Tag Archives: systems

Change Principles, Communication, Integrity

Never forget this fact: There is no such thing as factual information

December 4, 2016 Simon Black Leave a comment

This blog title is provocatively paradoxical. The assumption is that something measured is something proved.

This is not the case.

In practice, when we decide to define a fact, we then define what it is, how it is to be measured, then measure to verify.

In deciding the measurement, we simply place a judgment – our opinion of reality, onto something that isn’t there. For example:

The label on a blanket reads “50 per cent wool” What does this mean? Half wool, on the average, over this blanket, or half wool over a month’s production? What is half wool? Half by weight? If so, at what humidity? By what method of chemical analysis? How many analyses? The bottom half of the blanket is wool and the top half is something else. Is it 50 per cent wool? Does 50 per cent wool mean that there must be some wool in any random cross-section the size of a half dollar? If so, how many cuts shall be tested? How select them? What criterion must the average satisfy? And how much variation between cuts is permissible? Obviously, the meaning of 50 per cent wool can only be stated in statistical terms (Deming 1975).

Is it now becoming clear?

“Without theory (hypothesis), data are meangingless or nonexistent. There is thus no true value of anything: true value is undefinable operationally. There are, however, numerical values that people can use with confidence if they understand their meaning (for the tensile strength of a batch of wire, for example, or for the proportion of the labor force unemployed last month).” (Deming 1967).

The trick is to understand the meaning of numbers.

Not everything that can be counted counts.
Not everything that counts can be counted.

Just because you can measure something it does not mean that you can manage it. Many things are relatively unmeasurable, but important, like staff morale, contentment of customers (or even their excitement!). Mintzberg (2015) suggests that “when we hear the word ‘efficiency’ we zero in―subconsciously―on the most measurable criteria, like speed of service or consumption of energy. Efficiency means measurable efficiency. That’s not neutral at all, since it favors what can best be measured“

Deming was very clear on this point: “It is wrong to suppose that if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it – a costly myth.” We can end up spending effort measuring and reporting the wrong things and also losing sight of the ball – forgetting the real purpose of our work.

So the first useful question about an issue of performance is:

“what do we know about this?”, then “what will help us to improve?”

Think about this next time you set a goal, or measure results…

Further Reading:

Deming W.E. (1967) Walter A. Shewhart, 1891-1967. The American Statistician, 21(2): 39-40

Deming (1974) On probability as a basis for action. The American Statistician, 29 (4): 146-152

Fellers G. (1994) Why Things go Wrong: Deming Philosophy in a Dozen Ten-Minute Sessions. Pelican Publishing

Mintzberg, H. (2015) What could possibly be wring with efficiency? Plenty. 9 September 2015. http://www.mintzberg.org/blog/wrong-efficiency

Excellence, Service

You couldn’t make it up!

July 10, 2016 Simon Black Leave a comment

Picture the scene…a middle aged man digging in his garden, when he hits an object, possibly a root, which slows his spade. Lifting the top 3 inches of turf away, he clears the space to find that the object is an intact, unfired rifle cartridge – complete with bullet. He thinks ‘Hmmm – either an intact live cartridge or a replica, but 3 inches under my lawn‘ and decides to call the police non-emergency helpline to request its secure collection (the nearest police station is over 10 miles away).

The helpline service is reasonably helpful – it automatically patches the call to his county police constabulary and after a little wait he gets through to a real person. The operator is personable and thorough, takes note of the details (the middle-aged man used to be a marksman, so knows a bit about bullets and was able to convey this). The operator agrees to call back to arrange the collection.

About 5-10 minutes later the Police helpline operator calls back and informs the man that after consultation with her supervisor they have advised that the bullet is simply disposed of. The man suggests that he will not throw it in a fire or anything, but how should he dispose of it? He is told to put it in a bag and pop it in the dustbin.

The waste bin was collected by the council service that day…

The man, knowing a bit about ammunition, had already decided that he will not put the bullet in the waste and instead plans to find a way of getting it to the authorities – ‘waste worker shot in freak accident‘ is not a headline he wants to see in the Sunday newspapers.

Two minutes later the helpline call again: ‘sorry‘, says the operator ‘my supervisor and I have spoken to the inspector who suggests we get someone to collect this bullet from you. You haven’t thrown it away have you?…‘

What is the point of this story? It is this:

However good your procedures and however willing and polite and committed your operators, a helpline service must have expertise at the point of transaction – the operator. If not, you tend to add re-work (e.g. lots of follow-up calls) or waste (or worse).

Sadly, most advice centres are NOT designed this way, instead using less-qualified people on the phones; creating waste, error & discouraging users.

