Surely solving daily problems is everyone's responsibility?

Surely in today’s market of complex and relentless business challenges everyone in an organisation needs to take on the responsibility of solving workplace problems and this requires a formal structured approach.  Without a structured approach employees will waste precious time experimenting, poorly defining problems and implementing inappropriate solutions - affecting profitability and customer satisfaction.   If you were to ask about 20 random people within your organisation to spend ten minutes and write down their approach to solve simple daily business problems, what would the summary show?  Whether from University, a school leaver or a Board Member people are not taught a structured way to solve problems and especially not organisation wide.

Employee engagement in practical problem solving – organisation wide

A vital responsibility of all management is successful employee engagement. Only highly engaged employees are motivated enough to give the ‘customer first’ mind-set needed. One area where management and employees can be constantly (and positively) engaged is in daily problem solving, where everyone shares the same structured approach to problem solving.

Also, Customers want to know your company's employees can solve problems – there is nothing worse than a customer with a problem and the employee’s response is poor.

Quite often, organisations experience the following:

• Problems that they just can’t solve. Workarounds are the norm.
• Solving the same problem over and over again.  Addressing the symptom.
• Significant or repetitive complaints from customers (external/internal).
• Areas of performance that are generally below the desired standard.
• Significant time discussing problems without using data, a formal structure and without resolution

These are all symptoms of not using a standard, formal problem solving process to uncover and repair the root cause of a problem. Not solving these problems often costs the organisation significant amounts of time, energy and money. Training members of these organisations in the common techniques used in problem solving can reverse those losses and start to change the organisation’s culture. Success cannot be sustained without developing an army of problem solvers throughout the organisation. Limiting problem-solving to a select few experts, as is often the case with initiatives like LSS, prevents creating a culture where everybody improves the work they do every day.

Having all employees engaged in Continuous Improvement for both the Customer and the Business is an important part of a quality culture. A companywide initiative engaging all employees in a standard problem solving process based upon LSS DMAIC is an innovative way of approaching this. It allows for all employees to be able to embrace the basic application themselves as well as understanding the bigger picture.  

“Where there is no standard, there can be no kaizen.” – Taiichi Ohno.  This quote is used frequently to emphasise the importance of standardised work such as systems and work processes – it is also important to have a standardised problem solving process across the organisation. Additionally this is also a good selling point when bidding for new contracts as it shows a capability

In the 1980’s and 1990’s, many companies introduced Total Quality Management (TQM) which introduced the culture, attitude and organisation of a company that strives to provide customers with products and services that satisfy their needs. One of the areas of TQM was in employee teamwork – Quality Circles, a participatory management technique that enlists the help of employees in solving problems related to their own jobs. Circles are formed of employees working together in an operation who meet at intervals to discuss problems of quality and to devise solutions for improvements. A simple DMAIC based approach focused on problem solving, giving a methodology and a common language can be an enabler to employees (and management) engaging in continuous improvement teamwork.

Driving habitual use - a culture change model

A large scale employee training program would have little payback if it was not supported by a strong change management strategy to drive regular use. Here the powerful and portable change management model recommended is Influencer? (New York Times Best Seller) by VitalSmarts. This proven, yet simple model can help ensure the behaviour change of employees across the organisation to achieve that vision of all employees using simple DMAIC for problem solving. It focuses on a few high-level ‘vital behaviours’ that are driven by strategies from six-sources of influence. Understanding these vital behaviours and also the ‘crucial moments’ when they must demonstrate the use of that vital behaviour is key – and as these vital behaviours become habit we get the change we need. So the way forward is not just the training but also the change management to go with it and truly make it part of the organisation’s culture.

www.prosolversolutions.com

Contact us to discuss a free Lunch & Learn at your offices for some of your employees to experience the thinking and the ProSolver Culture Model.