Are you an Effective Manager?

Rohith joined the new company just 4 months back. He is heading the Machine shop in an automotive parts company. Rohith had a background in another Auto parts company that was having very good shop floor systems. The management of the current company had many expectations from Rohith. The Machine shop is having plenty of problems. The OEE of the machines is very low. The company is forced to outsource a good proportion of the Production as the internal machine shop is not able to service the demand. Boss of Rohith is clueless as to why Rohith is not able to deliver. Rohith had been spending at least 12-14 hours in the Company. But the situation is not coming under his control. 

Sita joined the Company as the Quality head 5 months back. She is in a Capital equipment manufacturing company. Sita is highly talented and qualified. But somehow, she is not able to get control of the situation in this company. The quality problems are increasing. Customer complaints are increasing. She is facing tremendous pressure from the Sales team. They are not able to answer the Customers. There are several premature failures at the Customer sites. Same problems are repeating, and the teams do not seem to find solutions. Sita is fast losing her confidence. Her Boss do not seem to know how to help her. 

There are many examples like this across Companies in the Indian Manufacturing and other industries. While the above are couple of examples of Managers coming from outside the company, there are several managers in Companies who have settled down at a very inefficient level of managing their work. Company got used to this. The Production, Quality suffers routinely. These Managers feel they are trying their best and but for them, even these results will not be possible! Their Bosses do not take the risk of upsetting the apple cart and the life goes on. 

It is very important for a company to have high efficiency in the Routine work. If Regular Production and Quality need a very high attention, then the Company will be consumed by this full time. Right from Managing Director to the Workman on the shop floor will be busy only in this activity. 

This is a silent killer of efficiency in many companies. There are several companies that do not grow due to this one factor. The Routine work not being settled! The senior management of several companies feel this is normal and hence the issue does not even get addressed. But these companies would be losing in a big way. They will lose their growth and the development of their Company! 

How do we help these Managers? How do we ensure they manage their work proactively and ensure the routine gets done with good efficiency and on time? 

Routine Work Management System (RWMS)

We need to build a good Routine Work Management System (RWMS) for these Managers. We would recommend the following system for all the Managers. These Managers need to rotate PDCA cycle and carry out improvements at various levels of Management. Most of the time, they try to rotate the PDCA Cycle only at a ‘Daily level’. Resultantly they are not taking bigger actions that are needed to reduce the issues on a daily basis. As the issues are many, they are busy solving the daily problems. After some time, they become inefficient even at the solving of daily problems. That is where the routine gets affected badly and Managers become ‘inefficient’. Then, their Bosses wills start spending a lot of time on the Routine as the results are not happening. 

It takes an experienced hand to break this Vicious cycle. 

Daily Focus

Every Manager must handle the daily issues in their work area. These are Urgent and Important. These issues cannot be avoided. The Manager will have to monitor all his KPIs that require daily monitoring and actions. Very often the Team member of the Manager is the person who has to take action on a daily basis. But as the situation is not stable, the Manager gets into the action on a daily basis and he is the person who is in charge and not the Team member. 

Due to the unstable situation, if the Manager has to get into the day to day work, it is quite fine. He has to ensure that he is letting the Team member deal with the situation with some support from him. The Manager has to retain his outside perspective. He should not own the situation so much that the Team member is pushed out of the situation. Manager should not decide everything. Manager should encourage the Team member to put the daily CAPA (Corrective Action, Preventive Action). Manager should aim at building the system around the daily routine work of his team members. 

Manager should walk along with the Team member. But only to build the system and then get out of the daily routine. If the Manager is handling everything by himself, then he is doing the work of his Team member. His boss will be forced to do the Manager’s job! He should put a target date to the Team member to gain control. 

Example: If a Sales Manager is helping the Sales Executive in an area to achieve his daily targets, it is quite fine. But the Sales Manager has to build a system for the Executive that will help him to generate enquiries, convert them and achieve the daily / weekly target. He can look at ways and means of generating more enquiries and help the Team member to convert the Enquiries. 

The Manager should put a target date by which the Sales executive should be able to generate the required Enquiries on a daily / weekly basis. He should teach him how to covert the enquiries with the help of the Sales collaterals. He may even travel with the Executive to the customers. After the Executive learns the trick, the Manager should go back to his job. 

