Is It Your Job to Fight Fires? Part 2

by George McQuain

Let me start by answering the question asked in the title of last and this week’s blogs. The answer is a resounding “NO”. 

As a manager/leader, if you think that your job is to fight fires, I would ask you to re-orient your thinking. I encourage you to think of your job as maintaining and improving the performance of your team. That entails actively managing your team’s work processes and improving performance standards by actively designing systems, processes and procedures that eliminate problems and errors.

Additionally, if you think that your “problem” is that your employees don’t do their jobs correctly, I would contend that you are mistaken. During my career, I have led at least twelve successful turnarounds where I have helped teams, divisions and companies restructure, reposition, refocus, morph, re-launch and achieve their revenue and profitability targets.  All of these turnarounds required changes in culture and changes in the way business was conducted. In almost all cases, they required execution against a “life or death” time critical plan. In NONE of them was a wholesale staff change required.

In fact, the potential to eliminate problems lies mostly in improving the systems through which work is done, not in changing employees. In study after study, it has been shown that 85% to 90% of problems are caused by the systems (including training) put in place by management and that only 10% to 15% of problems are under an employee’s control.

So, if you want to improve your team’s performance, focus on the systems, processes and procedures and design them to produce great results.

Last week, I talked about measuring and monitoring “Key Input Variables” as a way to focus on early identification and elimination of problems and as the best way to make sure processes lead to great results.

Here are the key questions you need to ask and answer in designing your process:

1.    What are the results my team and I are trying to achieve?

2.    What key inputs will lead to those results?
3.    What do the values of those key inputs need to be to achieve our target results?
4.    How can we measure those key inputs?
5.    What actions need to be taken when our key inputs are not on target?

How do you identify the key inputs?

Key inputs must be objective and specific being either expressed numerically or as having specific attributes. These five questions must have a “yes” answer:

1.    Is it controllable?

2.    Is it measurable?
3.    Can clear, objective standards be established for it?
4.    Is there an individual in direct control and responsible for it?
5.    If controlled, is it likely to have a significant positive effect on the finished product, customer or client relations, productivity, sales, costs, etc.?

The key is to use common sense and to use as much factual data as you can.

The best specific tool to use in identifying key inputs is a Cause and Effect Diagram. The Cause and Effect Diagram can be used to identify:

1.    Causes of Desired Outcomes (preferred for this purpose)—This approach is more positive, forward looking, identifies what to do, proactive, process oriented and plan driven

2.    Causes of Problems—This approach is more negative, looks backward, reactive, inspection oriented and event driven

The Cause and Effect Diagram can be completed by an individual or by a team in a brainstorming session.

Here is a general example.