.png)
A warning: In this article we challenge some deeply ingrained, invisible core beliefs.
In social science, a “problem” is often something I don’t like, don’t want, or want to eliminate.
In physics, a “problem” is a conflict that prevents a system from achieving its desired objective. Physicists also contend that, if there appears to be a conflict, there is an underlying false assumption.
While management appears to see a different reality than employees, there is only one reality and it is not so complex that others cannot see or understand it.
For example, to remain competitive, we must reduce waste in materials and process time, and allocate resources.
Organizations demand higher sales while customers demand shorter lead and delivery times at quality standards unheard of 10 years ago.
It’s easy to get bluffed out. When you see valuable resources, including people, sitting idle, what is your immediate reaction?
Waste!
However, if each resource operated at its maximum, would you double or triple your output? Maybe, maybe not.
Focusing on local resource optimization could increase, rather than decrease, your costs, as well as lower quality and service levels.
A case in point, in your neighbourhood there is a local fire hall where, most of the time, hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment and highly trained people sit idle.
What a waste! Let’s set our town on fire to ensure we get maximum utilization of these resources.
(Oops!) Our firefighters are worth the investment and risk their lives to save others, so we should not get angry when these resources sit idle.
In business, the careful use of resources to support a well-designed strategy can double, even triple, output. However, only an estimated 3 percent of North American businesses operate this way.
One of the worst examples of this is our attraction to problem-solving in a one-level perspective that may not produce desired results and may actually undermine our future.
Take a Broader Outlook
For example, a manufacturing client told us fast setup time is critical to hitting their financial and production goals.
Prior to our discussion and after numerous problem-solving sessions, they decided to test adding one extra person to a workstation. If productivity improved by 20 percent, they planned to add a similar person to another six stations.
This sounds logical until you discover that two customers moved their business to a competitor because of price and another large customer is threatening to take their business elsewhere for the same reason.
With that in mind, let’s analyze their “solution.” If they hit the 20 percent goal, the increase in operating costs would be over $250,000. In addition, this “solution” tells employees that increased productivity always requires adding people.
In the future, they will jump to this solution, further increasing their labour costs. Customers will not tolerate price increases so they’ll need massive productivity gains to absorb these costs.
While we’d like to create more jobs, this solution could eliminate all their jobs by losing more customers and market share, and gain the company a reputation as an over-priced supplier.
If their tactic fails, employees will become even more discouraged, since even adding people did not solve their “problem.”
We suggested they first try to reduce setup times without adding a person to each workstation. Hitting their production, cost, and quality goals with the same workforce eventually created badly needed momentum, energy, and excitement.
Don’t Forget ‘The results we want’
Once we played out each scenario, management clearly saw that, in their haste to solve problems from a short-sighted perspective, they could cause irreparable damage to their future.
Some people contended that a solution involving the same workforce was impossible, but finding such a solution meant their workforce now has the competency necessary to maintain their competitive edge.
As long as management does not use this increased productivity to justify “rightsizing,” their future is much brighter.
Ask yourself:
- What is our view of “problems?” Do we mistake making problems go away with creating the results we want?
- What underlying assumptions are implied in our conversations?
- Where do we attempt selling each other on our perceptions rather than assisting each other to clearly see reality?
- What is currently “impossible,” that were it possible, could revolutionize our business?
Keep in mind that problem-solving is a seek-and-destroy mission.However, most business initiatives have a “what we want to create” component.
Both aspects are important, but they are not interchangeable. Be careful not to confuse one with the other.
Dave Mather is a Performance Improvement Specialist at Dale Carnegie Business Group, Toronto, Ontario.
Find Dave on LinkedIn.
