by Lee Fried, on 21 Jan 2007 10:30 am
The Journey
Quote of the week
Over the last week I have had several conversations with various managers in the organization about standard work. It is amazing to me how resistant people are to the idea of having standards that all associates are required to follow. One group of managers argued that they ‘are not robots’ and that having standards would mean that they would have no opportunity to bring creativity to their work. Another IT manager told me that he believed that making people follow standards would mean that there would never be innovation or improvement. The fact is, standards are the basis for creativity and innovation. Without a common standard when one associates finds a new and better way to do something it is very difficult for anyone else to benefit from it.
Standards have a bad name in the organization mostly because they have been designed and maintained by groups of managers and supervisors that are not directly involved in doing the work. As we progress with the Model Line it will be important for us to teach people the value of developing and following standard work. In order to do this successfully, we will need to turn over the responsibility of designing and improving standards to those that are following them, this is the trust that will make the difference. The people doing the work know best how to improve the work!
I thought this quote below by Matthew May describes well what I have encountered:
“The thought of standards makes a lot of people cringe. That’s because they confuse standardization with uniformity. They think standards somehow discourage creativity. The perceive standards as a control mechanism to prevent individuals from performing the job in the manner they view as best.”
5 Responses to “Quote of the week”
on 22 Jan 2007 at 5:57 am 1.Ted Eytan said …
Great quote, Lee, and agreement from here. In looking at the process versus the people, I think that in my profession, there are similar attitudes, bred not by the people, but by the process that made them members of the profession in the first place.
I agree with the idea that standard work creates freedom. There are things we know should happen with patients on very good authority (i.e. solid research). We should create expectations in ourselves and in our patients that these things should be done, and work with our patients to find the right way to do them (back to the people doing the work - the patients - know best).
The remainder of our energy can then be focused on the next great treasure of a problem.
on 22 Jan 2007 at 1:52 pm 2.Kent Blumberg said …
Opposition to standards is fairly common in my experience.
I ask people to consider their drive to work. Would they rather drive on a road with no markings, no signs, no rules, and hence no safety, or would they rather drive in an environment where most of us adhere to a few basic standards? We can drive wherever we want to in almost any kind of vehicle with anyone we want to at any time we want to - that’s the creative part - but we do so with the assurance that most drivers will be following a few agreed-to standards. Without those standards, we would feel much less secure to venture out into the world and would have much less freedom for it.
In “The Toyota Way Fieldbook,” Liker and Meier point out that, “….It is only when the process is stable that you can begin the creative progression of continous improvement.” And standardized work helps create that stability.
Kent
on 24 Jan 2007 at 7:42 am 3.Michelle said …
We are in the midst of standard work as well, and we are a manufacturing company.
We had them consider standard work like a recipe. We are a small enough company that we can squeeze everyone into the lunch room. I had two teams that made a coffeecake from scratch. One team had work instructions and premeasured parts (similar to them pulling their parts the night before). The other team got to see the recipe for a few minutes, and then it was taken away. They told the person mixing the recipe verbally step-by-step. You can imagine the uproar as the other employees watched. (The other employees were to observe from the customer’s viewpoint. Which coffeecake would they pay money for?) We baked the coffeecakes and everyone was free to help themselves. The “standard work” coffeecake looked a lot different than the other.
It was a lot of fun, and it did help. It actually helped ease the tension that surrounded the whole issue, and we all had a good laugh together. It was worth the time it took to put together.
Thanks for your blog. I truly enjoy reading about your ideas and plans.
on 25 Jan 2007 at 7:10 am 4.Lee Fried said …
Dear Michelle,
This is one of the best std. work training ideas I have heard. I told the managers about it that I am working with and they want to give it a try with their teams. Fun.
Thanks for sharing,
Lee
on 01 Feb 2007 at 7:13 am 5.Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog » Management Improvement Carnival #4 said …
[...] Standardization by Lee Fried - “The fact is, standards are the basis for creativity and innovation. Without a common standard when one associates finds a new and better way to do something it is very difficult for anyone else to benefit from it.” - standardization from the Curious Cat Dictionary [...]