Читать книгу Improving Maintenance and Reliability Through Cultural Change - Stephen Thomas G. - Страница 12
ОглавлениеWhen I was 29 years old, I was promoted to the position of Zone Supervisor. A zone supervisor was responsible for all of the maintenance work within a portion of the plant. In this job I had responsibility for approximately eight foremen and one hundred mechanics. I was the youngest person the company had ever promoted to a position of this nature. There were many reasons why. First, I had been successful in all of my previous positions and, second, I was part of an aging workforce. Two others and I were the first management employees hired into the maintenance organization in 20 years; everyone I worked with was over 50. The organization was trying to develop younger managers who could take over when the current managers retired.
I was very aware in this new role that I wasn’t clear what I was to do. Although my organization was older and far more experienced than I was, I was expected to lead them and manage their work. My predecessor had been very successful and was highly respected by the entire organization. He had the ability to motivate people and get things done regardless of the circumstances. He had not been moved to another position. He had been given several special projects, one of which was to teach me the ropes. At the time, our organization was based on a reactive work culture. When things broke down, it was maintenance’s job to fix them as quickly as possible and return the operation back to normal.
Being young and inexperienced, I copied the former supervisor. On many occasions, I asked for his opinion, help, and support in different circumstances. Over the next year, we had a very good relationship and he taught me what he thought I needed to be successful in my new position. In short, he was my role model. He had shown me how to be one of the best reactive maintenance professionals in our organization and shortly thereafter I was again promoted.
Several years later, the plant was sold to a private owner. At the time, I was in charge of all maintenance work in the plant. I reported directly to a maintenance manager brought in by the new owner to implement a reliability-based work culture. My specialty was reactive repair, not reliability. However, I quickly took on a new role model and learned that there was more to work than fixing broken equipment. My new role model taught me about the concepts of reliability, good planning, and scheduling techniques as well as how to implement programs that (with production’s help) avoided equipment failure. The manager was successful in his conversion of the business and, as a key part of his team, so was I.
In both of these instances I emulated someone who I believed would provide the best maintenance services to the plant in the existing culture. Although my role models exhibited different traits and behaviors, they were correct for the culture in which they operated and were successful in their careers.
The remainder of this chapter will examine role models, why they are or are not successful, and how and why people emulate their behavior. We will also examine how and why people’s behaviors, and frequently their beliefs about how to operate the business, can be altered by these models.
Role models are people within organization who exhibit traits that appeal to us and which we can apply to how we conduct our business. These role models are usually at or near the top of the organization; they have been successful within the organizational culture. They demonstrate a successful behavior style within the business culture, one that we feel comfortable adopting as our own.
Let us discuss further the three key components of a role model.
Top of the organization
Most people who are used as role models are at or near the top of the organization’s hierarchy. These are the people we view as the most successful. They are the managers of our departments, the leaders, the ones who set the direction for the business. The key word here is success. Because those at the top are perceived as successful, we tend to use them as role models.
There is another reason why we often choose our leaders as role models. They set the expectations of what we are to accomplish at work. In most cases, these expectations are in line with their expectations for themselves. As a result, we emulate and assume their style because we are all working towards the same end. In addition, failure to achieve these expectations usually has severe negative outcomes. Therefore, modeling the manager to achieve the desired results makes sense.
Successful within the organization’s culture
The second component is that role models are not just successful, but they are successful within the existing culture. This is very important. Think about how I used my former managers as role models. In each case, they were successful in their respective cultures and, therefore, were good models for me. But what if the situations were reversed? Suppose the manager who was reliability-focused was placed in a reactive maintenance work culture. How well do you think he would have succeeded? Who would have wanted him as a role model?
A style we can identify with and adopt
Even those some people are successful within the culture, there still may be reasons why we would not choose them as role models. If we truly want to use people as role models, we need not only to view them as successful, but also to feel comfortable adopting their style of management.
Suppose you are the type of person who firmly believes that all people within the workforce have unique value and should be treated with dignity and respect. Further suppose that your manager (who is a successful part of the organization) has achieved this position by acting and behaving in exactly the opposite fashion. Could you accept this person as a role model? Your answer would probably be no. Although you want to behave in a manner that will provide you a successful career, the behavior of your manager could never fit your personal beliefs and manner of conducting business.
5.3 Strategic or Tactical Alignment
From my previous examples, you can see that role models are aligned with the culture in which they exist. Reactive role models succeed in reactive cultures as do proactive role models in proactive cultures.
Role models are also strategically or tactically focused regarding how they conduct their work and how they support change within the work place. Furthermore, their work is often either short term or long term. This comparison can be best viewed in the quad diagram shown in Figure 5-1.
Figure 5-1 Role model – type of work vs. work focus
In this figure the type of role models (strategically or tactically focused) is depicted on the y-axis. Their focus – short or long term – is shown on the x-axis. In this way, we can represent the different components and discuss the role each plays in changing an organization’s work culture.
Let us review this quad diagram from the perspective that we want to change from a reactive to a proactive, reliability-focused culture.
