Episode 1 | Hair on Fire Managers
Hair on fire managers. Have you seen them, they're running around your organization with their hair on fire. They're trying to solve the latest crisis. De jour, trying to figure out how to get the customer happy. And they really don't know what they're doing! And these are the kinds of managers that when you go up to them and ask them how you doing? They're going to say, I am so busy. Oh my God, I've got so much going on. And I, I just, every time I see a manager like that, I, I just want to stop them and ask them, are you doing anything important? You see busy. Isn't where we want our managers hair on fire managers. Haven't learned a fundamental that what they're actually doing is just busy work, that isn't adding a tremendous amount of value. You see, the, the basic idea is this, that firefighting putting up fires is not problem solving.
It is the most rudimentary form of problem solving maybe, but if that's all you ever do, you're literally cursing your business to face the exact same problem over and over and over again. I dare say that you, as a senior manager, listening to this cast have had a manager. Who's told you that a problem was solved. You went to the customer, you assured them that the problem has been addressed and they shouldn't expect to see it again. And then sometime within the next two to three, maybe six months, the exact same problem happens again. What do you say that time? Because now your credibility's on the line. That's not where I want you to be. And honestly, there's a simple solution to this. That's what this cast is about, is really trying to take this apart and get your managers out of this hair on fire mode.
In my career, I've seen this thousands of times, a well-meaning manager gets a call from a customer. My lines are stopped. Your product is crap. Fix the problem. And the manager out into the production area tries to contain all of the product that may or may not have that problem, reworks the product to make sure that it's all good for the customer. And then what do they do? They talk to the employees about the importance of making product the right way. They might even add some inspection into the end of the line. And, and they think that they've done a great job that day. I'm here to tell you what they did is perpetuate the problem. They had their hair on fire. They maybe put the fire out, but they have not solved the problem.
The basic problem solving method that I operate from is this. The first step is always to clearly define the problem. Then we move out into the gemba, the place where the action is created, the value is created and we conduct an investigation in the place where the problem exists. We then drive to root cause and there's very specific tools we can use to do that once we've identified the root cause the next step almost always is relatively obvious. And that is to resolve the problem by putting in actions or countermeasures, that address the root. The final step is to confirm that you've actually solved the problem. Now, those five steps are very simple in practice, but I guarantee you that until you've walked through them and understand how to do them, you don't do them well.
Your hair on fire manager did something right, just one thing. They tried to contain the problem. That's good. They even, you might think, they reworked the problem. That's good too. And I'm here to tell you that. Well, is it so good because if you didn't make the problem in the first place, would you need to rework it? Nope. And while you're reworking that product on your line, what product are you now pushing out into the future? And if you're near capacity, you've just lost the opportunity to, to make a profit. For the first time, the cost of rework is devastating to top line revenue, to bottom line productivity.
There's so many different impacts here that we have to take into consideration. So yes, they contain the problem and that's good. The rework is a necessary step. I hope that you've got it recorded in your business system so that you can really accurately determine the impact and quantify the financial impact that they created. The rest of what they did really was insufficient. Let me walk you through some very basic things that you can do that will start to move your team in the right direction to solving problems for real. First of all, what we need to do, first of all, what we need to do is gather a group of critical employees together to solve the problem rule. Number one, never solve a process problem alone.
Once you've got the right people together. And what I'm talking about here is a group of, of involved and knowledgeable employees that have the ability to determine how the process works and where the root cause might be coming from. It's crucial that we work as a group to solve these problems so that we can get to the actual root of the problem and then put actions in place that will keep the problem from happening again. So step number one, gather a group of critical employees together to solve the problem. Step number two, step number two, ask the group a very specific question. What's the problem that we face here. Let's create an objective statement that summarizes what the problem is.
And you might think, well, this isn't really that big a deal. And I would argue that this is the most important deal. The very fact that we're so action oriented that we dive in and make changes and try and make the problem go away means that we don't ever take the time to really stop and ask ourselves, what is the problem? How big is it where it occur? What's affected when you have clarity on the problem statement, it actually provides you a foundation so that you can get to the root of the problem. The other thing that's really crucial at this stage is that once you have a statement of the problem, what I want you to do is take it to frontline employees and ask the them if it makes sense to them. One of the things I've always loved about working with frontline employees, that they don't suffer fools, and they're not easily confused by crap.
