Skip to main content

Reasonable expectations

The other week I was talking to a production supervisor about one of the business' recent recruits. The supervisor was grumbling about a mismatch in expectations.

The new recruit had been with the business for about three months and was only running one machine. I asked what they should have been doing and the supervisor said 'at least two at once'.

From a little bit of digging it became clear that this expectation was not mentioned, or documented, anywhere. It's what everyone else did in the business, it was the culture, but it wasn't obvious to this member of staff.

Years ago I completed a project for a company that used the term 'reasonable expectations'. I liked this term as it sounds considered and based on facts. They used it to define the pace they expected their staff to work at. I think it is something that most of us could use.

Being clear about what good looks like is an essential part of good management. Defining reasonable expectations for your team's performance is part of this.

In the case outlined above, it would be really simple to tell a new member of staff that it is expected that they will be able to operate at least two machines at the same time, once they have settled in. Doing this as part of the induction process would make it even easier.

This also reminds me of the time I was asked to find out why an office worker was taking a long time to input sales orders into their ERP system. There was nothing wrong with the process and the worker in question was simply taking their time. After I explained that the process shouldn't take longer than ten minutes to complete, amazingly they were able to complete their order processing task in around eight minutes.

This was just a case of clarifying expectations and nothing to do with process improvement.


Available from Amazon, iTunes and other online stores


Can you review what you team are doing and confirm if expectations are being met?

If you find a gap, you might just have found an easy win to improve the performance and productivity of your business.

If you want some more ideas on defining expectations for your team, check out my book What Does Good Look Like?

In the meantime, keep being clear on your 'reasonable expectations',

Giles

About the author:

Giles Johnston is a Chartered Engineer who specialises in helping businesses to grow and improve through better business processes and embracing Kaizen.

Giles is also the author of Effective Root Cause Analysis and 'What Does Good Look Like?'.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

What do you think?

Popular posts from this blog

The Kaizen Checklist is here!

Do you want to get better results from your Kaizen programme? Improve your business results quickly with my downloadable kit (including guidebook, workbook and templates) for only $39. Are you looking for a sustainable way to identify and implement improvements across your business? Practical improvement strategies The Kaizen Checklist is a downloadable kit that you can use with your management team to develop a system that suits your business and allow you to quickly implement Kaizen effectively at your place of work. This works great if you use it as the centre piece of your own internal workshop. The kit includes a 40 page guidebook, a workbook, four appendices and three templates. All parts of this kit are designed to get you up and running as fast as possible. If you are unfamiliar with Kaizen, let me stress that this is a simple improvement philosophy that is so much more than just  ‘a Japanese word for continuous improvement’. I’ll cover what it...
Read more

How to get started with continuous improvement

We all know that continuous improvement is a strategy that is essential for business. It involves constantly seeking ways to improve processes, products, or services in order to achieve better results and outcomes. However, for many people, the thought of starting on the path of continuous improvement can be daunting. The fear of doing it incorrectly or not knowing where to start can be overwhelming.    The key to successful continuous improvement is to start small and gradually build upon your successes. Here are some tips to help you get started if you are unsure of how to begin:   1. Identify areas for improvement: The first step in continuous improvement is to identify the areas that need improvement. This can be done by looking at the processes, products, or services that are not performing as well as they could be. It is important to involve all stakeholders in this process to gain a comprehensive understanding of the areas that need attention.   2. Set specifi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Nail the number one improvement project

Over the past few weeks I have intervened in my client's continuous improvement programmes . I did this for one good reason: They weren't getting results. They caught the improvement bug, like so many organisations do. They got caught in the trap of wanting to change everything now! As I said, this happens to most of us from time to time. You start with some small improvements and you then identify more improvements you could get your teeth into. The next thing you know, you are trying to run ten improvement projects as well as deliver your day job. I know from bitter experience that this usually leads to having lots of loose ends rather than tangible increases in performance. So, what can you do about this? I know that with careful experimenting and resource management, you could find your sweet spot and figure out how many projects you can handle at once. Or, you can take the quick route and pare back your list until you have one priority. The one project that will give you t...
Post a Comment
Read more