Have you ever thought why suggestions usually don't get 'bought' even if they are good? Even the ones given by bosses to subordinates get implemented half-heartedly, if at all.
The cause of this dilemma can be sourced at the top.
On 'hearing' about world class companies "topping the number of suggestions" with over "6 million" in Matsushita in so and so year or "over 53 suggestions implemented per employee in one single year" in Toyota (in 1987), typically the decision makers hastily installed 'suggestion-schemes'.
While number of suggestions in such excellent companies gradually increased, in 'hasty' companies the total system flopped. Blame was put on the 'prevailing bad culture here' while crediting the 'opposite there'. They even forgot 'which wall' their own 'suggestion-box' was hung. Some of them 'hung' another one during a new crisis.
Actually the real cause is that the 'hasty' managers didn't understand 'keys to success' of 'suggestion-systems' in such excellent companies and that they are much more than merely a 'box'.
Many didn't know that 'suggestion schemes' are called as Kaizen-TEIAN in Japanese companies. They got 'imported' with half knowledge. Naturally with their ill-effects they turned out to be a big flop as expected.
The way they were installed, rules themselves were 'killers of more ideas' than very few that were 'accepted': often a fraction of the total. The ones 'accepted' got disproportionately rewarded. At times the awardees were found to be same people year after year. In some companies these people even 'budgeted' their earnings. They knew when to 'create a crisis' and when to 'solve' it by their 'so-called suggestions'.
Kaizen-TEIAN system is exactly the opposite. In fact it means an 'implemented suggestion' or as a Kaizen as the world knows now. If generating suggestions or ideas is one side of the coin then implementing it is the other side. So a coin itself is a Kaizen or a Kaizen-TEIAN.
Role of the bosses or the idea-collectors is to involve subordinates in generating innumerable suggestions by training/retraining them on appropriate methods and then enabling them to implement all of those with resource verification as their own primary responsibility. In fact one of the performance criteria (KRA¹) of bosses is to 'make everyone a hero' by helping everyone contribute an idea and help him implement it.
There is no question of 'someone putting suggestions in a box' and then 'someone else assessing them' to 'accept' or 'reject' as was done by non-Japanese 'suggestion schemes' that revolved primarily around economic benefits and degree of it's creativity rather than 'motivation' of the Suggester.
Initial enthusiasm due to 'novelty' of such 'boxes' might attract novices to put an idea or two in it. But would you not be indifferent if yours get repeatedly 'rejected' due to it's 'smallness' or due to someone else's 'bigness'?
Or would it not be demotivating if it gets handled the way it does in a typical housing society where office bearers typically react saying: "talking is easy" or say: "you" do it rather than "let's do it together". Most often their body language not only 'repels' an idea but they see to it that it doesn't get implemented.
Under such circumstances leaving 'common-good' to it's destiny, people keep their brains under 'lock-and-key' while behaving in common places. After all it's 'your rule' not 'my idea': that's exactly the human psychology Kaizen-TEIAN system pre-empts.
In Kaizen-TEIAN there is no question of slapping or punishing a failure. It's about handholding subordinate to 'open umbrella during rain' (an improvement action to tackle a problem) while giving credit of doing so to him.
This is where the journey of 'doing a Kaizen and reporting it with due credit and recognition to others' begins. With sustained and concerted efforts it accumulates into a 'million Kaizens'.
Without clarity and alignment on such key differences of Kaizen-TEIAN as above, fate of 'suggestion-schemes' will continue to stay doubtful.
Footnote-1, ¹KRA is Key-Result-Area
Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:
Make It Simpler, Rest Will Follow
Raam or Krishna-Shyam: Tell me Hey Raam!
Some Moron ! Some Great !!!
You seem Reasonable if you appear Un-reasonable
Smart-Moron Who Breaks Your Glass
WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling
Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy
Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation
Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture
That's how some business partnerships work
Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !!
IQ-EQ-or-SQ: What-is-more-important?
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