In this instance neither the operator nor their supervisor had the expertise (or judgement) to make this decision. How did the discussion and advice arise between call 1 and 2? How did the second discussion with the inspector arise – was it luck, or part of the procedure of escalation? What would have happened if the inspector had not been there? What if the man HAD put the bullet in his dustbin? What if the man had gone shopping before the third call was made?

How many police would have been required to search the man’s bin, or worse, the contents of 5,000 bins at the council refuse centre had the bin been collected? Or what if all bin lorries had to be stopped on the roads for inspection to remove the suspect bullet? What if the bullet had exploded? You get the point.

This was a real incident involving real people on a Bank Holiday Monday sometime in the past year. You really couldn’t make it up.

Avoid the ‘bolt-on’ management method

April 1, 2016 Simon Black 1 Comment

Maybe not the best way to improve management

Sometimes approaches to managing people simply do not work. However, I have heard people defend the failure of particular management approaches (like appraisal, ISO9000, quality circles etc.) by saying ‘its because it is not being done right‘. While this may be ‘true’ (in the sense that successes can occur), I think that a more circumspect approach must be taken when considering these methods:

If it doesn’t’ work, is this failure a generally observed occurrence? (i.e is it something that predictably fails)
Is it only failing on an unusual, ‘exception basis’ – once in a while?
Might the approach be fundamentally flawed?
Could there be a better way of achieving the desired outcome (assuming the desired outcome is genuinely that the manager wants to do a better job of managing) – in other words is the well-meaning manager barking up the wrong tree?

The problem with bolting ‘good’ approaches onto bad is that it proliferates the work of management, which adds cost, hassle and meddling with the real work (of serving customers, providing public services, educating, making cars, or whatever is our business).

Treating people well, usually involves doing something (‘nice’) to compensate for the default situation, where they suffer some sort of indignity, disappointment or frustration as the general state of affairs. The ‘nice’ idea masks the fundamental problems.

John Seddon openly criticises this type of woolly thinking – not because he thinks people are not worthy of being respected and treated with dignity, but because the respect and dignity should start in the way that their work and the system they work within is managed. In other words:

don’t punish people for things out of their control,
don’t design work to frustrate them from doing a good job,
don’t waste their time.
don’t make systems which expose them to unnecessary grief
(from customers and users)

Deming used to talk about dignity (long before most others used the term) and, as shown throughout his writing, appears to assume that everyone would be following the same ethos. Doing a ‘respect for people programme‘ would, to Deming, be absurd. Just as doing appraisals would be absurd, or adhering to standards, or setting targets. What do these approaches say about what managers really think about their staff (lazy? untrustworthy? unmotivated? stupid?)?

Some things in life are worth restoring and refurbishing, even upgrading. But others are just so fundamentally flawed that an upgrade is not worth the effort. The same can be said for many management methods.

Just make sure that you are not applying bolt-on management.

Helpful reading:

MacDonald, J. (1998) Calling a Halt to Mindless Change, Amacom, UK

Seddon, J. (2005) Freedom from Command and Control, Vanguard Press, Buckingham, UK.

However, the alternative perspective is offered by Bob Emiliani:

http://www.bobemiliani.com/kudos-to-john-seddon/

Change Principles

“It’s the system, stupid!”

April 22, 2015 Simon Black Leave a comment

**A corner kick**: after leaving the playing area, play is resumed by a static ball, placed in the corner of the pitch, being kicked into the area near the goal, offering an opportunity to score.

I risk once again falling into boring sporting anecdote – nevertheless I will press on. I was fascinated to see a sporting analysis of premier league football by BBC pundit Pat Nevin (an accomplished player in his time). He notes that the quality of corner kicking by players has declined in the past ten years or so. “Due to their overpaid status” I hear you grumble.

Nevin’s analysis boils down not to the lack of application by players, poor technical skill nor rushing an important element of play in order to keep up competitive pressure, but something quite different (i.e. in Nevin’s observation, it is not the players who are the problem).

Nevin observes that now stadium pitches have synthetic grass to the side of the natural grass playing surface, right up to the line of the pitch ( left).

This surface has been placed to allow TV broadcast camera cables and sound cables to run over the area (without ruining a natural grass surface), to provide a clean space for corporate sponsors and VIP visitors to make pitch-side visits (e.g. ‘stadium experience’ premium ticket guests), and as a dry warm-up surface for team subsitutes.

The problem is that this mismatch of surfaces is difficult for a corner kicker to negotiate properly. Also the pitch side is often set as a downward slope, so that players have to run uphill towards the ball placed on the pitch. Essentially the system that the players are working in has been altered to the detriment of the game (the purpose of the football event – one would presume). Even the best people will struggle with these limitations.