When you give them a problem statement, that's clear and objective, don't give you a thumbs up, but if it's, if it's abstract, it's fuzzy. If it has the solution that you want, if it already has what you think is the root cause as the problem, they're going to look at you and go, huh, what are you talking about? It just won't be clear to them. I love using the opportunity to have frontline employees filter the quality of my problem statements. So come up with a great problem statement. And then the next step is ask, why does this problem happen? And you might recognize that why statement, because you're going to ask it until you get to an actionable level and actionable outcome. It's called the five Y analysis. And the idea with five whys is that we have to ask, why did this situation occur? And then go out and investigate and report back the data. And then we come up with another statement. It occurred because of X, well, why did X occur? And we go, and we do the investigation again. And we iterate until we get to an actionable outcome.
Now, let me tell you a brief little story about, there's a little story about the five Y analysis that I think is really important to hear. I was first, I first introduced to the five Y analysis in 1987. So yeah, I'm old. It was a long time ago, but I got to tell you, I thought five Y was the stupidest root cause tool I'd ever seen in my life. I didn't know why. I just knew that it was. A bit later on when I went through lean six Sigma black belt training, I discovered why. And the reason was this back in 1987, when I was first introduced to this tool, it was a bunch of old guys sitting around a room, blaming frontline employees, rather than trying to figure out what the root cause was. And I'm telling you, if you incorporate blame and shame into your root cause analysis process, you are done before you start, we need to get rid of that problems are learning opportunities and learning never occurs well.
When an employee feels like they're gonna get blamed and punished whenever they tell the truth rule, number two of problem solving, eliminate all blame and shame thinking, save consequences for people who don't learn. And we'll talk about that in the future cast, but eliminate blame and shame from your root cause analysis process. So step one, gather a project team of critical employees who understand the process, where the problem occurs. Step two, come up with an objective problem statement. Step three, ask why does this problem exist and drill in with iterations of investigation and tell you of get down to an actionable outcome from your why analysis, and then step four, take the actions, implement the actions and see what the outcome is. I think what you're going to find is that when you implement those actions, because you're at the root of the problem, the problem will go away.
And then finally, the fifth step, we want to go back at some point 30, 60 days out and reinvestigate and check to make sure that the employees are following the process. As you laid it out, the changes that you implemented, the counter measures that you implemented. If they're not fix it, if they are give them positive feedback, reinforce their actions. If you do this, I think you're going to find that you're, you're going to start solving problems to root cause. And that hair on fire manager is going to start to learn, to solve his own problems. If you do that, you're going to start to find that yours customers have more faith in you. Your product is more reliable. Your processes are more effective and everything starts to spiral in the right direction.
Okay who does what by when? The next time one of your managers or supervisors is in a problem solving session, just pop in on them and ask them a very simple question. What is the problem statement you are working from? I can pretty much guarantee you that unless they have been well trained in how to solve problems they won’t have one and they are going to give you some generalized abstraction of what the problem is. Well we have a problem with “spots on our parts” When they don’t have a clear problem statement the process isn’t going to go well, so what I want you to do if they don’t have a clear problem statement is ok well what root cause tool are you going to use? And how is what you just said going to fit into that root cause tool? I think you are going to find that when you use these two question, what is the problem statement you have and how will that fit into the root cause tool you are using, what you are going to find it 1. They don’t have a problem statement 2. They don’t know how to use root cause analysis tools and 3. They are going to fail at solving the problem, they are just going to guess. That is the who does what by when for this cast.
My company Developing Leaders Inc. provides a number of performance improvement related services to companies such as yours. We work with the Fortune 500 and local so Cal Businesses. If your company needs support in developing their process performance or in enhancing leadership effectiveness, reserve your no obligation strategy session with us today.
