Success starts with empowering every member of your team
Swimming my mile this morning, I was reminded of an incident that happened some years ago. I was filling in as director of operations for a local company. One day, I was walking with the CEO. As we approached a door, I opened it and saw one of our employees struggling with a load. I helped him through while we waited.
The CEO was livid. As soon as the janitor was out of earshot, the CEO said, “I pay you a lot more than I pay him! I don’t ever want you or us waiting for him again.”
I responded, “That only cost us a minute. We treated him respectfully and made him and what he does feel important. Now, he’ll bust his hump for the rest of the afternoon for us. With your approach, he would do as little as possible.
“How do you think I’ve been able to get those performance improvements? Smart changes to the process certainly helped, but they’re not enough. We’ve got to get everyone trying their best to help us improve our performance. I think the minute we just spent will have a great ROI.”
He didn’t know what to say, but I wasn’t done. We were having weekly progress review meetings, and I suggested inviting the production workers.
“You mean shut down production so they can attend? The information you present is confidential.”
“It’s only an hour. Have you ever gone to a ballgame and seen the scoreboard covered up? If you had, I’ll bet the stands would empty pretty quickly. We have to make them feel like part of the game by letting them know how we’re doing. If we’re falling behind, they’ll see it and may even have suggestions on how to catch up. I shouldn’t have to think of everything. ‘All of us together are much smarter than any one of us alone.’ We’re not disclosing salaries or financial information; just showing how well we’re performing.”
Well, I made a pitch at our next staff meeting, and we decided to try it. It worked wonderfully. Some of the workers started sharing suggestions with each other, as if we were a team trying to win the next game.
They even gave me unsolicited suggestions on changes we could make that would improve quality and throughput. No one asked for a consulting fee or extra pay. Once they understood the situation, they were happy to help.
Many of our components came from China and had a lot of quality problems. We often had to get 100% of them reworked. Sending engineers to China to show them how to do it yielded short-term improvements, but in no time at all, we’d be back to all the rework.
We found local suppliers that gave us perfect parts on much better terms. If we considered the total costs without even adding in the cost of sending engineers to straighten them out, it was cheaper getting the parts made right here. The VP of finance loved us.
Additionally, we were able to reduce the manufacturing cycle time from a couple of months to a couple of days, dramatically reducing costs even further. We really got the place humming.
Unfortunately, the CEO wanted to source more components from China despite the trouble we had had with anything we got from there. So many companies were doing it, and he didn’t want to be left behind. That wasn’t something I could do, so we amicably parted company.
Predictably, they had a massive problem with a major component, but they survived. The owners sold the company and made a bundle shortly after.
It appears the company is doing well for the new owners, but I can’t help but wonder how things would look if everything had stayed right here. Contrary to popular belief, sourcing components and/or moving operations offshore is not necessarily a good idea.
I’ve often wondered how people can think sending our headaches elsewhere makes sense. We dramatically reduce our ability to control the effort surrendering it to others who often don’t care about our needs as much as we would.
It is entirely possible to build stuff here very competitively when we properly manage the effort. Happy Holidays!
Ronald J. Bourque, a consultant and speaker from Salem, has had engagements throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. He can be reached at 603-898-1871 or RonBourque3@gmail.com.