Short Term – Tactical (Quadrant 1)
Role models who fit Quadrant 1 work on the front line; they are viewed by their peers as the best at what they do. They typically have a day-to-day tactical focus and know how to get things done no matter what problems confront them. In most plants, these role models are the best at firefighting and reactive repair. However, we want to change to a more reliability-based model, and they need to change their focus. This can be accomplished, but not without difficulty. As you learned in Chapter 4, the organization’s values must be reliability centered. You will also see in Chapters 6 and 7 how rites and rituals as well as the cultural infrastructure can make this change a difficult task.
Long Term – Tactical (Quadrant 2)
The role models found in Quadrant 2 do day-to-day work, but are more focused on longer-term goals. Typically these are the field superintendents – the people who manage the foremen and field work crews and who have the responsibility for leading their portion of the organization.
Short Term – Strategic (Quadrant 3)
The role models in Quadrant 3 support the line organization in a staff capacity. They include planners and schedulers, engineers, and possibly even consultants hired to implement reliability improvement processes. They are not directly involved in the day-to-day effort, but their work direct influences it. They keep the strategic initiatives of the organization in front of those immersed in the day-today work activity.
Long Term – Strategic (Quadrant 4)
Quadrant 4 is filled by the organization’s managers. Their responsibility focuses on the longer term strategic goals and with those in the other quadrants to accomplish them.
Figure 5-2 shows how the quadrants described fit with the Goal Achievement Model, as discussed in Chapter 3. The quadrants from Figure 5-1 are also shown in brackets.
Figure 5-2 Strategic vs. tactical role models
Different groups and people select their role models based on where they work within the organization. Those on the line may select short-term models, either tactical or strategic, because the majority if not all of their work is short term in nature. If you were a foreman or mechanical engineer trying to implement a preventive maintenance program in the field, you would probably look for a role model in quad 1 or 3. These people are the ones who have been successful getting similar things accomplished within the culture.
Conversely, if you were trying to develop a strategic direction for the business such as self-directed work teams at the maintenance level, you would select role models who were successful in quads 2 and 4. These individuals have been successful in developing and implementing a vision and supporting goals for cultural change.
Because this book is focused on changing from a reactive maintenance work culture to one that is reliability focused, we need to discuss what happens when the new role models are introduced. This is a real problem when trying to implement a reliability-focused work culture because invariably those who have been successful in the existing culture are usually not of this mold. Remember my example where my initial role model was highly reactive in a reactive culture and then a new plant management team was appointed with a reliability focus. In my case I made the transition, but what if I hadn’t?
A role model cultural mismatch can occur at every level within the organization. For example, a company is purchased and the new management team has different plans for the business than did the former. A new manager is hired with a different outlook. A new superintendent is promoted who decides a change is needed, and new foremen are hired who are not content with the status quo. In each of these cases, those in the lower tiers of the organization are confronted with new role models and a new set of expectations that may be far different than those of their prior managers.
Everyone at some time (and often more than once) will have this experience. Owners, managers, and supervisors change; the role you need to model for success often changes as well. You have two choices. First you can adopt the new cultural role model as long as it doesn’t conflict with your basic beliefs. This will maintain your position and you may learn something along the way. In my example, when my new manager introduced reliability concepts to my organization, he opened my eyes to a new and better way to do work. Although the change meant a new set of concepts to be learned and applied, the value to the company and also to me was immense.
The second option is to leave. If the new expectations are that much in conflict with your work processes, then leaving is a good option for you and for your firm. Otherwise neither will be happy over the long term. Admittedly, leaving is easier said than done. However, if you stay and do not adopt the new model, you will be viewed as someone who resists the change. Ultimately this image will make the work place difficult for you and all of those around you.
There are those who also believe that, if they wait long enough, the new culture and those associated with it will move on and the program will fade away. Although this may be the case with individual projects, it is not the case with a major cultural shift such as one from reactive-to reliability-focused maintenance work. These changes are major; once you begin moving down the reliability path, there is no going back. As someone once told me, “The train is leaving the station. Get on board for the ride or get off.”
5.5 Bad Role Models Have Value
One other type of role model is worth discussing - one which is the most difficult to work with in our jobs. This is the person whose beliefs and actions are so opposed to our own that it is virtually impossible to adopt his or her style of management or behavior without violating who we are. There are alternatives when you are confronted with this type of situation. You can leave the organization and seek work elsewhere. You can attempt to transfer to another department. Or you can try to stick it out and survive, hoping that the individual will leave before you do.
At one point in my career, I worked for such a person. He was not what I considered a good manager. Nor did he treat the people who worked in the department with very much dignity or respect. To make matters worse, to run the daily maintenance operations he hired a person who had the same style of management as he had. This was a very difficult time in my career. I could not transfer and chose not to leave, but I also decided that I would continue to function as I had in the past using those who trained me as my role models. This dilemma is similar to the one described in the previous section except I was not being asked to change and model a better behavior. In choosing to reject the role model of my manager, I often got into difficulty. Fortunately for me, the individual he hired was promoted to another plant and the manager retired shortly thereafter.
