The gap between what we tell and what we do

Companies need to sell their brand and create a difference versus competition. But, while corporate instances actually believe that they value customers or assume that everyone from top to bottom promotes local products or is obsessed by quality, the reality may turn out to be very different.

I remember a gemba walk in a plant. I had perused ahead of the visit a leaflet celebrating high quality, local products. The leaflet was great and left you with the idea that the daily focus along the supply chain was around quality and customer satisfaction.

We then visited the production areas: top management messages posted on the walls targeted a unique objective – to be the market leader - and KPIs only measured the production speed or equipment availability. In purchasing, the focus was on delivery, hardly giving a thought to the huge swings on the forecasts or the variability from one day purchase to the other. The message out to the world (quality) was drastically different from the internal message to the teams (speed and delivery). There was an obvious and glaring gap.

The role of the sensei is to point out the differences between what the company tells – and hopes to achieve - and what management actually does, in meetings or daily routines, through internal communication channels or via the priorities they promote. And to have top management work on the inconsistencies: if the company is really targeting the continuity of customer satisfaction, how do you systematically track and solve – not just compensate - customer claims? If quality hazards are a risk you wish to eliminate from all your products, how do you show your obsession on the subject?

Any thoughts on this?