The Rate of Acceptance

So you are the facilitator of a Kaizen event. You have a thousand great ideas swirling around about how to make the working life easier. You are excited; motivated by the thought of the company taking a new approach to an old system. Butterflys in your stomach begin to rise because this is what you love, what you were made to do, heck, what you were engineered to do. Your Modus Operandi is incremental improvement, and this is your arena. You arrive in a crowd of your coworkers. Peers, direct reports, and leaders. You scan the crowd before beginning and your heart sinks into your chest. You realize something that is almost despicable in your eyes. You look at all the faces, the body language, the temperament, and the truth cuts deep. You are absolutely alone.

Why Leaders Do NOT Want Change

Financial Neutrality- The nature of some contracts in the workplace mean that adapting process or procedure to reduce its cycle time doesn't necessarily save money. In fact if a contract is positioned as "our cost plus a percentage", one might even be directly incentivized to increase the cycle time; rather than decrease or make better for the individual doing the work. In this scenario your best option is to up sell the "quality of life" to the leader. You have to paint a clear picture that in some shape or form their working life gets better. Whether that be less emails concerning quality from a customer, better attendance from the staff, less operational constraints, or less stress in the overall management of a process.

Consistent Failures in Behavioral Shifts- Leaders may consistently cite "well we couldn't get everybody to do X, or Y" function in a different manner. "How are we going to get people to do this?" Unfortunately, this is both a tough pill to swallow and a high hill to climb. In these scenarios, you have to sell both the idea that the new way will be easier to manage, and that since it is easier people will want to do it. Some of the most successful approaches in this type of scenario involve a type of trade off. Basically, if I can totally eliminate a process step, it is a much easier sell to get you to adjust the following process step. "Hey, you can stop sending me this report daily if you consistently meet the following goal". Or how about "you can stop filing these reports if you work them from your computer and save them to a shared drive." By trading the elimination of a process step for an altered one in the system, you can achieve buy in. I like to frame it like this. -We already know what we can throw away, but by showing the trash bin to everybody, we sell what we will achieve. Also when it comes to behavior, consistency is everything. Mentioning something once changes nothing, it takes constant, consistent, diligent follow up and follow through.

Bigger Picture is Entirely Missing- This is the one that is most commonly taken for granted. Your superiors may not know the original process! They may not even be able to visualize what the physicality of a system actually looks like, and because of this, they are inherently dissuaded to adapt or change. Would you change something when you aren't fully aware of its present state? If so, why? The most important piece of the DMAIC, Kaizen, and continuous improvement philosophy is to define the present state first, then define what you want to change and why. Start here and do NOT take process steps for granted. You need to paint a full and vivid picture of exactly what the process looks like today, before selling your process change. Imagine the person you need buy in from has never seen your work area, and never participated in the work. You would be surprised how often that is precisely the case.

Why Peers Do NOT Want To Listen

Lacking Incentive- Careerism is by definition a race to the top. An unfortunate by product of this is that everybody wants to have the next big idea. The next innovation that is going to add robots or cameras, and make a complete paradigm shift in the process. In one way or another, some people are solely focused on this. They don't care what is better, what works, or what saves the most money. They care about them making the pitch, and getting the credit. Now this isn't as evil as it sounds when you read it; in fact, it is human nature to do so. The main sale here is to recognize that is the wall you are up against, and deploy some good ole fashioned "Resolution Steering". If your incredible idea is to add a paper towel dispenser to the break room, say to this person "What do you think is a good way to keep this area clean?" Make sure your question is open ended, and doesn't directly point to the solution. Be as socratic as you can possibly be, and that individual will draw an effective solution.

They Created the Current State- There is a definitive Ego when it comes to process creation. It is almost as if you give birth to a process more than simply think of it. You coddle it, you feed it, and you feel responsible for it. As if you have a duty to protect it at all costs. The last thing the father process is wants, is for you to impact it. Even if it is positive, who are you to tell me how to raise my process? In this dynamic, your best move is to over compliment how great the current state is. Constantly speak of how much better it is than the previous state, how effective it is overall, and how incremental improvements are "built on the shoulders of giants".

Only Ever Exposed To Positional Authority- Through no fault of any one individual, most people have had one constant in their working lives. That constant is that all decisions, changes, directions, and adaptations come from management downward. The psyche is predisposed to simply accepting what a leader says, but it isn't primed at all for a peer. Who is this peer thing they are? Trying to tell me what to do. PSSSHHH. I don't report to them. For this symptom, you want to build your empowerment muscle. Perhaps the individual doesn't feel they have the permission or the authority to make a process change. Much less accept one from somebody else with no authority. Focus most of your Kaizen sales pitch on empowerment. Your peers have the power and authority to change whatever they want, as long as the group believes it to hold better outcomes.

Why Direct Reports Do NOT Want To Adapt

Was I Even Consulted?- Even micro scale changes to an individuals work processes can have a devastating impact. They have always done things this way. They have formed a habit of accepting the Status Quo. This is however, the single easiest barrier to overcome. The sales pitch here is to CONSULT THE PERSON DOING THE WORK. Simply have an open, honest, transparent conversation about the current state. Utilize the socratic method to steer to the desired future state, then, and only then, implement the change. You can take this a step further by giving credit to the person who drew the conclusion, and create lifelong fans in this manner.

My Opinion Doesn't Matter- Regardless of the size of your group, the opinion of each and every one of your direct reports is vital to your companies success. Instead of mentioning a better solution, allow the group to arrive at their own conclusions. As soon as they make a conclusion that helps the business, even microscopically, go out of your way to CELEBRATE it. There are very few humans who do not like to win, and even fewer that do not like celebrating. The first time you celebrate the smallest of employee driven functional change, you will see the buy in emerge. Their opinions DO matter, they CAN affect change, and they are empowered to do so. In fact, celebrated!

What is in it for Me?- A process change can only have two outcomes in this paradigm, more work for the employee, or less work for the employee. If the process change results in less work, you have to highlight this explicitly and sell it to your team! Hey we won't have to do A, B, or half of C anymore, YES! Celebrate the elimination, and support the change. If the process change results in more work, you MUST illustrate the bigger picture, the outcomes you were not getting before, and what you plan to get out of the process now. For this to be successfully adapted you need two ongoing facets. A program that incentivizes the thing you want, and decentivizes the thing you do not want. If your defect is a customer receiving defective orders, and your process change eliminates this, you need both. Kick off a program to report your defect rate and post it in a highly visible part of the workplace. Offer an incentive like a pizza party for complying to the new process, and seeing the uptick in defect rate. Occasionally process audit, and set accountability when the process isn't followed. You need both ends of the coin to drive getting the newly adapted process successfully implemented. Once it becomes muscle memory, you can take the wheels off on both ends and periodically monitor the outcome you have impacted.

Conclusion

Lean Facilitators, Kaizen Experts, CI Managers, are just as much salesmen as they are lean. Your rate of acceptance is the only thing that matters when truly affecting functional change. You can have the best solution in the world, but if nobody accepts it, then it is inadequate.

Also note, that although this was broken down by Leadership, Peers, and Direct Reports, each scenario is valid and applicable to any individual in the workplace. Respect the individual, attack the process, and try to make it fun!