Leaders, especially those within large organizations, often have to deal with varying degrees of bureaucracy and obstacles to optimal productivity. I witnessed this firsthand, having worked for a government agency for more than 18 years.
My Experience with the Federal Organization
Equipment deployments are determined at headquarters and rolled out on their schedules. Sometimes it takes years for smaller sized plants to get the efficient machines that larger plants get. These machines are more efficient, save hours and costs, yet it takes a lot of time to get them. Rather than buy new, better equipment for everyone meeting the required savings, many older pieces of equipment get transferred from larger facilities to smaller ones. This requires taking the old machine apart, trucking it somewhere else, and reassembling it yet again. This is very expensive and still results in less productivity and more hours than a new machine would bring. Eventually, the new machines will replace these.
All policies and procedures roll out from headquarters, the area, or the district. Manuals, policies, and handbooks fill bookcase after bookcase. There are tens of thousands of pages of reference material for even the smallest office, and much more for larger offices.
The focus of the organization seems lost in the bombardment of ever changing goals, objectives, people, processes, and equipment. Although it employs hundreds of thousands of people, and most would utter “customer service” when asked, the focus does not seem to resound clearly. Although its’ intent is to provide service, the primary focus internally seems to vary from cutting hours and costs, to higher productivity, to higher delivery scores, etc. The focus is lost on a multitude of goals and objectives. The biggest problem in determining these goals are that, like equipment deployments, top management computes them alone. They control the means, the goals, limit decisions by others, and then, ultimately judge their performance on one-sided measures.
The limited or restricted means of getting the work done include:
- Some plants are so short on people that a few sick calls may cause serious service issues
- Some plants do not have the necessary equipment to do the job effectively
- Decisions regarding policies, equipment, and even the complement of people are determined somewhere else
- Recording requirements require supervisors to leave the workroom floor for large lengths of time. This also leads to an increase in supervisor hours.
- The discipline process is both difficult and time-consuming.
- Every plant has multiple unions and divisions within them. For example, there are three different unions in the craft alone. Each negotiates its own contract nationally, and local unions negotiate their own Local Memorandum of Understanding.
How does this contrast with winning concepts used excellent companies?
The basic premise of any goal is to determine them between two parties, one the reviewer and other person seeking the goal. Productive goal setting generally requires the give and take of both parties in negotiating a moderately difficult, but achievable goal. Oddly enough when employees create their own goals, they are generally much higher.
Although organizational barriers won’t be discussed in length in this book, it does deserve mention. There are simply things outside of the control of the initial level supervisor. This book will focus on the things within the control of the initial level supervisor, as well as how to deal with some of the organizational barriers.
Some organizational traits of excellent companies include:
- Small corporate staffs
- A focus on only a few key business values and objectives
- Good news swapping
- Positive reinforcement used extensively
- Numerous daily informal conversations (informality is the norm) – fewer offices, fewer walls, open doors, managers informally speaking with associates while walking around operations
- Absence of rigid chain of command (protocol) except for big decisions
- Restrictions on numbers of employees under one roof
Likewise, task forces of excellent organizations generally include:
- Usually 10 or less members
- The reporting level and the seniority of members are directly proportional to the importance of the problem. Members must be able to complete whatever they recommend.
- Very limited duration
- Usually volunteers
- Assembled quickly, as needed, and generally without a formal charter
- Swift follow-up
- No assignment of staff
- Informal and often meager documentation
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