Myth Busting 4: No Room To Improve

How well can you fool yourself?

This particular myth exists in the minds of people who are really good a fooling themselves. It becomes more common when it is modified to say, “…running as well as it ever has”. Just because things are working well now, it doesn’t mean they will continue to do so.

There are two parts to that thinking. Firstly, we believe it is actually running well, or as well as ever. Then secondly, we really think we’re great and there truly is no room to improve.

NOT!

There is always room to improve – and, if you think that way, you really need to get your ego out of your way.

Indeed things may be good and as good as they’ve ever been. That is a remarkable achievement and not to be dismissed. That is an observable and likely measurable fact. No argument. But is it the best it can be?

In this case, like all good myths or even lies, there is enough of the believable to make the whole thing seem credible. We agree with the first part and accept the second part as immutable. And that’s how we fool ourselves.

In the second part, there is a presumption is that things can’t get better. Yet most of us would agree that continual improvement is always something to strive for. We do it in our personal lives, in our family situation, so why not at work too?

Better is always more than “best”. Philosophically, I don’t use the term “best practices” because there is always some better variation somewhere that I haven’t yet seen. I’m always learning from my clients. There are “good practices” (the term used in International Standards) and “successful practices”, the term I like. I like it because it allows you to be successful with practices that may or may not work well elsewhere. It recognizes our inherent uniqueness.

In “Uptime” I have a simple six-step work management process. It’s basic and unadorned. Yet each of its 6 steps can have any number of variations. Every user has a way of adapting that simple conceptual process to their reality. Of course, some do it better than others, some automate parts of it, some automate almost all of it, some use paperwork orders, etc. If it works at your operation, then it is successful for you.

Can you improve though? Even if things are running well I contend that there is always room to improve. I focus on two goals: efficiency and effectiveness. Efficiency is achieved by doing things better. Effectiveness is achieved by doing better things.

I worked at a nickel mining operation overseas a few years ago. When I appeared on-site at the request of the Chief Operating Officer, they were running at 131 million pounds of output (nickel matte) per year. Its target was 150 million pounds and had never been achieved. We focused on both efficiency and effectiveness. Work management, planning, scheduling, integration with materials management, and training in basic awareness of why things fail and what you (as an employee) can do about it, all helped reduce costs and streamline what work was being done. Downtime dropped from efficiencies, largely due to deploying workers and getting jobs done more quickly with fewer delays. We introduced Reliability Centered Maintenance to better define what proactive work the mine should be doing. By improving the maintenance program we achieve fewer failures and their attendant repairs, further reducing downtime. In one year after beginning this effort, we hit 154.7 million pounds, 169 million the year after that, and 175 million pounds after the third year. If you don’t believe me on this, then click here for the evidence.

At the outset, there was a belief that they were doing as well as they could, and in fact, they were doing better than they had ever done before. Many, mostly managers, felt that there was no more room to improve.

The COO was new, and highly experienced, and was wondering why they couldn’t achieve their targets, even if they did appear to be stretch targets. He came in with fresh eyes and saw inefficiencies and room for improvement almost everywhere he went. Some were very obvious, some more subtle, but his experience told him they could do much better. When I went in, I saw much the same. There were indeed many opportunities if one would take the time to look.

What do you do about them? Managers, particularly those who have been in one operation for a long time, tend to have a limited perspective on what to do. They’ve learned how to do things well where they are, but they haven’t seen what “better” looks like”. They need fresh ideas and of course, they must be open to them.

There was resistance among many of the managers (at least at first). There was the nay-sayer, and there were those who defended the status quo and pointed fingers at other departments. We had a mandate and they were told that they must get on board. A number (mostly new to the site) embraced the opportunity. We had some quick wins and that showed the others that there was indeed room to improve. The workforce embraced change more rapidly than many of their mostly ex-pat managers. They didn’t buy the excuses and they had the advantage of seeing, firsthand, how things kept going wrong and how so little had been done to prevent a recurrence. They wanted to learn (personal enhancement can help them get better jobs) and they wanted to be able to say that they were part of a big success story.

Gradually we chipped away at naysayers and resistance attitudes and the improvements just kept on coming. The improvements continued to roll in long after we departed. We had set in motion a set of improved processes and given the tools they could use to keep the momentum going.

Bottom line:

“Better” is always possible, no matter how good you think you are doing today.

Want to discuss what’s possible in your operation? Contact us and let’s talk.