What I learned is that not everyone is a positive role model. We are often presented with what I will refer to as “good bad examples.” These are people who we can look at and say “here is someone who I do not wish to act like.” If you examine why you feel this way and adopt behaviors that are opposite and more in line with how you feel you should behave, then they will have done you a great service. They will have shown you a model that you will choose to reject for a more positive (and opposite) behavior.
5.6 Role Models Are Created NOT Born
Thus far we have assumed that our role models are proactively focused, the ones who will support the change in culture from one that is reactive to one that is proactive and reliability-focused. However, what if discover that the predominant role models throughout the organization are not those who support change, but instead those who support the status quo? An even more challenging scenario: What if proactive role models don’t exist at all in the organization? This is not an unrealistic expectation. Those who advocate proactive maintenance don’t survive long in a reactive work culture where success is viewed as being the best “fire fighter” you can be.
Figure 5-3, which illustrates a reinforcing loop explains the problem faced by most reactive work cultures when it comes to developing role models who support a different type of work culture. In block 1, things break. Equipment breaks down and production is interrupted. Maintenance responds in block 2, making the quick fix and returning the equipment to service. In this environment, the fix is not reliability-based; there is no time to discover what really went wrong so that action could be taken to prevent reoccurrence in the future. As a result of this type of work culture, those who made the quick fix are praised for “saving the day” and rewarded accordingly – block 3. This behavior is often a driving force for promotion. Block 4 has the balance of the people in the organization looking for someone to emulate. They are looking for someone who represents success and shows how things need to get done around here. So who do they copy? Not the preventive maintenance foreman (if one exists) because they are not the ones who get the rewards. Instead they copy our “fire fighter” and, in block 5, the existing culture is reinforced. Therefore, when things break the cycle is once again repeated.
Figure 5-3 Example – reactive culture reinforced
Figure 5-4 Example – proactive culture reinforced
The question that needs to be answered is how do you create new role models so that the organization will emulate a different behavioral style? You must change the organization’s focus by breaking the reinforcing loop. Figure 5-4 shows that changing the second block (how the organization views and makes repairs) breaks the cycle. If you can alter how things are repaired, then rewards will be given to those who fit the new model (block 3). People will see a different definition of success and emulate it (block 4) and when things break in block 5 the organization will respond in a different manner. Therefore, role models are created, not born. You identify the behavior you want the organization to model, then place people who exhibit that behavior into jobs of importance where they can visibly demonstrate the behavior you seek and, as a result, be copied.
Figure 5-5 Cultural behavior vs. role model behavior
An important point that needs to be recognized is that the site leadership must want to make this change. Although a new culture can spring up in one that has a different focus, it will not live a very long time. The predominant model and the supporting culture will extinguish it before it has a chance to thrive.
But what if the leadership does want to make the change? In this case, the existing role models will be given a different set of expectations. They will either comply or, over time, be replaced. The other alternative, one which is used more frequently than the former, is to bring in from outside the organization people who exhibit the new cultural behavior. They remove the old role models who can not adapt to the new way of working; they promote those who have adapted. The organization then sees these new managers as successful and, in the true definition of role models, emulates them.
5.7 How Role Models Can Change a Culture
Role models are a critical part of an organization’s culture for several reasons. First, people need examples of how the organization expects them to behave in their jobs and within the larger context of the organization. Second, people want to see what success looks like so that they can model their behavior and achieve success in their own careers. Third, people also want to see the “good – bad examples” which depict clearly what the organization does not want to see in its employees. The first two reasons are positive and the third negative, but each has its place in the value of role models in the business
Roles models are needed because they are an essential and initial step in the change process. Figure 5-5 shows how role models fit and interact to help support cultural change. In this quad diagram, role models are portrayed on the y-axis as either reactive or proactive. The x-axis shows the organization’s cultural behavior, also reactive or proactive. Note that role models can and do work in both roles at different times, dependent on the status of the change initiative. The line starting in block 1 and running through blocks 3, block 2 and ending in block 4 shows how role models introduce and bring about change in a company.
Block 1 represents the current condition or baseline that is encountered when a role model is brought into a company. Usually the existing role models have a reactive focus and, as a result, so does the culture. Invariably the new role models recognize that change is needed; otherwise, they wouldn’t have been hired in the first place. They next progress to block 3 (a proactive role model in a reactive culture) where they implement a change that supports their new model for doing work.
Initially a single initiative is all that is needed. We are not trying to “build Rome in one day.” We are, however, trying to initiate long-lasting change and that must start slowly. For example, role models may mandate that a preventive maintenance program be established and not permit deviation from the schedule. Through their own behavior and through setting expectations for the organization, the role models provide guidance in how they expect work to be conducted. They do not pull the PM crews for reactive work, no matter what is happening in the plant. Furthermore, they praise those who have done the PM more then those who fight the fires.
