Over the past couple of decades, we have had the opportunity to work with some great folks. To be honest, each of us owe most of our professional toolkit to others that came before us or have worked with us. Sometimes, we get little hints or pick up on a different approach to thinking about a problem. But sometimes, we learn lessons because the topic was presented as a lesson.
Early in my career, I was a straight-up finance guy. I was yanked from that world and put into operations by the president of a company I worked for. We will call him BR, since those who know him will know this is about him. Those who don’t know him wouldn’t understand!
BR had a fantastic way of making things simple, or better stated, removing the clutter from our thoughts. We all tend to let our thoughts get complicated by multiple variations of what could be. We let simple, usually binary decisions become complicated with all sorts of extraneous input. BR wouldn’t let that happen. He had a lot of “rules” that were just simple lenses through which to view situations.
While I didn’t respect the Responsibilities of Management conversations we had in my early days, I have come to consider them the foundation upon which all interfaces with employees are built.
The Responsibilities of Management are the things which management must provide employees before they can be held accountable for performance. They are
The tools and materials to do the job A system that communicates expectations for the employee A system that gives continuous feedback about how well the employee is meeting those expectations
Of course, we are also responsible for providing a safe workspace (though each item you can think of for safety is included in the above – safe tools, expectations for safe actions, etc), legal and moral obligations and the like. But if we have not met the responsibilities listed above, we cannot in good conscience hold employees accountable for performance.
One of the most valuable outcomes of a visual, continuous flow workplace is that, when set up correctly, it meets these responsibilities. Having well-defined buffers and conveyances not only meets the requirements for tools and materials, the requirements for expectations and continuous feedback are also met. If an outbound buffer has a space for a unit, there should be a unit put there. If it is full, we stop. Linking together operations in a chain and driving material through that system using visual cues meets our responsibilities, reduces WIP, improves throughput and creates a more stable, calmer workplace.
But these rules apply to any discipline in any company. From finance to supply chain, from farming to hospitality. While the physical nature of the work may change, the concept that employees should be set up to succeed is pretty straightforward.