Overcoming the hurdles standing in the way of efficiency and productivity
In the 10th inning of Game 6 of the 1986 World Series, the Boston Red Sox led the New York Mets 5-3. The Mets hit three consecutive singles, scoring a run and loading the bases. A wild pitch allowed a run to score, tying the game and putting the winning run in scoring position.
Mookie Wilson hit a slow grounder down the first base line, which should have been an easy out for Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner. But the ball rolled through Buckner’s legs, allowing the winning run to score and forcing the series into Game 7. The Mets won that final game as well, extending Boston’s World Series drought and marking Buckner’s error as one of the most infamous moments in baseball history.
This story is paraphrased from a much longer narrative from Bill Buckner’s obituary¹ in The New York Times. Though a series of unfortunate events had really led to the loss, the blame was placed at Buckner’s feet and followed him throughout his entire life until he died in 2019.
Thankfully, most of the mistakes we make at work won’t haunt us for the rest of our lives. But when individuals regularly fail to follow our standard best practices, the efficiencies we would have earned bounce right between our legs into the outfield.
It’s impossible to eliminate all mistakes from our workflow. In fact, as we automate more of our processes, the work that remains for people to handle becomes increasingly complex2 and prone to error.
What we can improve is the way we train our employees to follow standard procedures, the support we provide for following those procedures on the job, and the measurements we use to track and enforce compliance. Our ability to support employees while reducing the mistakes that cause injuries, waste, and inefficiency is what builds resilience and agility in our businesses. 3
Our team members aren’t intentionally undermining our standards; in contrast, lack of compliance reveals a disconnect in clearly communicated standards and support.
Common reasons people don’t follow protocol:
Fortunately, all these issues can be addressed with a few simple tools:
Most people don’t learn well solely from shoulder-to-shoulder training or from LMS courseware alone. Although those training methods can help to introduce processes, they just don’t provide the hands-on experience needed to cement correct behaviors in place.
Repeated exposure to the same information used in initial training helps bridge the gap to hands-on activity. Consider converting your protocols into checklists that can be followed as work is completed. Incorporating videos, diagrams, and other visuals into your checklists can further help employees connect the dots.
The benefit of a simple checklist was quickly apparent for one of our distribution customers. They began by requiring employees to follow SOPs in the form of digital checklists on a single picking process that they were trying to improve. The visibility and accountability that followed this new initiative drove SOP compliance. The company was also able to tie SOP compliance to improvements in their on-time shipping rates. Using this success as a benchmark, the company then deployed the same method across all of its North America distribution centers. After deployment, all Acadia-enabled DCs achieved similar results.
Fixing training gaps and making team members accountable to a process helps remove a lot of weak links. But what about the team members who think they have a better way to do it? How do we get them to comply? Sometimes the best way to get people to hear you is to listen to them.
The people who do their part of the process day-in and day-out have an infinitely more granular view into what works and what doesn’t than those focused mainly on the big picture. If you make it easy for team members to suggest improvements while they’re performing tasks, they’ll identify more actionable process improvements than you could tease out with other methods. Deploying their ideas will give employees more buy-in, encouraging them to further embrace the process.
This played out in real-time on the very first day Acadia went live in one of our customers’ manufacturing plants. After the Production Manager had gone home for the evening, his night shift submitted feedback on multiple tasks. The most impactful feedback involved a packaging machine with a worn part that was creating frequent jams. Each jam meant the machine had to be shut down, cleared, and restarted.
The employees didn’t want to have to deal with the jams, but there wasn’t a standardized method for escalating the issue. Instead, they just cleared them as they came up and went on with their work. Thanks to the new initiative seeking feedback, things changed: the employees identified the problem and efficiently worked out a solution. Seeing change happen quickly made it clear to the team that their feedback wasn’t landing on deaf ears. As a result, workers at the plant continue to submit process improvement suggestions regularly.
The team members who make the most mistakes are often the most likely to lose their jobs and to have trouble finding a new position.
To prevent that scenario from being inevitable, struggling workers need guidance through better training and effective job tools. It’s important to note that supporting these folks isn’t an act of benevolence or altruism. Rather, you’re fixing the breakdowns in your process and the sudden drops in your KPIs. Helping low performers succeed makes your entire team more efficient and productive.
By identifying the folks who regularly don’t follow your processes, you can eliminate a major breaking point while showing them the value of trying something new. Look deeper into what drives some of these behaviors and you’ll find ways to help your team members overcome them.
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