, home/commercial repair and plumbing) industries in recent months and all have a significant trust issue to overcome with customers.  The variation of service and recommendations made to customers in a profession where trust is needed.  Advertisements and marketing can not over come the general malaise customers feel when having to pick up the phone and call these establishments for service.

I suspect some are rotten to the core, but my experience working with these folks is that the systems are poorly designed and promote inconsistent and wrong behavior in the eyes of customers.  Sometimes its the incentives and rewards workers get for greater productivity or selling a new unit, other times its just poorly designed systems with outdated management thinking.

Whatever it is, when you work with these folks you get a defensive knee-jerk reaction from customers that trust is not present.  Most customers don’t need to be prompted about their opinion or require only a small nudge when you ask them “how the service is?” 

Missed commitments, unmet expectations, repairs being redone, missing/wrong parts, disappearing acts, over-pricing, under-delivering are just a few of the things customers experience.  These all play into the trust factor that customers feel.

As I have collected customer relevant data in these industries the measured performance has been for the most part atrocious . . . as one might expect.  Leading one break-fix company employee to remark “we are constantly exceeding low expectations.”  Customers can only hope that this is not the vision for a battered industry.

The key to this industry will be to get in touch with their customers viewpoint and not its income statement.  The former drives the latter.  This is a wide-open industry that requires only one really good company to reverse the trend.

Ways to reverse the trend are to Perform “Check” on your organization.  This requires you to go to the point of transaction where the customer interacts.  Here, you will understand the “what and why” of current performance.  Good questions to ask about your customer management process include:

To rebuild trust in customers there is a general need to change thinking.  For management in these industries this will require them to change too.

Leave me a comment. . . share your opinion!  Click on comments below.

Tripp Babbitt is a speaker, blogger and consultant to service industry (private and public).  His organization helps executives find a better way to make the work work.  Read his articles at Quality Digest and his column for CustomermanagementIQ.com  Download free from www.newsystemsthinking.com “Understanding Your Organization as a System” and gain knowledge of systems thinking or contact us about our intervention services at info@newsystemsthinking.com.  Reach him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/TriBabbittor LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/trippbabbitt.