Behaviors Drive Results, For Good or For Bad
Image courtesy of Symphony X
“The sum of the behaviors of the people within an organization is its culture.”
This is a statement shared with me several years ago by my friend, Ken Snyder, Executive Director of the Shingo Institute.
I really latched onto that thought and for some time really espoused it as a concept I needed to teach participants in the workshops I facilitated and clients for which I provided advisory services. However, as I thought about this statement over time, I began to realize that the “sum” as a descriptive statistic is mostly not informative. Much more interesting is the “mean” or “average” of a data set, which when plotted, provides some understanding as to dispersion (measured as “range” or “standard deviation”), of a data set. This is critical as it provides an understanding of the outliers. I discussed this in my recent article, entitled “compliance vs COMMITMENT”.
My interest here is to discuss specific types of behaviors and how they support or impede sustainable results for organizational excellence. To help facilitate an understanding of this importance, allow me to share with you, the Three Insights of Organizational Excellence established by the Shingo Institute in its proprietary Shingo Model.
1. Ideal results require ideal behavior
2. Purpose and Systems drive behavior
3. Principles inform ideal behavior
I will provide anecdotal examples of the three principles above.
Number one: Ideal Results Require Ideal Behavior
Several years ago, I was visiting a factory in the U.K. We were at the gemba – “the place where the actual thing is happening,” Ritsuo Shingo (deceased) – speaking with an operator running a piece of equipment. During our questioning, trying to “grasp the actual fact,” (ibid) the concept of “Quick Changeover” or SMED (Single Minute Exchange of Dies), was mentioned by the operator. This is where operators within organizations strive to reduce the non-productive down time during a machine changeover to reduce waste (time) and increase productivity.
As an operator working in a cheese processing plant, running equipment that produced nearly 30,000 pounds of process cheese an hour, I was keenly familiar with Quick Changeover. I asked the operator what the average changeover downtime was. His response was “somewhere around 45 minutes to an hour.” This made me suspicious as when I was an operator, we knew what our average downtime for each type of changeover was – to the second – and we had gotten to the point where we were finding ways to shave seconds off what was already considered an excellent result. So, I asked the next question.
“Let’s just suppose the average downtime is currently 60 minutes. How would you get it down to 30 minutes?”
The operator thought about it and then told us he before the last good part came out of the machine (the point at which the clock starts ticking on changeover downtime), he would go to the parts cage, get a cart, and check out the new parts for the changeover. He would come back to the machine and when the last good part was released by the machine, he would shut it down and change out the parts, putting the new parts on the machine and the old parts on the cart. When the first good part came out of the machine, (the point at which the clock stops ticking on changeover downtime), he would then go to the parts cage and check in the old machine parts and cart. This prompted the third question:
“Why don’t you do that now?”
And here is the behavior exhibited by the operator, showing both honesty and candor,
“I really don’t know. It’s in our procedure.”
The floor manager, who was with our group, pulled us aside and informed us that this was unacceptable behavior and that he would “write up” the operator. Interestingly enough, this was also a behavior that would impede excellent and sustainable results.
I asked what writing up the operator would accomplish. The floor manager said that the operator would know that he had to follow the procedure next time. (Note this is enforcement, driving compliance.) I asked the floor manager what would happen if the operator exhibited this behavior again, to which he responded that the operator would be written up again. I persisted, asking what would happen if the operator again did not follow the procedure. The response was that it would be a third offense and the operator would be terminated. I pushed further, asking what would happen next? The floor manager told me that there was no one qualified to run the machine internally, so they would have to train someone internally, or hire someone from the outside. I’m sure you can guess the next question.
“What if they don’t follow the procedure?”
And so, it started over, with a thorough explanation of the HR guidelines on performance and termination. I then asked the floor manager what he thought the problem was that caused the operator to not follow the procedure. His response was that he was not following the rules. I countered with this question:
“What are conditions in the system which make it OK for the operator not to follow the procedure?”
The floor manager could not answer the question. I then informed him that until he investigated that, and discovered the root cause, he was going to go through people at that workstation and demoralize everyone in the plant who was aware of what was happening.
