Importance of Leader Standard Work

 In a lean environment there’s no place for denial. It’s all about systems being at place and operating with transparency. For systems to work people in charge of those systems, must identify abnormal conditions and act upon it. But, should they wait for those conditions to appear or should they be pro-active. In technical terms should the action be troubleshooting, preventive or predictive???? Most organisations and firms go for preventive but the quality and cost leaders, be it service, manufacturing, marketing or any other domain go for predictive action…In layman’s term pro-active approach.  Not surprisingly the firms with lean culture or BPM are the predictive gurus.

This is not because they hire the best, but they make the best follow a regular pattern of work, which is documented and the compliance is regularly ensured…..The document is called Leader Standard Work (LSW).

Leader standard work is SDCA (standardize-do-check-act) in action. It seeks to determine whether standards are being adhered to and whether they are sufficient – very important stuff when you are to trying to sustain lean gains and develop a lean culture. The result is a PDCA(Plan-Do-Check-Act) activity which follows.

The On job time(OJT) at different hierarchy levels may differ for say an executive(70%) to a GM(30%). It doesn’t mean that LSW is flawed, infact it shows us the perfect data about time required by an employee at different levels for value added activity or a supporting activity. GM’s profile demands link up with other departments, even with suppliers and customers in some cases. So his OJT will be different that other employees.

The audit of LSW is an essential part in the whole system. With the full-compliance of audits the problems will be transparent. How does  this work??? If an employee is not able to follow LSW either he is a slacking or there is some issue. Slackness can be dealt by assigning his task to others or coaching him, depending on the importance of the task. If there is an issue, it will be brought to the surface and will be visible to everybody. It’s easy to deal with a visible problem rather than going behind the tedious process of finding it.

The superior’s leader standard work must also require managers to go to the Gemba  and ensure that the subordinate is working in accordance with standard work – steps, sequence, cycle time, and standard work-in-process. Anything less than that and we’re in the plausible deniability realm, taking the “word” of the second hand information and never verifying…even though we may have more than an inkling that the system is breaking down. “Hey, my subordinate was checking that in their LSW …”

It’s not that we shouldn’t trust people; we just need to be good lean pragmatists. We need to model the proper behaviours and actively lead and coach. Good leader standard work, and thus SDCA, does not co-exist with loose and informal chains (of command). Nothing deniable there.

Leaders disciplined adherence to process makes Lean Management work. Leader at any level must be most disciplined of all, be it a technician or a GM. In the end we have to build a system in our future organisations or make the existing ones stronger. So who will make it work…WE.

ANFIELD DISASTER

Every MUFC fan was in anticipation,what will conspire at Anfield on Sunday.Especially after pool did double last season.SAF was desperate for a win this was evident as Rooney clearly not upto the mark was rushed into the game.
Still,rooney managed to play better than some of his mates but a fully fit Wayne Rooney would have been a different proposition for Liverpool defenders.But this was not the cause of MU defeat at the hands of bitter rivals.
The Midfield consisted of Giggs, Scholes,Carrick and Valencia.Giggs had a decent game,he kept Johnson in his own half mostly.Valencia was toying with Insua that Auerlio had to come back every time Valencia had ball at his feet.Scholes was really hurried by Mascherano and player who till last evening was ridiculed by every football follower(Lucas). Scholes was clearly not at his best as he found difficult to get away from both the opposing holding players.This brings me to Carrick,who was playing as a playmaker.Carrick seriously lacks creativity which he showed in last three seasons for the reds.His body language is looking down.He is only shadow of the player he was in the past.
Scholes was subsituted by Nani which was much more of a disaster. SAF showing so much trust in Nani in the recent past has left me and maybe some of the fans wondering "How bad is Zoran Tosic?" or "When will Gabriel Obertan be fit to play?".So much hype around Nani and such a mediocre perfomance no only at anfield but since last season.How can anyone say that he is successor to CR7?
I think the best place for him is at Spain or back to Potugal.Spanish clubs want a player like him and pay a ridiculous amount of money too.
Berbatov was looking lost at front because of his lack of involvement and was subsituted for Michael Owen (the momment everybody was waiting for).To be fair to both of them Berbatov should have been kept on and Carrick should have been taken off for Owen that would have posed a greater threat.
The defence was neat,even Vidic was keeping Torres quiet.But here comes Rio who just let him a yard of space and that is enough for Torres to cause problems.Rio also is looking a bit fragile and his position in squad could be in real danger as there is a rush of defenders waiting for a chance in first team.Vidic had a god game till he was sent off,which i think was necessary for him to do otherwise it would have been 2-0 a little before.I also must mention that his first yellow card was a really soft one,going by which Owen's best buddy should have been sent off for pulling him down.
The refreeing was bad in the game but that is so called part of the game.
The positive for Manchester United out of this game is form of Valencia and Van der Sar.
Manchester United surely missed Owen but which one?
The answer is Owen Hargreaves.Its good that he his on the path for comeback and he with underrated Darren FLetcher could provide the spark missing in the midfield not to forget Giggs and Anderson another notable absentee on Sunday though was sitting on the bench.For lack of goals SAF should sometime throw in Macheda after him Welbeck but not in wings (Sunderland).All said, the title will be back at Manchester this season because mostlyone leg of big games are over except Chelsea.Not to forget, Manu starts rolling the ball from around this time of the year up untill March.
It was a disaster at Anfield but surely not crisis time......