“Reaching up” in a failureship culture

Quality only emerges if people care. That was one of the conclusions of Robert M. Persig’s “Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle Maintainance”. In organisations, there are two types of people. Those that care more about the organisation more than their career, and those that care more about their career than the organisation. It is clear that those who care more about their career rise faster in organisations. Between the owners at the top of the organisation and the workers at the Gemba, there is a layer of people commonly referred to as the “frozen middle”. Communication between the people at the top and the people at the gemba is controlled by the frozen middle. Information that is not to the advantage of the frozen middle tends to travel slowly if at all up the organisation, AND even slower down the organisation.

Organisations with a leadership culture establish mechanisms to allow effective communication from the bottom to the top, and across the organisation. The Andon cord in Lean Manufacturing is a mechanism for any individual on the Gemba to signal that the system is failing and needs to be stopped until it is moved back to safety.

Years ago at a wedding, a primary school teacher explained a problem they had with some children. The children were a nightmare in the class room but when the teacher spoke to the parent, the parents protested that their child was an angel at home and refused to believe the teacher. The only way to resolve the inconsistency was for the teacher to sneak the parents into school so that they could secretly observe the child. In a risk averse (parent-child) culture, the child might be perfectly behaved to the parent (Manager) but behave very badly when they are not observed by them. A common behaviour in organisations is for people to use the resources of the organisation to benefit their career at the expense of the organisation. A manager with one or more teams might divert resources to work on a “shadow backlog” in order to gain favour with a powerful stakeholder who should not have access to those resources. The manager controlling the resources in effect can benefit from building a stronger relationship with a powerful stakeholder (behave badly) by the misallocation of resources because the senior leadership has no visibility of the gemba. If a person on the gemba attempted to alert senior leadership of this activity, they are the only people who can see it after all, their career within the organisation would be at risk as they would not only upset their direct management, but also the manager’s powerful stakeholder. Obviously at some point the investment will be revealed to the organisation, however the goal is to hide the investment long enough so that the “sunk cost” is big enough that the next level up in the organisation cannot stop the investment without them appearing incompetent, with an organisation that is “out of control”.

Leaders need to create an “Andon Cord” so that workers at the Gemba can signal that the organisation has moved from safety and needs to stop so that it can move back to safety.

In a failureship, the most risky career move is to ignore the power distance index and either challenge your direct manager, or go above the head of your manager. Reducing the power distance index is only something that is possible from above, it is career limiting to attempt to reduce the power distance index from below. In other words, senior leaders can “Go to the Gemba” but those on the Gemba cannot alert senior leaders that they should “Go to the Gemba”.

Those people working at the Gemba are normally the closest to the customers, and as a result often have the best understanding of the customer. Once again, it is career limiting for someone at the Gemba to by-pass their direct manager if they disagree with them. The manager may want to build something for ideological, egotistical, or political reasons and ignore feedback from customers. For example, a manager in an energy company might build a coal fired power station even though the customers wants green energy, however the manager considers green energy to be “woke” due to their political beliefs.

Those working on the Gemba CANNOT REACH UP SAFELY in a risk averse failureship culture. Leadership need to reach down by collapsing the power distance index and by creating a number of “Andon Cords” so that those working at the Gemba can invite the leadership to go to the Gemba.

Next, what do “Andon Cords” look like in knowledge work?

Image from Swamp Thing 31 by Alan Moore, Rick Weitch and John Totleben.