Joe's Jottings
Jottings Number 73, by Joe Podolsky:
From: JOE_PODOLSKY@HP-PaloAlto-om4.om.hp.com
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 97 11:03:30 -0700
Subject: Just Looking
"You can see a lot if you just look." I think Yogi Berra said that. Or maybe it was Sherlock Holmes.
I have a small skill. I'm really good at "plant tours." I love to go to places I've never been to before, take tours, and ask questions. Usually, people are happy to talk about their work. Recently, for example, I was on a United Airlines Boeing 777 for the first time, flying between London and San Francisco; we made an unscheduled landing in Yellowknife, the capital of Northwest Territories, Canada because of a passenger medical emergency. While we were on the ground and the passenger was becoming a patient, I cheerfully dropped into the cockpit and had a wonderful conversation with the pilot and co-pilot as they explained in glorious detail the wonders of the 777 and the quite impressive process that United uses to deal with in-flight medical emergencies.
Duh ... so what's the big deal? Isn't this just like Bill Hewlett's "managing by wandering around"? Yes, except it's like "wandering around everywhere," not just in your own department.
Well, isn't it like benchmarking? Again, it is, except benchmarking is a very structured process with specific questions and metrics that are used to assure apples-to-apples comparisons. What I'm talking about here is closer to what the benchmarking folks look down their noses at and call "industrial tourism." "Just looking" is much more informal; we gather impressions rather than hard data.
I never really thought much about this "just looking" approach until I happened across an article in the May-June 1997 issue of _Harvard Business Review_, entitled "Why (and How) to Take a Plant Tour." It's by David M. Upton, of the Harvard Business School, and Stephen E. Macadam, of McKinsey & Company. They take this plant tour stuff seriously.
First, the authors point out that there we should set clear objectives for tours. They say that there are three tour types: learning tours, assessment tours, and training tours. Best learning occurs when people look at what's going on, practices, rather than numbers. Tours work best, the authors say, when the tour group includes people from different disciplines who are likely to see and ask about different things. And sometimes tours of facilities dramatically different from our own may jog our thinking.
According to the authors, assessment tours are used to evaluate a facility for some purpose. I guess I've done tours like this when I've gone on quality reviews, but I sure hope that we seem more like learners than assessors. In HP, for sure, and, I believe, in most other places, we can make the assumption that the people doing the work have very good reasons for doing things that way, and we're far better off learning from them before we make hasty assumptions and "grade" them.
I do, however, like the way that the authors approach the idea of a training tour. They feel that a great way of training people is by asking both "how" and "why" questions. This does two things: first, as long as the questioning is done in a way that doesn't imply criticism, the questions encourage the people to think about their own issues in a different way. Second, good questions show interest, and that's especially important if the people on the tour are senior executives. "By asking the right questions, (the senior executives) send a powerful message about their commitment to superior performance...Taking an unscheduled side trip or speaking to operators who are not part of the official tour strengthens that message even more."
Upton and Macadam feel that the tour should be part of a organized, four-part framework that identifies the strategic role of the facility, its structural alignment (e.g., how it's organized to meet the strategy), how it operates day-to-day, and what processes it uses for improvements.
It's a good structure, but it's a bit much for me. More simply, I think there are two parts to every tour: looking and asking/listening. Looking is first and most important and sets the stage for the questions that will follow.
Looking is seeing with a "why" or "how" attached. I just walked from my cubicle to the bathroom and back by a different route. There are some pieces of paper on the floor in the halls; why hasn't someone picked them up? There are lots of cartoons, but mostly benign stuff about copiers and planning, not any really mean ones about managers. There's a blinking ceiling light; I wonder how and when it will get replaced. There are posters on the walls for various social events or public meetings; there are a few for events long past that haven't been removed. Next to the Help Desk, there are several process control charts; most of them are up-to-date. One looks like it hasn't been changed for several months.
As I look over my CRT into another cubicle, I see a big red crown and a green blow-up palm tree in one cubicle. Fun and irreverence seem to count more than neatness.
It's important to look at our own areas, but it's often more fun to look at other places. Looking at the environment gives us lots of information about the morale of the people and the general management style of the place. But it's even more interesting to try and figure out the explicit or implicit processes that are being used. Restaurants are wonderful examples. The decor and general cleanliness and cheeriness are critical issues. But so are their processes. What's their process for getting us seated? How do they decided what tables to sit us at? How are the waiters assigned? How does the restaurant promote its daily specials?
A visit to any large institution , a school, a medical center, a government agency is an opportunity for looking. Their processes are usually obvious, but it's fun to try to fill in the details. One important detail is how the people are measured and motivated. For example, have you ever been to a restaurant (like Legal Seafood in Boston) where the waiters all share tips? Can you tell when a clerk in an agency is motivated by "number of people per hour" rather than on some "customer satisfaction" metric?
Customers always infer how we're being measured. What does the way we treat our customers say about the way we're measured?
The "asking/listening" part of the tour is a next step. First, it's good to verify assumptions. Most people will tell you how they are being measured if you ask them in a non-confrontational, almost academic way. They are especially eager to talk if you complement their process and sincerely ask so that you can learn. I then like to ask about routine, mundane things. In a manufacturing facility, for example, it's often revealing to ask about what drops off the process instead of what stays in it. What happens to the materials that the incoming parts are packed in? What happens to the scrap in a process or to used chemicals or to worn out tools and supplies? What records are kept? How are the records used?
Ask about exceptions. What happens when the routine process fails? Who makes exception decisions, based on what criteria?
Ask the people about their normal day and listen for the undertones. Where do they park in the morning? What routines do they use to get into their day? How do they take breaks and where? What do they do for lunch? What's their end-of-the-day routine? What happens if they have to take off in the middle of the day for a doctor's appointment? How much private space dothey have? What do they use that private space for?
What kind of answers would we give to these questions? What would the answers say about us and our working conditions? How will we change now that we have seen and listened?
Happy touring,
Joe