Bring plant-floor zombies back to life; let them use their brains!
This blog will be somewhat short. I apologize, but I wanted to get a thought in this month. I hope that the content, as basic as it may be, sparks your interest enough to conduct some research on the subject. I hope that it eventually motivates organizational leaders to push for employee empowerment, succession planning and employee involvement.
I have had a few recent conversations with individuals on the topic of employee motivation and empowerment. I myself am very enthusiastic when it comes to these conversations because I have a great passion for building employees in the lean mentality and preparing them for larger roles. This is due partly to the fact that I experienced it myself. However, through my discussions, I have met with some pessimism on the subject.
I could be mistaken, but it appears that it is usually assumed that only 20 percent of employees in an organization are truly devoted and willing to go above and beyond requirements. In this assumption, the remaining 80 percent of the employees just want to come to work, do the bare minimums and collect a paycheck. Don’t get me wrong, there are employees that just want to do the minimum, no matter what you do to motivate them. But only 20 percent are devoted? Personally, I do not believe this; I simply cannot.
Speaking from my own experience, I was in the assumed 20 percent seven years ago when I was on the assembly line. I really was not concerned about the organization, its direction or its atmosphere. I just wanted to come to work and collect a paycheck at the end of the week. I was not inspired and was a victim of the daily grind.
This viewpoint quickly changed direction when my assembly manager started valuing my opinions on improvement ideas. A light switch was turned on. Almost instantaneously, I was motivated and energized. This eventually led to me becoming a lean change agent and earned a promotion to lean engineer.
It was not challenging for my assembly manager to motivate me. I was given the freedom to use my imagination and try unique, even “crazy” ideas. This freedom made my job exciting, and I was able to save the company plenty of money and even implement cultural tools. I believe that this would work for most people because these elements are in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Individuals need to flex their mental muscle, be part of a successful team and be recognized for the effort.
This might be all it takes to engage individuals. It’s simple and effective. People generally react positively to respect because it elevates their esteem. High esteem generates high morale, and high morale spawns overachievers. Positivity, caring and valuing the employees’ input to business decisions will entwine them deep into the organization, and this will result in a higher percentage of organizational devotion.
As I mentioned earlier, I do not believe that 80 percent of the workforce are preordained to become mediocre zombies. In fact, I believe if organizational leaders accept this as true, the organizational leaders grow to become the mediocre zombies themselves. The light switch can be flipped in everyone. The challenge lies in how to flip it.
I will write more on this subject soon. Thanks for all the support and e-mails. Please leave comments or e-mail me. Thanks.
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Filed Under: Featured, Featured Category, Lean Manufacturing | Tags: change management, Lean Manufacturing, maintenance management, People Management
Comments
By Torri Logan on June 29th, 2010 at 8:55 am
I agree with the article’s content 100%. I am a firm believer that anything you do to or for someone, you do to or for yourself. If you raise the level of creativity or enthusiasm in someone, you have done it for yourself, if you do nothing for anyone, then you do nothing for yourself either. Just as in the Masonic Folklore, it only takes ONE word to wake the dead, what will that word be? It is managment and organizational leaders to figure it out. They will be glad they did.
By Terry Pitts on June 29th, 2010 at 9:00 am
Great point. It takes leadership to risk implementing ideas and making possible mistakes. Often the choice is to play it safe. The front line folks are smart, work it every day, and know their stuff. Not everyone will move on to promotions but to make the job easier and create some ownership while saving money and eliminating waste will only encourage more.
By Debbie Zmorenski on July 28th, 2010 at 10:54 am
Hello Eric:
I enjoyed your article immensely! You are absolutely right to say that the majority of people in an organization want to be involved. I have persoanlly experienced how people can come alive when finally empowered and included in the business. While working for the Walt Disney World laundries (Textile Services at Walt Disney World), I was fortunate enough to have been part of a management team charged with changing the culture of the laundry plants from that of a highly directive culture where employees were told what to do and punished when they made mistakes, to one of enablement where the employees planned the work for the day, trouble-shooted routine challenges, and dealt with the customers directly.
The transformation in the employees’ attitudes was amazing! They came to genuinely care about the business and held not only themselves accountable, but one another as well. Gone was the apathy and the fuel for the trouble makers.
It was never nirvana, but it was pretty darn close.
Great article.
Very few maintained the “old” mentality
By Andre Collins on September 28th, 2010 at 8:37 am
One of the most important thing is to create a learning environment by having those that are weak in various area be train. So to wake up their sleeping minds, is to start to train them in a new department,companies must look within them selfs and see if they are the ones that created this stagnation in the first place.
Remember that a lot of worker have a wealth of knowledge some even have Masters,PHD,ect.And with so many learnt minds companies must try to open new areas for the staff to explores, and therefore this will wake up a lot of individual to do greater on their jobs.