Lean Musings and other stuff

The Corporate Dilemma Pt 4 - The Doer

Let’s finish our series on the Corporate Dilemma by taking a closer look at the unheralded hero of our story – the Doer.

In every process (pipe, company, organization, or activity) someone has to actually do the work the process utilizes to produce the outcome it is valued for. As a quick level set, this relatively simple premise becomes exponentially more complicated when the value proposition for the process gets murky, or there’s confusion over who the actual customer actually is. Combine that with larger organizations and/or multiple parties doing separate parts of the “doing” and you land squarely inside the Corporate Dilemma. What possible actions are there to be taken for our diligent, humble Doer?

Battle One - The first battle every Doer faces is the battle of assumptions. In this battle, people are brought into processes and it’s assumed by everyone in the pipe that they’ll “figure it out”. Onboarding and training, if they’re present, can look more like a welcome packet than a guide to how to be a good doer of whatever is getting done. If this first obstacle is overcome, then the timeliness and usefulness of any provided training looms next. Even really well intended training often crumbles under the pressure of the doing that needs getting done. And, after these first two obstacles are overcome, the last assumption comes into play as everyone assumes the new doer will get the bigger picture, see risk or issues accurately, or just fall into the tempting trap of “this is just the way we’ve always done it”.

Battle Two - The next battle our heroes face is the battle of the silo. In most companies, it takes multiple departments to accomplish the overall objective. As these departments or functions are created, they overtime mature and become entrenched into the fabric of the company. Interestingly, when most companies identify the need for these supporting functions, they are already doing the supporting tasks at least part time (Finance, Delivery, or HR). At some point though, a perceived tipping point is reached, and the thing that’s been done informally or part time feels like it needs to be its own independent thing – a department or function is born! What happens next is as natural as the rising and falling of the sun. The department develops a sense of identity and starts pushing back on the organization that created it on how things should be done. This starts as verbal agreements, evolves to service agreements, and eventually corporate guidelines and polices. All this time the Doer is evolving as well. Pride in the team or department becomes a attracting quality and a reason for people to stay. The Doer begins to feel more affiliated with the team or function than the broader organization – a silo is born. It never happens fast and the Doer is rarely conscious of the shift, but it happens.

Battle Three - The last battle our weary Doers will face is the battle of good intentions . This last battle comes from the best of places and disguises itself as “trying to help”. To clarify, the distinction is not the intent or act of helping, it’s when “helping” becomes recurring and enabling to the other party. I’d argue that any group or organization thrives because everyone tries to bridge the gap when they see a fellow employee or team struggle. The problems begin when it moves from a one off to an ongoing and expected response. This is where we see roles merge, tasks go undone, and processes breakdown. What started as help now covers someone’s inability or the beginning of one individual or group taking on the responsibilities of the other. The reason this is a “Doer battle” and not the Owner is that it most often starts small at the transactional level. Then as peers see it “work” they start copying the helpful behavior. And then as things get temporarily better, both the helper and the helpee start settling into the newly normalized roles. Extrapolate that out across large departments and companies and it doesn’t take long before process are “successful” but no one understands how it was actually designed to operate. Doers in that environment are never sure of where their roles stop and start and new employees struggle to acclimate because the training (if available) doesn’t match how the work actually gets done.

Today’s dilemma, like all the earlier ones, is solvable. The tools and techniques of Lean Six Sigma are largely intended to create clarity and alignment. Charters, RACI’s, Stakeholder Analysis, SIPOCr, Value Analysis, and Control Charts are just a few of the tools that attack the dilemma’ s faced by any group of people struggling within a pipe. So, whether you are the Requestor, the Owner, the Receiver, or Doer, or your “pipe” spans countries or functions, each of these dilemmas is fortunately solvable.