I've talked about the mice (workers) inability to be heard by management (the ones in the clouds) in order to make needed changes they perceive. But the problem goes both ways (but not the fault of the mice). Sometimes those in the clouds and atop ivory pillars cannot hear the mice down below. Remembering that the mice (workers) see the problems and have solutions, why don't the cloud people hear the mice? Its not that the mice have quit squeaking (although often they have given up and accept the status quo) the problem often is that those in the middle don't permit them to be heard.
How often have you said something to a supervisor with a idea to make a difference and it goes up in smoke? All too often you say. No surprise. If store level management and all those between the bottom (mice) and the top (clouds) allowed those ideas to go to the top they might have to give credit to those below them, thereby weakening their hold on power.
Is it no wonder that people give up trying and have no sense of ownership for the care and future of the company they work for and is it no wonder that the top management has no respect for those at the bottom who "don't understand"? The mice understand all too well, they just can't be heard.
The answer is found in the Leadership / Management Principles of William Demming. Demming was part of the group that went to Japan at the end of WWII to help reconstruct Japan's economy. After dinner he taught the Japanese how to build a quality product using the statistical quality control methods he learned at the phone company he had worked at.
Never heard of William Demming? No surprise, although the Demming award is one of the most revered awards for industry in the world, only one American company has ever won the award - Ford Motor Company for the design of the original Taurus, a best seller for years.
What does Demming have to do with the mice and the cloud people? Part of his teaching was to have companies WORK TOGETHER to achieve better products. If a company A ships cans to company B for B to put their products in and 10% of the containers are damaged, who pays? Not company A! They have built the cost of that 10% into their charge to company B which in turn is passed along to the consumers (you and me).
Demming proposed that the tow companies work together to investigate and eliminate to or significantly reduce the 10% damage rate. Maybe B has bas requirement specs. Maybe A has problems the workers see but the management at the top don't have a clue about.
Does this really happen today? YOU BET! I opened a container of 6 products at the store where I work. All six products were unusable. Two were broken apart at a corner (maybe shipping) but the other four had the SAME CORNER glued together in a poorly joined seam. I mentioned to a supervisor that we ought to pass the word back up the chain to let them know there was a quality control issue. It comment died in moments. Nothing was done and today that assembly line for that particular product is happily churring out products that may or may not be unusable.
Why are other countries knocking our socks off literally as they produce quality products better than us?
Squeak Squeak, Squeak.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
The squeaking Mice aren't heard in the Clouds.
I recently had the opportunity (?) to change work endeavors as my former employer declared bankruptcy and closed many stores including the one I worked at. So off I go finding a new employer. Luckily I found one fairly quickly and they will offer health care after 3 months. So once again I began the "learn the new job and its nuances" routine and leads us to this post.
I find it amazing that so many new employees who have a depth of previous work experience enter a new job and perceive so man things that, to put it bluntly, are craziness and need to be changed but the people there aren't doing anything to make the needed changes.
There are several basic groups of people working for a company, but for purposes of this discussion, I will limit it to three.
(A) High level management - The ones who are waaayy up there, and so I say they live in the clouds.
People that have been there for 6 - 10 years either can't see the problem or have forgotten it. (Or don't care any longer)
(B) Store level managers - You think they are "empowered" to make decisions but my experience in retail is teaching me that they generally have little power to make decisions. They are required to make sales goals and percentages and make sure this item is displayed on that table, etc. (more on that later).
(C) The Mice - The folks who work the registers, that make things happen, and interface with the customers one on one.
- The mice know what is wrong with a company and how it could be improved. The problem is their squeaky voices aren't heard in the clouds. Their voices are either filtered out by middle management or are simply too far away from the clouds to be heard.
- Don't believe me, so to any retail store, any one, and ask some of the employees if they wish their store would be an episode of "Undercover Boss" (A television series where the boss goes to work at the store level as a new person. Frequently, their supervisor "firs them for not being good enough. At the end of the show, the CEO reveals who he is to the entire company.)
