Leveraging Front-Line Employees for More Effective Continuous Improvement: Words of Insight from the Lean Six Sigma Trenches
Posted: 06/22/2009 12:00:00 AM EDT | 9
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As an attendant at the IQPC Lean Six Sigma Process Improvement Summit 2009, I was able to see first hand how continuous improvement is being used and integrated into companies around the world. Speakers representing global giants such as Toyota, Walmart and The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation discussed how forging Lean Six Sigma into an organization is essential to build and maintain a competitive business.
As interesting as it was to listen to these champions share their Lean Six Sigma best practices, I felt there was a critical piece missing from their continuous improvement message—as an employee still at the “bottom of the totem pole,” so to speak. What about what we want (“we” being the front-line employees)? And, it’s not really so much what we want, but what it is that front-liners need in order to make continuous improvement more effective in their companies. Granted, leadership buy-in to new continuous improvement initiatives is half the battle, but half a battle won’t necessarily win the war. The greatest Lean Six Sigma leaders can plan and visualize their strategy and end-game. However, unless they have the front-line employees to actually carry out the plan, and, more importantly, the genuine support from those front-line employees to give it all they have, the continuous improvement plan will be dead before it’s even delivered.
If You Don’t Care, I Won’t Care About Continuous Improvement
Mike Abrashoff, author of It’s Your Ship, spoke about his experience turning his Navy ship from one of the worst in the fleet to one of the best, and a particular statement stood out to me. It wasn’t a quote from Abrashoff, or even a fellow leader. It was, in fact, some pearls of wisdom from a front-line employee. The statement went something like this, “Employee ranking in a company is a little like monkeys in a tree. If you are on the top looking down, all you see are smiling faces looking up at you. If you are on the bottom looking up, it’s an entirely different view!”
Many leaders get so used to the smiling faces they see from day to day, and they just assume their subordinates are on the same page and willing to support their continuous improvement initiatives. That is the employee’s job after all, right? However, if a leader takes a little more time to “climb down the tree,” so to speak, and engage with his or her front-line employees on a personal level, the view might be much different.
Sometimes leaders forget what it's like to be in the shoes of those front-line employees who work for them. I was told about one front-line employee’s experience with the upper echelon of leadership at her company. It was around Christmas time, and one of the divisional leaders was walking around with his secretary, handing out Christmas ornaments. His secretary was the one holding the box, handing out ornaments and making conversation with the employees. The leader, on the other hand, said his obligatory "Merry Christmas" and moved on to the next cubicle. While outside the cubicle of one of the employees, my friend heard him ask his secretary, “Are we done yet?” just before reaching her cube.
Fast forward to the next divisional leader who took his place. This leader took the time to regularly come down and interact with every layer on the organizational chart and, shockingly enough, not just on holidays! He asked questions about front-line employees on a personal level, shared stories and actually took time and sat with the employees to learn about what their jobs entailed.
Now if we took these two leaders and gave them each a division at the same time, and then had them each deploy continuous improvement to their divisions, who do you think would be more successful in his efforts?
For Continuous Improvement to Fully Succeed, There Must be Total Front-Line Employee Support
The fact is, a company is not going to realize the full potential of any continuous improvement initiative that is rolled out unless Lean Six Sigma leaders have 100 percent support from their front-line employees. To be sure, most employees who aren’t completely supportive of their Lean Six Sigma leaders will still carry out a request because they have to—it is part of their job. However, there will be a big difference in results from front-line employees who have to support their Lean Six Sigma leaders out of fear of losing their position, versus employees who want to support their Lean Six Sigma leaders out of mutual respect, loyalty, and, more importantly, a shared vision.
Leadership comes in two forms. One form of leadership involves Lean Six Sigma leaders who are passionate and love what they do. The other form of leadership involves Lean Six Sigma leaders who are dedicated to the development and needs of their front-line employees. As an observer of the continuous improvement process within my Lean Six Sigma leadership team, and as a participant on other levels, those seem to be the two critical components that need to be present to fully benefit from front-line employee engagement in continuous improvement, and in turn, take continuous improvement through Lean Six Sigma to the next level of being more integrated into the culture and fabric of a company.
