Improving Maintenance and Reliability Through Cultural Change. Stephen Thomas G.
behaviors within the business.
For example, a company states for the record that safety is its most important value, taking precedence above all else. Yet the company’s safety record is deplorable, it has no real safety program, and everyone knows that safety takes second place to production. This obvious mismatch of the value system with actual behavior tells people that their leadership doesn’t “walk the talk.” The result is confusion and a loss of credibility. Remember that values are there to guide the decision-making process of the group. What happens to this company when employees are confronted with a safety issue that will cause a loss of production? Some will interrupt production to be safe – the expressed value, yet others may not and the result could be catastrophic.
Meet Resistance
The last area where values have gone astray is when they are resisted by the organization even though they are the correct thing to do. In this case, something is happening within the organization to cause the resistance. This area is the most difficult one to address because resistance is not the root of the problem. Instead, it is a symptom of something else that needs to be addressed. If there is resistance to replacing an obsolete value with something better, why would people not want to change for the better? If the resistance is tied to efforts made to consistently apply values or to correct mismatches, why would people fight alignment? After all, alignment would help them make the correct decisions when faced with numerous choices.
The simple answer is that people do not like change. It removes them from their comfort zone and puts them in unfamiliar and uncomfortable territory. If resistance is to be overcome and the new values are to be institutionalized, then time will be required for people to readjust their comfort zones.
Figure 4-1 Vision vs. values
Vision and value systems go hand-in-hand. As shown in Figure 4-1, without proper implementation and changes to the value system, a new vision will run into trouble. Similarly, trying to institute a new value system within an old or outdated vision will have problems.
Quadrant 1 – Old Values and Old Vision
This quadrant represents the status quo. The old vision is supported by an equally old value system. The combination may work for now, but problems are on the horizon. As the competition improves, a company in this quadrant doesn’t.
Quadrant 2 – New Values and Old Vision
This quadrant represents the case of trying to change the value system within an old or outdated vision of the business. In this case, the internal cultural pressures will defeat the new value system regardless of the benefits that may have been included. This scenario will be discussed in Section 4.7.
Quadrant 3 – Old Values and New Vision
In this quadrant, a new vision is attempted without taking the necessary time and effort to change the values. This case of the vision and the value system being out of alignment will be addressed in Section 4.6.
Quadrant 4 – New Values and New Vision
In this case, the vision and the values are in alignment. They support each other and with proper implementation successful change will be the outcome.
4.6 When Values Are Out of Alignment with the Vision (Quadrant 3)
The old organizational values are out of alignment and need adjustment when they are in conflict with the company’s vision. This isn’t always obvious because values are not something we constantly think about as we go about our jobs. Values are deep within us. They govern how we work and, as stated earlier, they are there when needed to make the critical decisions that make our businesses successful.
How do we know that our values are out of alignment? The answer is when we see that the goals, initiatives, and activities associated with the Goal Achievement Model do not seem to work or reach successful conclusion. The work of the Goal Achievement Model is to promote the vision throughout the organization so that each level is engaged and can clearly see its contribution. When this isn’t working, there is clear misalignment between the vision and what people are doing. Because the values of the organization essentially dictate how we make decisions, the conclusion is that the vision is out of alignment with the values.
Years ago I helped facilitate a work redesign from a reactive maintenance process to a work process in which the work was planned and scheduled on a weekly basis. In the reactive mode, the organization assigned planners, foremen, and work crews to each of the several production areas. The planner job was essentially to assist the foreman as they went about the day-to-day work. Planning was non-existent. The foreman and the work crew were there to respond to the daily needs of production. Because there was only minimal planning, work was never ready for the crews. It was never materialized properly and a considerable amount of productive time was lost.
The new process assigned a planner to each work area, but their new job was to actually plan the work. Once the plan was completed, production selected the work for the next week. That work was then scheduled and work crews were assigned from a central pool. The foremen and the crews no longer worked in a specific area, they worked on the important jobs, regardless of where they were located in the plant.
This was a new and different vision for both production and maintenance. We thought we had created a process that would severely reduce reactive maintenance because we had taken away the ability of the foremen to respond in this manner. We were wrong!
We changed the work process and created a new maintenance vision, but we did not change the core values which were:
•Production felt severe discomfort if any of its equipment was having a problem and not being repaired quickly. The reason behind this discomfort was a history of punishment for production loss and a lack of confidence in maintenance.
•The maintenance foremen felt severe discomfort because the tie with their production area had been broken. They no longer felt committed to any one area because they were never in any area long enough to feel committed.
•The former reward structure was missing for both organizations. Production managers did not receive praise for getting the pump that was not functioning in the morning running by the end of the shift. The foremen did not receive praise from the production counterparts for saving the day.
As a result of the work process change, we had taken a great many people out of their comfort zone. We had caused a major misalignment between the new work process and the existing values of those who we were asking to follow it. The organization reacted in a way that restored alignment with their value system.
•The level of emergency work went up as production forced response to the crisis-of-the-day (whether or not it really was a crisis).
•The few unit mechanics that were assigned to the operating areas for minor jobs began working jobs that were far from minor.
•The foremen working a planned job would divert their crews to other work requested, without approval to change the plan.
•Management failed to address these issues, indicating by lack of action that what was taking place was acceptable.
Needless to say the work process change failed as everyone continued to work within the value system under which they had worked most of their lives.
The scenario above takes place quite often in many of our businesses for the exact reason cited in the example. What can we do about it?