The TV In The Plant Manager's Office

Описание: Sometimes, change starts at the roots and works its way up. But it sure helps when the person on top buys in and models the behavior they want to see in others.

In one of our implementations many years ago, buy-in was pretty good with the operators, supervisors and some of the engineers. But we were having issues getting the middle management in the plant to change the way they were approaching their jobs. When we talked to them about using the data coming from the new system on the shop floor to make decisions, they replied with how they had been doing things for the past 20 years.

After a conversation with the plant manager, he replied “That’s on me. I’ll make this happen.” When we came back to the plant the following week, he had a new TV hanging from the wall in his office. Throughout the week, he had us participate in meetings with his direct reports where he continually asked them questions about what was going on based on the information he could see in the data. In those conversations, he made it clear that when people came to his office, they better have been looking at the data and be ready to answer his questions. Not only did he change the management culture in just one week, the questions he was asking led to significant improvements in the performance.

Gandhi said to “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” Sometimes it starts in your own plant!