On a previous post, I mentioned that I couldn’t find a situation that Continuous Improvement didn’t help but I looked back at some of my notes from other companies and sites and did come up with one area where CI has limited impact. This is when there is a dysfunctional team running a site or process. I have run into these environments a few times and I think I need to be more specific when I mention a dysfunctional team. This is related to trust, leadership and ownership.

A trust issue is when process / site leadership does not trust the front employees or vice versa. This environment creates inefficiencies due to Auditing for “wrong” behavior, Stand up meetings turning to blame games and holding things back for both parties. I have seen this in union, non-union and “High Performance Work Teams” as well. This also turns supervisors and the middle team into a confused mess and ultimately short term employees

Leadership means that one will lead the team. The whole team. All the time. I have found the biggest issues around this are when the site / process leadership start thinking they are CEO’s instead of team leaders. This can be witnessed when leaders are in their offices instead of the processes. Meetings in conference rooms instead of production floors. Talk about why we can’t get something done instead of what can be done. It is subtle and sometimes needs outsiders to see how bad it is.

Ownership is that the team is together and knows that the team determines the results. The term team isn’t leadership or supervision or front line. It is and. This means the blame is shared just as much as the glory. It is recognizing individuals and turning that performance into subprocesses so that everyone can be a hero. It stops the excuses and supports standard work. If Tony fails, we all fail. It is the responsibility to state that Tony and John and Jenny all work together to find the one best way and they all do it the same way – Their way. Not managements way, not Tony’s way, the way.

In these type of environments, CI work can be very challenging and the basic ideas of 5S and standard work don’t have a foundation to work from. When I have been confronted with this type of environment my recommendation is to step back and reassess what the site or process really needs. That can be hard because it may be as simple as a mirror.