Interestingly André Schürrle (who set up Germany’s winning goal at the 2014 World Cup) innovated to overcome this problem by running down the touchline on the grass to get a consistent run up to kick the ball at an angle less than 90◦ from his body (a tricky, even dangerous, compromise).

grass area corner football — Two different Pat Nevins identify a truly systemic solution. (Digital artwork and additional red annotation by S. Black)

Similarly striking is Nevin’s identification of the solution to this problem. Replacing the plastic 3G ‘grass’ around the corner flag with a simple patch of natural grass would enable players to run up properly, without affecting the needs of camera cables or corporate visitors! This would hopefully make the delivery of the game (the purpose of the football event, surely) not only more precise, more competitive, with more action, but also more entertaining (for fans, TV viewers, VIP visitors and corporate sponsors no doubt)!

As John Seddon has been known to mutter: ‘you couldn’t make it up!’

Good Performers will fail in a bad system

February 5, 2015 Simon Black Leave a comment

Examples of failing systems are numerous, although often the finger of blame for failure is pointed at the people who are at the sharp end (for example, over-worked social workers spring to mind).

If we cast our minds back to the pre-2012 Olympic Games security shortfall scandal, the British Army had to bring in thousands of troops at the last minute to work as security staff at the venue entry gates, due to critical shortfalls in numbers of trained security personnel promised by a commercial provider. This shortfall was not caused by a lack of recruitment, but apparently by failures in the system of appointing people into the jobs, plus late scheduling of training and induction to prepare recruits to start on-time in their role. Allegedly, some new recruits were never confirmed dates to get their training, others, despite being recruited months before the Games did not complete their training until just a few days before the Games programme ended (so late were the arrangements that many recruits didn’t bother to attend since the Games had only a couple of days to run, and some people had already found jobs elswhere). These failures were not “nobody’s problem” – they were the problem of managers in the security company.

In a blame culture managers will identify the problem as being the people at the sharp end (so blame those pesky security recruits for not showing up to training just before the Games ended – what a lack of commitment!). Blame is both a self-fulfilling and a self-deluding philosophy.

There is a neat way to define the power of the system, versus the expectations placed on people, in a quote which I understand is attributed to Geary Rummler:

“Put a good performer in a bad system
and the system wins every time”

But why blame the manager, then? Well, simply, because their job is to manage the system (and to improve it). In fact, that is pretty much all that their job should involve.

Does ‘Best’ method always mean ‘best’ results? Impacts on Service Exellence

December 8, 2014 Simon Black 2 Comments

Best practice standards are commonly seen as a sure-fire route to successful improvement. After all – who could question the value of implementing best practice? If you are by now used to my writing style (after 3 years of output) you will have guessed that I am one person who would question the value of ‘best practice’.

Why question it?

Any method has to make sense in the context and purpose of what it is trying to deliver. Best practice in cleaning tables might be vital in preparing an operating theatre but might be excessive, costly and irrelevant when applied to a door making factory. The purpose of the work is important. Best practice in answering a phone call succinctly, clearly and efficiently might be the last thing that a service caller with an unusual problem wishes to hear.

I can remember being told by a customer service clerk, when attempting to return a clothing item in exchange for a refund or credit note, that “the company’s returns policy was recognised as best practice in the sector” – but sorry – no I could not have a refund (they suspected, or should I say assumed, that I had already used the item – which I plainly hadn’t). Their answer was no answer and no help to anyone (I did eventually get my refund).*

In services you need to build in flexibility. This means that you have to think carefully about what your users want and therefore what you must do to meet that need – otherwise a poorly considered method will not deliver what is really needed. Deming always used to ask ‘by what method?’

Over and above this, if you do implement a standard way of working, you tend to build in both rigidity (a lack of flexibility to meet differeing needs) and you push users’ experiences further away from the ideal. Seddon states “Don’t codify method” in services – in other words don’t write it all down and demand that everyone sticks to the written code. But why – surely standardisation will ensure quality (especially if the standard is shown to be best)?

Imagine – you call a service centre with a particular query in your mind – the telephone menu asks you to press 1,2 or 3 for different services, then at the next menu another 1,2,3. Even if you get through cleanly to the final stage do you really feel satisfied as a user? And what about the false trails, the accidental hangups or the misdirection to the wrong department? It all gets a bit depressing and, frankly, wasteful.

Even in Ofsted inspections of schools, the error of inspecting and expecting a best method of teaching is now discouraged since the method is dependent on the learning needs and nuances of the students at the point of the teaching intervention. Yes – it figures.

To paraphrase Mitch Ditkoff, when imitation replaces creativity, something invariably gets lost – and innovation eventually goes down the drain.

Deming, W.E. (1993) The New Economics, MIT CAES, Cambridge MA.