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Contributor:
Melanie Schallow |
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Melanie, I agree with you completely. The WIIFM concept (What's in it for me) is extremely important for any project to succeed. Just to add on, my experience has been that it is much easier to show (or "sell) the benefits of the proposed improvements to front line employees in a new organization or greenfield site of an organization, as they are open to new ideas. However, when it comes to old establishments this becomes extremely difficult as people are used to working in a certain way for many years, and see anything new with suspicion, i.e. as a tool planned by management to get more (work) out of them. That is why many organizations implement any new concepts at their new worksites as they do not want to take the risks of disturbing the activities at the existing old sites.
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I love this article ! Follow up question though. With this information available, is it advisable to check the latest Employee Opinion Survey for the company/account/department before conducting a Lean/Six Sigma project? Would this shed light on the possible outcome of the project (succeed/fail)?
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I love this article ! Follow up question though. With this information available, is it advisable to check the latest Employee Opinion Survey for the company/account/department before conducting a Lean/Six Sigma project? Would this shed light on the possible outcome of the project (succeed/fail)?
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I agree. If there is no buy-in from the front line employees, nothing good happens. It is called ownership.
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Nice article recognizing the power of the masses.
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Good article Melanie, I have been a "Change Agent" for alot of my career, and realized years ago, that if every one has the same level of understanding, then everyone would get to the same solutions to problems. Steven Covey said once "That with people, slow is fast, and fast is slow."
The best teams that I have worked with, were lead by mechanics. Mechanics that took the initiative and wanted to learn process improvement. You have to take the time to let them struggle at first, and then you can sit in the wings and watch them fly..
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Hello Melanie: Your observations “from the bottom of the totem pole” are spot on. I have been communicating the message about the crucial role of the “front line employee” for almost 20 years. Here is a link to an article I wrote that was published in TRAINING magazine back in 1993, titled “Reinventing the Factory with Lifelong Learning”.
http://www.varanor.com/user_files/file/ReinventingFactory.pdf
It’s a case study about how the front line employees at Honeywell’s Toronto factory played a crucial role in implementing Modern/World Class/Japanese Manufacturing (what today we call “Lean”). I was a member of the leadership team – Training Manager – and we invested heavily in the training and education of the front line people who were the key drivers of the change.
This message about the crucial role of the front line employee is simply not resonating with North American leadership. I asked a business school professor about this, and his reply was the MBA’s are focused on financial analysis. The simply can’t see that business is a human activity, based on the interplay between Employees, Customers and Investors to create real wealth. And so they focus on the quantitative aspects of Lean – the tools. The result is that most companies are only “tinkering” with Lean. They are not incorporating it into the organizational DNA.
But let’s keep trying to get the message out. It’s too important to drop. It bears repeating:
“The front line employee is the most crucial team member to incorporating Lean in your organization.”
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Congratulations for writing on such a sensitive & probably the most important subject, that I have read so far .....Thank you. The point you have raised deserves full attention, not only in Leveraging Front-Line Employees for More Effective Continuous Improvement in Six Sigma but also in any other...or may I say all Economic/revenue generating activities. If a leader is not bothered or aware of problems being faced by front line staff....its like a blind man leading a pack. In your quote of view from top will not be the one you describe but the other way round.
I hope you understand....& view from bottom will be the smiling faces looking back with the expression..' I told u so'
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Melanie, I really enjoyed your article and I couldn't agree with you more. The experts are the front line employees and it is they who will design the template for improvement if only given a chance. I work in an MRO organization at the moment and we have formed core teams with the membership being 70% hourly and it has worked so well! We use an integrated Lean, Six Sigma and TOC methodology along with Critical Chain Project Management and the core team is solely responsible for the amazing results we've given the US Army (we maintain their helicopter fleets). Thanks for a great article.
Bob Sproull
http://www.sproullconsulting.com
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