Scott’s Dilemma

During the Quick and Easy Kaizen workshop, I ask the students to write down problems that they had in the past and solved or problems they currently are faced with, solved or unsolved.  Then near the end of the workshop, I ask the attendees to tell us about those problems.

Scott rose from his chair and came to the front of the class and said, “My problem is that when I move window frames, inside a cart, along the factory floor, sometimes a bump causes a window to break.”

“Scott what can you do to prevent this problem from reoccurring?” “Well, I can go to my supervisor and tell him about the problem to see if he can help me.” “And what kind of advice will the supervisor give you?”

I presented this actual situation to a group of supervisors and asked them how they would respond to Scott, they said:

“Scott, be more careful.” “Walk around the bump.” “I recommend that we remove the bump, but we don’t have money in the budget to remove the bump.”

Each supervisor was trying to tell Scott what to do, not one asked him what he thought he could do to solve the problem.

A manager should “ask” and listen and not tell to bring out the best from people and help develop them to be problem solvers from their own creative ideas.

Okay, “Scott, what would you do?”

“I would want to get rid of the bump?”
“How would you do that?”

“I would get the right tools to remove the bump and find some cement to smooth out the floor.”

“Great, do it!”

“But, I don’t know how to use cement.  I never did this before.”

“How could you learn how to use cement properly?”

“I would have to find someone in the plant who knows how to use cement.”

And when Scott finds someone and they do the work together, Scott is learning some new skill, feels a great sense of pride in that he identified the problem, came up with the solution and was allowed to implement that solution.

The challenge for the supervisor is to simply ask not tell the worker what to do.  This is not easy because historically, supervisors have always felt that it was their job to tell the worker what to do.  But, we are in a new highly competitive world and to compete internationally we must focus on developing all of our resources to their fullest.