I’m not entirely sure the floor manager got the drift, but if you want ideal behaviors, you need to create an environment that makes them possible. W. Edwards Deming said, A bad system will beat a good person down, every time. A common lean saying is, Always make it easier for people to do the right thing, rather than the wrong thing.
Ideal results require ideal behavior.
Insight number 2: Purpose and Systems Drive Behavior
In Jim Collins’ book, Good to Great, one of the “Great” companies he profiles is Wells Fargo bank. It was a great company with a somewhat altruistic purpose to be “your neighborhood bank,” although it was considered a big bank. Then someone got the idea we could grow the bank if we offered a commission on opening new accounts. A compensation system was put in place to provide those commissions.
Unfortunately, purpose and systems are often at odds with one another, and nearly every time this occurs, the system wins out over the purpose. In the case of Wells Fargo, this was absolutely the case. Tens of thousands of ghost accounts – accounts that were not actually owned by real people, and which had no, or only limited deposits – were opened. In a bank, nearly anyone working there can open an account, because nearly everyone is trained to do so, to help customers whose deposits are the life blood of any bank. You picked up in the press what the result of this was: catastrophe. The stock price, which had been climbing with news that new accounts were at record levels, tanked upon the discovery that there was an overwhelming number of ghost accounts that had no value at all. Completely tanked. In his book, “How the Might Fall,” Jim Collins cites Wells Fargo as one of the “Candidates for Decline – From Great Company to Mediocrity or Worse.
Purpose and Systems Drive Behavior.
Number 3. Principles Inform Ideal Behavior
I work with a company that has identified four key principles as pillars for their organizational culture: C.A.R.E., Compassion, Accuracy, Reliability, Efficiency, all on a foundation of Sustainability. You may argue that those pillars and foundation are not what they should be. But that is irrelevant. What is relevant is those are the principles they chose, and they know what those principles mean in the context of their business and culture. Are they there yet? No. But they are anxiously engaged in pursuing that aspiration. You can see it in one of the operators that was a strong influencer, but not for the better.
This individual had a significant impact – albeit negative – on others in the production areas. The Continuous Improvement Manager persisted in trying to find common ground, which was viewed by the operator as manipulative. Then chance happened to place them at the same weekend event, in the same area at the event. The question going each way was, what are you doing here? This impromptu and informal meeting led to discussions having nothing to do with work. That the CI manager cared enough to have the conversation off campus, rather than pretending not to see the operator, showed she cared about the operator. This is just one of many examples within that organization. Over time, the organization saw fit to sponsor the operator’s activities at future events, which has also instilled pride in the organization he works for.
As I write this, I’m listening to a band called Symphony X, a progressive metal band whose art is a blend of old classic works fused with innovative metal orchestrations. I think Symphony X, and any other musical group at the top of its game – no matter the genre – understand this concept completely. They are on a journey to deliver excellence and they understand both the ideal technical and creative behaviors, necessary to produce what I am now listening to and enjoying. Less than ideal behaviors would mean they would not have the following they enjoy, and likely, I never would have heard of them. They might have ground out a living in small venues and bars, which they likely started out doing. But they aspired to something better and have become one of the many progressive metal phenoms that now exist, and for which I am grateful. I’m sure only they can appreciate the literal thousands of hours of ideal behavior – read as practice – to achieve what they have been able to. They identified the behavior and worked the steps.
In conclusion, when organizations focus on behaviors and the conditions within their systems that drive behaviors, for good or for bad, they can then develop a roadmap to enable each system to produce ideal behaviors. Principles that mean something within the organization inform the desired behaviors. This is not a one-and-done situation. It is the constant practice of what Alcoholics Anonymous refers to as “working the steps.” And like AA participants, it is something you can never abandon, if you want to realize your aspiration.
When we understand how these systems drive behavior, we can then better align the organization and the people within to decrease variation around the mean of the behaviors of the people within the organization. Not because it is being enforced. Rather because people become committed to an ideal that means something to them.
I very much appreciate you and the time you have taken to read this article. You can find more articles like this from me at https://www.legup.solutions/blog.
If you have thoughts this or other topics regarding yours or your organization's journey of excellence, feel free to continue the conversation on my Secret Sauce slack feed.
Originally published at https://www.legup.solutions on 02 APR 2024