Quantcast
Channel: Daily Kaizen » Erika Fox
Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 10

“Breaking the Shell” by Diane Schairer

0
0

Last year, I visited and was inspired by organizations with a relentless, company-wide focus on continuous improvement. Herman Miller leaders reach financial targets by engaging staff in improvement, continuously shaving seconds off their cycle time. Autoliv achieves quality targets for their automotive safety air bags, as front line staff focus on “what will I do today to save a life?”

These organizations transformed their way of doing business in mid-1990s. They had to change, in order to survive challenges in the manufacturing environment.

At the time of our visit, I was pretty proud of our organization. But there’s nothing like a challenging environment to stress a process and reveal improvement opportunity.

Fast forward to spring 2013. Our organization needs to reduce costs to make health care more affordable. We have worked so hard on improvement, with cutting-edge, breakthrough results. These events have yielded millions of dollars, but that is insufficient.

We have not taught the organization how to consistently, relentlessly improve to reach targets.  Our ratio of managers is too high. We can combine and centralize administrative functions. The countermeasures being implemented make sense, but translate into administrative layoffs—and that’s painful.

As I reflected on this, my thoughts turned to the organizations I admired last year. As they once were, we are now in an environment requiring transformational change. We need to use this time of upheaval in health care as the impetus to change how to manage. We will make a difference in the long term if managers deeply understand that waste is as dangerous to our organizations’ health as obesity is to our personal health.

As the internal consulting group, it’s up to us to model how to do that; to look beyond the immediate crisis, and pay attention to systems that support a way of managing that is healthier for our organizations.

I am reminded of a line from Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet:

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
…the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun.

Maybe these changes are not a diversion, but are the breaking of the shell of current understanding; a way to open the organization to a new way to manage. As did Autoliv, Herman Miller, and others, we can evolve to a new way to engage managers and staff, metaphorically putting our heart in the sun to achieve our potential.

 


Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 10

Latest Images

Trending Articles





Latest Images