I vaguely remember a definition of long sentence. “A long sentence is one, which starts slowly, uncertain of its terminus, and after the initial hesitancies it gathers momentum, meanders for a while and when it becomes apparent that the movement is not towards any specific destination, but towards a darkness, far darker than any known tunnel, dungeon or abyss, then that long sentence will come to an abrupt halt with the black head of the full stop on the paper like this.”
There is a variation to this definition when companies undertake initiatives. They don’t start slowly, but with lot of fanfare. There are initial resistances not necessarily hesitancies. It does gather momentum but meanders for a while. Then it another initiative crops up and this initiative drops off.
There are many reasons for this endemic malaise.
Desperate measures:
Initiatives are triggered by the desperation to address a current problem. It may not be even a problem but a symptom. We end up selecting the wrong tool, try out to fit the “so called” problem. The solution naturally fails and the initiative gets dropped. The cat has tried out piping hot milk and refuses to take the milk again even if required. We end up blaming the tool (first of all calling an initiative as a tool itself is blasphemous), blame the consultants, or worse blame the employees.
Fashion statement:
The boss attends a conference, picks up some idea about a few new “tools”. If everyone is trying this out there is something about this tool. Everyone is doing six sigma, kaizen, lean, reengineering (the fad of early 90s) so we should. We tryout a few baby steps, call an auditor to certify that I’ve arrived and blow it up in every forum. “We have been following 5S for last 8 years” (repeating 1s and 2 s five times is not 5s). Just before the 5S auditor arrives, 1S and 2S is undertaken on a feverish pitch, stopping production.
Overzealous consultants:
Tarka Sastra (science of dialectics, logic and reasoning) proposes “nahi ninda nyay” to support one’s theory. Glorify your view, but that doesn’t mean that the other view is flawed. But unfortunately, in business consultancy, is “evam ninda nyay”; ridicule the other methodologies to glorify your methodology.
With plethora of consultants carrying one or two methodologies in hand reminds me of the village fair I used to attend in my child hood. In one corner, a guy sells “Activity Based Costing – take this and have clarity on costs” ; another vendor next to him yells “SAP is the way to manage your data and have clarity on not only costs but also all your business processes”. Go further down the aisle, you will find two guys sitting next to next selling Balanced Score Card and EVA. “Unless you link your people to your strategy map you can’t have a successful business (BSC)” or “Unless you measure the bottom-line impact of your individual divisions you can’t align the goal (EVA). Then you have a horde of disparate vendors selling Kaizen, 5S, 6 Sigma, Lean Six Sigma. Disparate, as they claim that that their way of doing it is the right way and the only way. “I’ve been trained at Motorola itself on 6 Sigma”; “I got trained under a Sensei from Japan”. Normally you also find a guy selling an “amulet”, claiming that if you don’t take it, you’ll face dire consequences. Similarly, a few consultants sell Theory of Constraints, claiming that to be the cure all of all ailments; and worse, if you don’t adopt it you’ll be in real trouble. Then you have the evangelical Lean consultants supposed to look at the holistic view of business, but rarely so.
In this melee, the hapless business man is confused and ends up taking that initiative proffered by the most convincing seller.
Myopic view of the initiative:
Every methodology focuses on one key theme. “If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail”. – Abraham Maslow (1908-70). Maslow’s observation was spot on. It is not uncommon to see people claiming “if you follow ‘XYZ’ methodology everything is taken care of”. Replace XYZ with any initiative you undertake.
For example, 5S’s focus is to bring in stability that will enable the other improvement initiatives. TPM’s aim is to improve the reliability and availability of the equipment. Six Sigma addresses process capability. Activity Based Costing is a cost measurement mechanism trying to articulate the resource consumption more scientifically.
Lack of preparedness of the organisation:
We take up initiatives, without understanding our preparedness for the same. ERP implementation is a classic case. Organisations without any great culture of data capture end up wasting their time and resources, hoping it’ll ease up all the problems they face. Shop floor is in a mess, but I claim to follow Six Sigma. Six Sigma calls for a lot of data gathering and analysis. If I don’t have a great deal of data gathering in my gemba, I can’t have a great Six Sigma initiative.
Viewing an initiative as a tool:
Every initiative has prerequisites and preparedness; needs champions to take it forward and ultimately should become part of the performance measure. Instead perceiving an initiative as a tool will only lead to short term focus of benefits of the tools and not the long term focus of sustainable improvement.
Conclusion:
Purpose of any business is to create value for the customer. We need to align what we do to the purpose, i.e. the process has to be in sync with the purpose. We need people to align the process to purpose and are to be aligned to the purpose and process. We need initiatives and methods to ensure that this alignment is as seamless as possible. Only then we can prosper. Choosing the method, therefore, is the first critical step. Find the purpose of the method, the method follows.
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