- Some illustrations from my previous place of employment at a book store. Consider the approach of the 30th anniversary of John Lennon's death, Dec 8th, 1980. The magazines began putting stories about it on the cover, newspapers and music periodicals ran stories and we had a book sitting way back on the bottom shelf titled, " Dec 18, 1980". I had picked it up and looked at it a while back and had realized this was a time sensitive book. After Dec 18th, it would be just another book about Lennon, at least until another 10 year anniversary. Soooo, I went to the store manager and mentioned how we ought to have this on display due to the time factor involved and how we could ride the publicity generated by others. He agreed but higher level management dictated what table had which book on display and he could do nothing. Later he said we could put a few on the information desk as there were no directives concerning what could be placed there. I was off the 17th and 18th but when I came back, the books were gone. Seems somebody didn't know what the boss had told me and they "corrected the situation" by placing the books back on the shelf. Few were sold, most of the books were returned to the publisher. The Store Manage had no real authority and communications within the store was poor.
- Frequently the workers (the mice) would talk about how the people making decisions at the top seems to have no awareness of what went on in a store. We frequently wondered if any upper level management had ever worked in a store. (It would turn out later when the chain declared bankruptcy that they had hired 5 CEOs in 4 years and none of them had any bookstore experience! The mice were not surprised.)
- Once somebody with their head in the clouds decided the way to turn the store round was to insert think paper advertizing banners in the bookcases. The paper form was folded into an L shape and inserted under the bottom of a shelf of books with the other part of the L hanging down to promote sales. The problem the mice quickly realized was that they hung down so far that the stiff paper scraped the tops of books being removed from the shelf below and in the case of hardbacks, damaging the cover jackets. It took the mice about 10 seconds to see what a dumb idea this was and the problems it created. Shame was the mice weren't heard in the clouds. The mice mumbled about how if they had talked to a mouse, they could have showed them the problems easily and quickly but the people in the clouds didn't care. So the idea lived on until the next store saving idea was announced (and there would be more new "ideas").
- At the new job, I was being trained on the register and how to input the rewards card info. Ready for the dumb part? Log in and scan the first item. By this time a message has popped up asking if they are a rewards member. Now I have a choice, enter y or n. If I enter "N" it goes back to ringing up the sale. If I hit "Y" it goes on to ringing up the sale!! To enter they have a rewards card, I have to hit F1 and then enter their phone number etc. BUT WAIT! wouldn't it make more sense to have the system go to the reward card data entry screen if I enter "Y"? Everybody says so but nothing we mice can do about it. My trainer has been there 10 years, she just shrugs and accepts things the way they are.
- Now are you beginning to see the problem. The mice on the floor see the problem and most likely have many good ideas to make the company run better and achieve the goals the company is trying so hard to achieve but the heads in the clouds.
- A friend that works for an international IT firm currently laying off a large number of people tells me similar stories.
The bottom line? The worker mice can see the problems but after time they are beat down and tire of trying to fix the problems and so instead they simply move along, drawing a paycheck and the people in the clouds wonder why they can't motivate the mice to care. Is it any wonder mice don't respond to 401 bonuses and other long term incentives? They see how the store and entire firm si run and their inability to make changes. Its easier to simply go with the flow.
I find it amazing that so many new employees who have a depth of previous work experience enter a new job and perceive so man things that, to put it bluntly, are craziness and need to be changed but the people there aren't doing anything to make the needed changes.
There are several basic groups of people working for a company, but for purposes of this discussion, I will limit it to three.
(A) High level management - The ones who are waaayy up there, and so I say they live in the clouds.
People that have been there for 6 - 10 years either can't see the problem or have forgotten it. (Or don't care any longer)
(B) Store level managers - You think they are "empowered" to make decisions but my experience in retail is teaching me that they generally have little power to make decisions. They are required to make sales goals and percentages and make sure this item is displayed on that table, etc. (more on that later).