Reserve Your Strategy Session
Hair on fire managers. Have you seen them, they're running around your organization with their hair on fire. They're trying to solve the latest crisis. De jour, trying to figure out how to get the customer happy. And they really don't know what they're doing! And these are the kinds of managers that when you go up to them and ask them how you doing? They're going to say, I am so busy. Oh my God, I've got so much going on. And I, I just, every time I see a manager like that, I, I just want to stop them and ask them, are you doing anything important? You see busy. Isn't where we want our managers hair on fire managers. Haven't learned a fundamental that what they're actually doing is just busy work, that isn't adding a tremendous amount of value. You see, the, the basic idea is this, that firefighting putting up fires is not problem solving.
It is the most rudimentary form of problem solving maybe, but if that's all you ever do, you're literally cursing your business to face the exact same problem over and over and over again. I dare say that you, as a senior manager, listening to this cast have had a manager. Who's told you that a problem was solved. You went to the customer, you assured them that the problem has been addressed and they shouldn't expect to see it again. And then sometime within the next two to three, maybe six months, the exact same problem happens again. What do you say that time? Because now your credibility's on the line. That's not where I want you to be. And honestly, there's a simple solution to this. That's what this cast is about, is really trying to take this apart and get your managers out of this hair on fire mode.
In my career, I've seen this thousands of times, a well-meaning manager gets a call from a customer. My lines are stopped. Your product is crap. Fix the problem. And the manager out into the production area tries to contain all of the product that may or may not have that problem, reworks the product to make sure that it's all good for the customer. And then what do they do? They talk to the employees about the importance of making product the right way. They might even add some inspection into the end of the line. And, and they think that they've done a great job that day. I'm here to tell you what they did is perpetuate the problem. They had their hair on fire. They maybe put the fire out, but they have not solved the problem.
The basic problem solving method that I operate from is this. The first step is always to clearly define the problem. Then we move out into the gemba, the place where the action is created, the value is created and we conduct an investigation in the place where the problem exists. We then drive to root cause and there's very specific tools we can use to do that once we've identified the root cause the next step almost always is relatively obvious. And that is to resolve the problem by putting in actions or countermeasures, that address the root. The final step is to confirm that you've actually solved the problem. Now, those five steps are very simple in practice, but I guarantee you that until you've walked through them and understand how to do them, you don't do them well.
Your hair on fire manager did something right, just one thing. They tried to contain the problem. That's good. They even, you might think, they reworked the problem. That's good too. And I'm here to tell you that. Well, is it so good because if you didn't make the problem in the first place, would you need to rework it? Nope. And while you're reworking that product on your line, what product are you now pushing out into the future? And if you're near capacity, you've just lost the opportunity to, to make a profit. For the first time, the cost of rework is devastating to top line revenue, to bottom line productivity.
There's so many different impacts here that we have to take into consideration. So yes, they contain the problem and that's good. The rework is a necessary step. I hope that you've got it recorded in your business system so that you can really accurately determine the impact and quantify the financial impact that they created. The rest of what they did really was insufficient. Let me walk you through some very basic things that you can do that will start to move your team in the right direction to solving problems for real. First of all, what we need to do, first of all, what we need to do is gather a group of critical employees together to solve the problem rule. Number one, never solve a process problem alone.
Once you've got the right people together. And what I'm talking about here is a group of, of involved and knowledgeable employees that have the ability to determine how the process works and where the root cause might be coming from. It's crucial that we work as a group to solve these problems so that we can get to the actual root of the problem and then put actions in place that will keep the problem from happening again. So step number one, gather a group of critical employees together to solve the problem. Step number two, step number two, ask the group a very specific question. What's the problem that we face here. Let's create an objective statement that summarizes what the problem is.
And you might think, well, this isn't really that big a deal. And I would argue that this is the most important deal. The very fact that we're so action oriented that we dive in and make changes and try and make the problem go away means that we don't ever take the time to really stop and ask ourselves, what is the problem? How big is it where it occur? What's affected when you have clarity on the problem statement, it actually provides you a foundation so that you can get to the root of the problem. The other thing that's really crucial at this stage is that once you have a statement of the problem, what I want you to do is take it to frontline employees and ask the them if it makes sense to them. One of the things I've always loved about working with frontline employees, that they don't suffer fools, and they're not easily confused by crap.
