Improving Maintenance and Reliability Through Cultural Change. Stephen Thomas G.
the proper structural alignment.
Chapter 12 - Group Learning
One aspect of successful cultural change is tied to how we develop goals and initiatives, how we work to accomplish them, and most importantly how we learn from our outcomes and then re-apply what we learn to enhance our future work efforts. Nothing in the world of change happens linearly. We execute, review the outcome, and then make adjustments. This chapter will explore both single and double loop learning as it relates to cultural change.
Chapter 13 - Technology
In our case, technology applies to software applications that support work processes. In the maintenance and reliability arena, these applications usually are the computerized maintenance management systems and others that support the process. Technology in this context is an integral part of the cultural infrastructure by supporting or not supporting how things get done. Technology also plays an important supporting part in the organization’s business rituals.
Chapter 14 – Communication
This chapter addresses how information flows throughout the organization. This is important because work can not be accomplished successfully without proper communication. Neither can any change in organizational culture. Communication is the heart of the matter; without it, a culture can not be altered.
Chapter 15 - Interrelationships
Like communications, interrelationships help or hinder how things are accomplished in business. This element touches all four parts of the cultural model. Our discussion in this chapter will deal with understanding interrelationships and being able to apply this understanding to changing culture.
Chapter 16 - Rewards
Everyone knows that what gets measured gets done. How we reward what gets done is equally important. If we measure to get people to pay attention to specific outcomes and then reward or reinforce appropriately, we will have increased the likelihood of these new behaviors continuing. Conversely, inappropriate rewards can have the exact opposite effect.
Chapter 17 The Web of Cultural Change
This chapter describes and explains the use of the cultural web model. This web diagram has the same spokes as that used in Successfully Managing Change in Organizations: A Users Guide. However, it is focused on the cultural aspects of the eight elements. The questions to complete the web diagram will be in the appendix and on the CD provided at the back of the book
Chapter 18 Assessment and Corrective Action
Having taken the cultural web survey and developed the diagram is only the first step. To successfully alter the culture the reader needs to conduct a cultural root cause failure analysis (C-RCFA). This will identify areas for improvement in multiple elements of the web and position the reader to make the necessary changes. This chapter will explain how this analysis is done.
Chapter 19 Moving Forward
Change is not a one-time event. If the organization is in a continuous learning mode, then it makes changes, evaluates the results, and positions itself to make further changes. This is the realm of continuous improvement or cultural evolution – always improving on what you have created. This chapter closes out the book with a brief recap of what was discussed and encouragement for the task at hand.
1.6 Navigating through the Book
Ideally this book should be read from front to back; the material is presented in a manner that provides you with information that acts cumulatively to build your understanding of organizational culture. This information includes the four elements that describe culture, the concept of vision and the Goal Achievement Model, the eight elements of change, and, finally tying it all together, a discussion of the Web of Cultural Change.
However, the reader may wish to jump around and read chapters out of order based on their immediate and specific areas of interest. For these readers I offer a road map of the book in Figure 1-1. All of the chapters are labeled as well as the way in which they tie together. This should provide you with the tool you need to navigate your way through the text.
As with any effort, getting started is often difficult. However, the value in a successful effort is well worth the time, energy, and commitment required. The reason behind this is that you are not just changing the way a process is executed, or a procedure is followed. By changing the organization’s culture, you are in essence changing the very nature of the company. This book addresses this change of culture in a general sense that can be applied across many disciplines. But more specifically, it is targeted towards changing the culture as it pertains to reliability. If we are successful in this arena, the result will be a major shift in how work is performed. In addition, a culture that is focused on equipment reliability reaps other closely-associated benefits. These include improved safety and environmental compliance. Both of these are tied closely to reliability in that reliable equipment doesn’t fail or expose a plant to potential safety and environmental issues.
Changing a culture to one focused on reliability also has spin-off benefits in many other areas. Reliability or the concept of things not breaking can easily be applied to other processes that are not related to equipment efficiency and effectiveness.
However, this type of change is very difficult. After all you are trying to alter basic beliefs and values of an organization. These are the behaviors that have been rewarded and praised in the past and may even be the reason that many in the organization were promoted to their current positions. Change may also seriously affect people’s jobs because things they did in the past may no longer be relevant in the future.
I hope that you will find this guidebook useful, not just as a place to start or as a text to provide the initial information for your effort, but also as a book which will help you through all the phases of the process and into the future. I wish you success in your efforts and offer you this quote from Nicolo Machiavelli. Read and think about the message. It clearly describes the work you are about to undertake.
“There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things, because the innovator has for enemies, all of those who have done well under the old conditions, and luke-warm defenders in those who will do well under the new.”
Figure 1-1 Book navigation
2.1 What Is Organizational Culture Anyway?
All companies want to improve and, where necessary, change the things that they feel will lead to better work processes, improved effectiveness and efficiency, and ultimately better profits. They go about this task in many and varied fashions. Often managers are replaced with those who senior management believe are more in line with what they want to achieve. Another strategy is to conduct a work process redesign, developing an “as is” process followed by the “to be” model. This redesign usually leads to restructuring, often with layoffs, and the implementation of new and different work processes. At times these companies often bring in high-powered consultants whose job it is to work with plant management to accomplish all of the steps I have described.
In my thirty-three years in industry,