How to involve staff in an effectieve improvement project
I received many comments and likes to my previous blog about " Prevention of errors should not prevent innovation and creativity". Someone ed out to me a movie of Tom Peters about this, http://youtu.be/0UyvJgOCS1w. He sums it up powerfully in "Fail, Forward, Fast". Fail, if you mess up anything, you learn nothing. The sooner you do things, the sooner you learn.
Key here is corporate culture. Mistakes are made everywhere, that's clear. However, are errors also allowed by management, even appreciated? Only when there is an environment where mistakes can be made, the staff will be encouraged to come up with ideas. The latter is crucial. After all, the staff is not only needed to come up with good ideas but also to execute them. Such an environment is enabling innovation and creativity.
Come forward with new ideas is one thing, embedding them is another item…
Often improvement initiatives are launched enthusiastically. Proposed improvements are captured and executed. After a while sharpness disappears, and the results of the improvement start to slide. A good example is the organization of tools in a workshop. It is a good and common practice to apply shadow boards for each piece of equipment. It provides oversight, prevents you from unnecessary searching, and re-storing is easy. The problem arises when there are multiple users. It is very convenient if your colleague has a well organised tool board, and you're looking spanner #13. You go to his tool board, and take spanner #13. Of course you were planning return it immediately after usage, but that did not happen yet. Very frustrating for the organised colleague, who then has to find his own stuff that might be anywhere...
If you accept this way of working for a while, it will stop anyone to use the tool board. Essential is the support of all stakeholders and, where necessary, adequate management intervention if someone renounced his task. Unfortunately managers do not know exactly where to pay attention to, and they are often too late to intervene. So managers: sustain your improvements!