Seddon, J. (2005) Freedom from Command and Control, Vanguard Press, Buckingham, UK.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-26161340

*P.S. As I gave my explanation they could see my receipt where the value of other items I had bought (with no refund requested incidentally) far exceeded the value of this item by about a factor of 5! As a clearly ‘valued’ customer (read: insulted) I chose to withdraw my custom from that outlet – for about 15 years – the lifetime of family clothing purchases – not out of spite, I may add – I just lost any sense of preference to buy from that store.

Excellence, Service

Service Excellence – Are People the Problem?

April 23, 2012 Simon Black 4 Comments

Recently, a colleague helpfully forwarded an interesting link on Service Excellence (see below). Like a lot of research on Service, it throws up more questions than answers. The researchers had analysed a range of studies of service performance and had identified a number of issues.

The headliner was that 80% of employees think service is great whilst only 8% of customers think the same. The researchers’ observations were that customer service employees have a misperception of how good they are. This interpretation seems a bit clumsy. The mismatch in this data should not really be a huge shock; to some degree, employees will tell researchers what they think they should hear – if you asked them in a pub on a Friday night they might rate service differently. The likely cause of this conflict of opinion? The fear factor – who wants to admit that they do a poor job or that their organisation is a bit rubbish?

The researchers described how “Managers are using too much stick and not enough carrot, berating staff with complaints league tables, missed targets and unfavourable mystery shopper reports. Line managers care more about targets than people, as there is data to report, processes to police, bosses to please and larger than ever teams to keep to targets.” This is a very relevant observation; however what becomes frustrating is the way that this research appears to FAIL to identify the link between symptoms (“indifferent staff”) and causes (the list of line management behaviours and protocols presented by the researchers themselves).

Even more worryingly (to use the researchers’ own phrase) the research report states “More worryingly, even when employees were shown facts about customer dissatisfaction, they were twice as likely to blame the organisation as to accept responsibility.” To say this is worrying is INCORRECT – it is not worrying it is in fact highly probable that the workforce have got it spot on; 90% of problems are caused by the system, not the people – so no wonder employees think that it is the company that is the problem!

The fundamental difficulty with the research observations is that they present PEOPLE AS THE PROBLEM, which in 80-90% of cases is unlikely [see messages repeated by heavyweight thinkers like Deming since the 1950s, Senge and more recently Seddon].

So, in summary, although the research article found out some truths, unfortunately they have only one eye open to what they are seeing. They recommend giving people (service staff) a kick as implied by their term – ‘improving attentiveness’ (how do you make people more attentive?) although like any modern HR practitioner, they include some soft and cuddly stuff (still ‘kicks’ actually), such as “Managers need to engage employees and treat them as you want them to treat customers, coach staff to think more commercially and show why giving your full attention to customers is so important.” To be fair they go on to urge managers to do less reporting on sales figures and more observing and guiding their front line colleagues. However, in any type of organisation, if you do all these positive things but don’t remove all the conditions of targets, scripts, reports, procedures and sanctions then nothing will change – except employees will get even more annoyed and will feel under increasing pressure – and this will be observable to customers, eventually, as even WORSE service. There is still a lot to learn.

To see the original summary of this research, go to the article on the peoplemanagement.co.uk site: http://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/pm/articles/2012/03/staff-deluded-over-standard-of-customer-service.htm

Better insights on service can read here:

Seddon, J. (2005) Freedom from Command and Control, Vanguard Press, Buckingham, UK.

Change Principles, Myths

Don’t be discouraged: keep your eyes wide open

January 30, 2012 Simon Black Leave a comment

I was recently reminded of Peter Senge’s (1994) work on ‘Systems Thinking’ and change. He observes that often things (including behaviour) appear to “grow worse before it grows better”. He suggests that this happens because we start to see underlying issues more clearly. For us, those issues were previously either unmentionable, unnoticed or just not a priority.

This bubbling up of negativity, challenge and expectation can cause despair – we start seeing the dangers of the iceberg lurking below the waterline. Also, other people might not like the fact that we want to challenge ‘the way things get done around here’. But don’t be discouraged!

This is a measure that things are getting better; formerly ‘undiscussable’ problems have simply risen to the surface – things can now change! As Senge notes, taking things forward might mean that an occasional toe will be stepped upon. But keep experimenting, keep building a better understanding of what is needed and keep seeking solutions to make things better.

Follow the tags at the bottom of each article or the theme bar shown at the top of each title to find linked topics to help stimulate your learning. The search facility (top right 🔍 in green) allows you to browse the site using any keywords that you wish

“Put a good performer in a bad system and the system wins every time”

Follow the tags at the bottom of each article or the theme bar shown at the top of each title to find linked topics to help stimulate your learning. The search facility (top right 🔍 in green) allows you to browse the site using any keywords that you wish

“Put a good performer in a bad system
and the system wins every time”