If the Manager is stuck doing this for all his Executives, then the Manager cannot do his work. If for some reason, the Manager is having many team members who need this help, then he may even think of hiring some help for this. He may take the help of a Consultant to set up this daily system. 

Weekly Focus

The Manager should keep a Weekly focus on his work. While his team members are busy taking the Daily actions on the challenges at the work, he should ensure that the Team members are taking some bigger actions that will help them reduce the number of problems on a daily basis. 

Examples: The Production team is missing the daily target due to the material shortages. On a daily basis, the Supervisors are trying their best to keep changing the Production plan or chase the materials and then complete the daily target. The Manager should ensure that the actions on resolution of the Material shortages are taken up. He should encourage the Supervisors to formulate projects with respect to each material or each supplier that is having trouble and deal with them. 

If a Sales team is missing the daily targets due to the unavailability of the right Inventory in the field, on a daily basis the Team will try their best to manage. But the Manager should encourage them to take up a project with the Factory to improve the inventory in a focused manner. Without this, the team would keep losing the sales on a daily basis. 

Initially when the Manager starts pushing for improvements at the next level, there would be resistance from the line staff that they are not able to manage the daily work and there is no chance of them taking up these projects. But the Manager should persist. For the first one or two Projects, he may walk with the team. If required, the Manager may give some more resources to the Team to complete these Projects. Once the team starts looking at some success, then they will put more time on these projects. They would start breaking up their time between routine and Improvement. 

If the team is left to do only routine, the Routine will expand to fill the time available!

Weekly Review: The Manager should conduct a Weekly Review to ensure these Improvement Projects are progressing well. This is very important. If done with good effectiveness, the daily problems will start coming down. Then the Manager does not have to participate in the daily routine. He can just focus on the Improvement projects.

Monthly focus

In addition to the weekly focus, the Manager also has to give a Monthly focus to his work. While he is pushing some Improvement projects and supporting the Team with their Daily work, the Manager has to look at the next level on a monthly basis. Very often the Manager may look at some of his KPIs only a monthly basis. They may not require Daily / Weekly action, or they may not get the focus required too often as the Manager may be busy with the daily routine of his Team. 

Examples: A Sales Manager may have KPIs for Promotional Activity or Sales Schemes effectiveness. She may want to review these KPIs that are typically of enabling nature on a monthly basis. She may look at the status and initiate improvements as needed. If she notices slackness on certain sales schemes, she may modify the schemes or stop certain schemes and launch new schemes. 

A Production Manager may want to look at his KPI regarding the implementation of Lean system. He may look at the status and initiate some motivational actions to encourage his team members. 

Most of the ‘Enabling KPIs’ will be looked at once in a month by the Manager. 

Annual Focus

The Manager will decide the Initiatives for his area once in a year. Usually at the time of preparation of the Annual Business Plan. He will identify the initiatives that may be needed to achieve the annual KPIs. 

Examples: If a Sales Manager wants to improve the negotiation skills of his team members, he may talk to the HR Manager and work out a Training program for his team members that will be taken up during the year. 

If the Production Manager wants to improve Productivity in the Shop floor he may initiate the implementation of the Lean Manufacturing in the shop floor. 

A Finance Manager may initiate better follow up mechanism for Receivables, a Cross functional team on Cost Reduction at the beginning of the year. 

It is not necessary that the Managers initiate bigger initiatives only at the beginning of the year. If these initiatives require big resources, then they have to plan it along with the Annual Business Plan. Otherwise, the Managers may come up with new initiatives during the year too. May be at the end of a Quarter when they take stock of the Business Plan vs actual. 

Quarterly Business Review: The Managers may do a Quarterly review of the Business and initiate some bigger actions. They would typically review the Strategic Business Plan actions in the Quarterly Business Review. If some improvements are needed in this area, they would take corrective actions. 

Examples: A Sales Manager may review the Dealer appointment initiative and decide whether more resources have to be put into this initiative as it is related to the Sales of next year too. 

A Production Manager will review the Lean Initiative and decide whether he wants to put more emphasis on sustaining the initiatives that are already implemented. 

PDCA at every level

This way PDCA cycle has to be rotated at every level. If a Manager is able to do this, he/she will not be stuck at one level. 

There will be continuous improvement in his/her work. The company would also be progressing steadily towards its’ Strategic Goals. 

Are you improving at every level or are you stuck at one level?