by Lee Fried, on 03 Dec 2006 05:15 pm
The Journey
Quote of the Week
I chose this week’s quote because it goes well with a conversation I had last week with a group of managers in the Model Line area. Most of the managers I am working with grew up in the department that they now manage and as a result has seen first hand how much the organization has changed and gotten bigger. One thing they have not changed is how slow the change process is in the organization. During lunch last week one of the managers pulled out a list of improvement opportunities that her team had developed five years ago. More then half the opportunities on the list are things that we are only now about to tackle with our Lean efforts. The managers are skeptical, yet excited when I tell them that they are going to be empowered and resourced to make the changes on the list.
“The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it’s the same problem you had last year.” —John Dulles
on 07 Dec 2006 at 9:55 pm 1.Phil said …
You made the comment “Most of the managers I am working with grew up in the department that they now manage and as a result has seen first hand how much the organization has changed and gotten bigger.” after previously making a comment about the two nurses that could, if they wanted to, offer valuable insight by being a set of new eyes. As your managers, that have not been able to create change have only seen their department, might change come quicker if managers from other departments provide that set of new eyes in partnership for bettering the whole? Of course in the culture of departmental individuality/competitiveness/ego whatever you want to call it, it does require the willingness to be vulnerable and not assume that just because it has always been that way, that it has to continue the same way into the future.
on 08 Dec 2006 at 8:05 am 2.Lee Fried said …
Dear Phil,
I think this is a very valuable suggestion that we have used in the past effectively, but not nearly as often as we should. We have begun on a very limited basis selecting high performing managers from different departments and redeploying them to support or lead some of our strategic initiatives. It is amazing how easy it is to see other’s waste.
Thanks for your comment,
Lee