Knowledge Base · Solutions
How do I involve frontline staff in solving problems?
Start from the book's central lesson: the people closest to the work know the work best, so lasting solutions rarely come from the top down. Go and see the work, ask the people doing it what would fix it, listen without an agenda, and give their answers a genuine chance to be tried. Leadership here means making the right answer hearable.
Chapter 4 states the principle plainly and then proves it with a story. A manufacturing leadership team, facing a costly bottleneck, was about to sign for a complex new software system costing $50,000 and taking months to integrate. Before signing, the author spent a morning watching and listening on the floor, and asked a veteran employee, Maria, what she would do with a magic wand.
Her answer was a slow, inaccurate sensor on an outdated machine, which staff spent half their time overriding or correcting. A newer sensor cost about $500, and rearranging two workstations would finish the fix. Management agreed to try it. Within a week the bottleneck had vanished and production flow increased by 20 percent almost overnight.
- Go to where the work happens and watch and listen before proposing anything.
- Ask a direct question: what is one thing that, if fixed, would make your job easier or better for customers?
- Be quiet after asking, and let the answer come.
- Act on what you hear, and credit it, so the next answer comes more easily.
The author's own summary of the lesson is about the leader's role: it was not to have all the answers, but to create an environment where the right answer, Maria's answer, could be heard.
Related questions
- What is a gemba walk (a "go and see"), and how do I do one?
- How do I empower employees to improve their own work?
- How do I get past "that's how we've always done it"?
Source: Continuous Improvement in the Workplace, Ch. 4 (Solution Creation and Implementation).