(C) The Mice - The folks who work the registers, that make things happen, and interface with the customers one on one.
- The mice know what is wrong with a company and how it could be improved. The problem is their squeaky voices aren't heard in the clouds. Their voices are either filtered out by middle management or are simply too far away from the clouds to be heard.
- Don't believe me, so to any retail store, any one, and ask some of the employees if they wish their store would be an episode of "Undercover Boss" (A television series where the boss goes to work at the store level as a new person. Frequently, their supervisor "firs them for not being good enough. At the end of the show, the CEO reveals who he is to the entire company.)
- Some illustrations from my previous place of employment at a book store. Consider the approach of the 30th anniversary of John Lennon's death, Dec 8th, 1980. The magazines began putting stories about it on the cover, newspapers and music periodicals ran stories and we had a book sitting way back on the bottom shelf titled, " Dec 18, 1980". I had picked it up and looked at it a while back and had realized this was a time sensitive book. After Dec 18th, it would be just another book about Lennon, at least until another 10 year anniversary. Soooo, I went to the store manager and mentioned how we ought to have this on display due to the time factor involved and how we could ride the publicity generated by others. He agreed but higher level management dictated what table had which book on display and he could do nothing. Later he said we could put a few on the information desk as there were no directives concerning what could be placed there. I was off the 17th and 18th but when I came back, the books were gone. Seems somebody didn't know what the boss had told me and they "corrected the situation" by placing the books back on the shelf. Few were sold, most of the books were returned to the publisher. The Store Manage had no real authority and communications within the store was poor.
- Frequently the workers (the mice) would talk about how the people making decisions at the top seems to have no awareness of what went on in a store. We frequently wondered if any upper level management had ever worked in a store. (It would turn out later when the chain declared bankruptcy that they had hired 5 CEOs in 4 years and none of them had any bookstore experience! The mice were not surprised.)
- Once somebody with their head in the clouds decided the way to turn the store round was to insert think paper advertizing banners in the bookcases. The paper form was folded into an L shape and inserted under the bottom of a shelf of books with the other part of the L hanging down to promote sales. The problem the mice quickly realized was that they hung down so far that the stiff paper scraped the tops of books being removed from the shelf below and in the case of hardbacks, damaging the cover jackets. It took the mice about 10 seconds to see what a dumb idea this was and the problems it created. Shame was the mice weren't heard in the clouds. The mice mumbled about how if they had talked to a mouse, they could have showed them the problems easily and quickly but the people in the clouds didn't care. So the idea lived on until the next store saving idea was announced (and there would be more new "ideas").
- At the new job, I was being trained on the register and how to input the rewards card info. Ready for the dumb part? Log in and scan the first item. By this time a message has popped up asking if they are a rewards member. Now I have a choice, enter y or n. If I enter "N" it goes back to ringing up the sale. If I hit "Y" it goes on to ringing up the sale!! To enter they have a rewards card, I have to hit F1 and then enter their phone number etc. BUT WAIT! wouldn't it make more sense to have the system go to the reward card data entry screen if I enter "Y"? Everybody says so but nothing we mice can do about it. My trainer has been there 10 years, she just shrugs and accepts things the way they are.
- Now are you beginning to see the problem. The mice on the floor see the problem and most likely have many good ideas to make the company run better and achieve the goals the company is trying so hard to achieve but the heads in the clouds.
- A friend that works for an international IT firm currently laying off a large number of people tells me similar stories.
The bottom line? The worker mice can see the problems but after time they are beat down and tire of trying to fix the problems and so instead they simply move along, drawing a paycheck and the people in the clouds wonder why they can't motivate the mice to care. Is it any wonder mice don't respond to 401 bonuses and other long term incentives? They see how the store and entire firm si run and their inability to make changes. Its easier to simply go with the flow.
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