The people who are closest to the work really do know it better.
At the outset of the Work-Out program, the invisible walls between managers and employees often loomed large and inhibited communication between the two constituencies.
The chains of history and tradition were too strong to be broken so quickly. Initially, there were many awkward silences.
But over time, Work-Out began to catch on. Someone would summon up the necessary courage and talk.
A question would get asked. A problem would be put on the table. Once the ice was broken, others in the audience overcame their timidity as well. And then things started to happen.
A CASE IN POINT
Armand Lauzon, a GE manager, faced Work-Out attendees (from a GE facility in Lynn, Massachusetts) on the final day of a session.
One by one, the group’s 108 recommendations were put to him for one of three responses: “yes,” “no,” or “need more information.” The proposals ranged from designing a plant-service insignia to building a new tinsmith shop.
To 100 of the 108 proposals, Lauzon said “yes” on the spot.
One of the approved proposals was to permit Lynn’s employees to bid against an outside vendor on new protective shields for grinding machines. (An hourly worker had sketched a design for the shields on a brown paper bag.) Ultimately, the internal group won the bid for $16,000, far less than the vendor’s quoted $96,000. It was an ideal Work-Out result: saving GE money, bringing work to the Lynn plant, and empowering employees.
RATTLERS AND PYTHONS
At some Work-Out sessions, facilitators divided problems into two separate categories: rattlers and pythons.
Rattlers were problems that could be resolved on the spot; that is, they could be shot and buried in real time, like a rattlesnake.
Pythons, by contrast, were issues that were too complicated to unravel straight away, comparable to a python wrapped up in itself.
One rattler example involved a young woman who published a popular monthly plant newspaper and had run into a wall of bureaucracy. GE policies required her to secure seven signatures before she could go to press. She pleaded her case to her boss at a Work-Out session: “You all like the plant newspaper. It’s never been criticized. It’s won awards. So why does it take seven signatures?”
“This is crazy,” he replied. “Okay, from now on, no more signatures.”
At the Research and Development Center in Schenectady, New York, an employee at a Work-Out session asked why managers got special parking places. No one could think of a good reason. The privilege was rescinded on the spot.
At a Work-Out session for the company’s communications personnel, a secretary asked why she had to interrupt her own work each time something landed in the “out tray” on her boss’s desk. Why couldn’t he drop the material off on her desk the next time he left his office? On the spot, the change was made.
Pythons, by definition, are tougher to unwind than rattlers.
At one Work-Out session, field-service engineers griped about having to write reports used to forecast which turbines might need to be replaced the next time an outage occurred.
Their complaint was that no one was reading the reports, which sometimes ran as long as 500 pages.
This problem was knottier. People actually did need some version of this information, although clearly not in its current form.
Eventually, as a result of some intense Work-Out sessions, the huge reports were scrapped. In their place came briefer, more up-to-date reports, which were actually read!
THE KEY ELEMENT
Jack Welch, for one, was ecstatic about Work-Out:
Work-Out is many things . . . but its central objective is “growing” a culture where everyone’s ideas have value . . . where leaders lead rather than control [and] coach rather than kibitz.
Work-Out is the process of mining the creativity and productivity that we know resides in the American work force . . .
In 1997, Welch spoke again as an advocate of high employee involvement:
The most important thing a leader has to do is to absolutely search and treasure and nourish the voice and dignity of every person. It is in the end the key element.
The Work-Out program continues today. According to one senior executive, it has proven itself as a “best practice which targets bureaucracy and all its waste, pomposity, and nonsense.”
WELCH RULES
- Search out practices that have stopped making sense. Every company has these foolish habits that should have been abolished years ago. Root them out and eliminate them.
- Build programs on a foundation like Work-Out. Think of Work-Out as a prerequisite to more ambitious initiatives such as Six Sigma.
- Nourish dignity. The most important thing a leader does, Jack Welch asserts, is “treasure and nourish the voice and dignity of every person.”