When you give them a problem statement, that's clear and objective, don't give you a thumbs up, but if it's, if it's abstract, it's fuzzy. If it has the solution that you want, if it already has what you think is the root cause as the problem, they're going to look at you and go, huh, what are you talking about? It just won't be clear to them. I love using the opportunity to have frontline employees filter the quality of my problem statements. So come up with a great problem statement. And then the next step is ask, why does this problem happen? And you might recognize that why statement, because you're going to ask it until you get to an actionable level and actionable outcome. It's called the five Y analysis. And the idea with five whys is that we have to ask, why did this situation occur? And then go out and investigate and report back the data. And then we come up with another statement. It occurred because of X, well, why did X occur? And we go, and we do the investigation again. And we iterate until we get to an actionable outcome.
Now, let me tell you a brief little story about, there's a little story about the five Y analysis that I think is really important to hear. I was first, I first introduced to the five Y analysis in 1987. So yeah, I'm old. It was a long time ago, but I got to tell you, I thought five Y was the stupidest root cause tool I'd ever seen in my life. I didn't know why. I just knew that it was. A bit later on when I went through lean six Sigma black belt training, I discovered why. And the reason was this back in 1987, when I was first introduced to this tool, it was a bunch of old guys sitting around a room, blaming frontline employees, rather than trying to figure out what the root cause was. And I'm telling you, if you incorporate blame and shame into your root cause analysis process, you are done before you start, we need to get rid of that problems are learning opportunities and learning never occurs well.
When an employee feels like they're gonna get blamed and punished whenever they tell the truth rule, number two of problem solving, eliminate all blame and shame thinking, save consequences for people who don't learn. And we'll talk about that in the future cast, but eliminate blame and shame from your root cause analysis process. So step one, gather a project team of critical employees who understand the process, where the problem occurs. Step two, come up with an objective problem statement. Step three, ask why does this problem exist and drill in with iterations of investigation and tell you of get down to an actionable outcome from your why analysis, and then step four, take the actions, implement the actions and see what the outcome is. I think what you're going to find is that when you implement those actions, because you're at the root of the problem, the problem will go away.
And then finally, the fifth step, we want to go back at some point 30, 60 days out and reinvestigate and check to make sure that the employees are following the process. As you laid it out, the changes that you implemented, the counter measures that you implemented. If they're not fix it, if they are give them positive feedback, reinforce their actions. If you do this, I think you're going to find that you're, you're going to start solving problems to root cause. And that hair on fire manager is going to start to learn, to solve his own problems. If you do that, you're going to start to find that yours customers have more faith in you. Your product is more reliable. Your processes are more effective and everything starts to spiral in the right direction.
Okay who does what by when? The next time one of your managers or supervisors is in a problem solving session, just pop in on them and ask them a very simple question. What is the problem statement you are working from? I can pretty much guarantee you that unless they have been well trained in how to solve problems they won’t have one and they are going to give you some generalized abstraction of what the problem is. Well we have a problem with “spots on our parts” When they don’t have a clear problem statement the process isn’t going to go well, so what I want you to do if they don’t have a clear problem statement is ok well what root cause tool are you going to use? And how is what you just said going to fit into that root cause tool? I think you are going to find that when you use these two question, what is the problem statement you have and how will that fit into the root cause tool you are using, what you are going to find it 1. They don’t have a problem statement 2. They don’t know how to use root cause analysis tools and 3. They are going to fail at solving the problem, they are just going to guess. That is the who does what by when for this cast.
My company Developing Leaders Inc. provides a number of performance improvement related services to companies such as yours. We work with the Fortune 500 and local so Cal Businesses. If your company needs support in developing their process performance or in enhancing leadership effectiveness, reserve your no obligation strategy session with us today.
Reserve Your Strategy Session