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One thing I know from experience: when people are given a chance to participate in creating something good, solving a problem, and play a role in adding value through the use of their mind, hands, and heart, good things happen. Indeed, morale increases and a type of magic takes place – a feeling joy can be seen in people’s faces.
When I lead Kaizen and encourage others to participate and, over time, as I take a smaller role and “allow them to increase while I decrease”, I have seen people blossom. Indeed, experiencing humans develop is a very cool thing and I’m so fortunate to have helped others grow.
I found this poster on someone’s wall.
For the record, I don’t agree with the its message. But, the poster is an indictment of most businesses and organizations that preach one thing, but behave completely contrary to the development of the individual and team.
The poster is a satirical commentary on most businesses; a dilbert-ian commentary on what you and I experience in world of work.
What do you think? Do you agree or disagree? What is your experience?
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{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
My take – thinking by employees is vital – thinking differently than leadership is dangerous. Employee happiness seems to be rather unimportant to most of the leaders I encounter around the office.
blog post: A Mindless Worker is a Happy Worker http://tinyurl.com/yhfclzf
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
RT @shmula: blog post: A Mindless Worker is a Happy Worker http://tinyurl.com/yhfclzf
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Pete, I would like to echo your feelings of joy when seeing another person develop in front of you. Being able to play a small part in that process is an honor and a privilege, and is the reason why I seek to make a career out of being a Lean coach.
Unfortunately, the leaders of so many organizations have either never felt that joy, have forgotten about it, or are distracted from it by short-term concerns. I say that because so few leaders seem to show that love for developing people.
In Lean Thinking, we use the phrase “value-add” and then qualify that term as taken from the “customer’s perspective.” While that might be true, it’s not concrete enough and is actually difficult to understand.
I am reminded of something my older brother taught me a long time ago. He said simply (I’m paraphrasing):You will be financially fine if you can make people’s jobs easier or make money for a company or make things cheaper for a company.He’s right. All those elements add value. I’ve chosen to expand upon what he said and share the items below as practical tips to add value.
I believe what my brother taught me is still right: if you do some of the things below really well, you will likely be always in demand and be financially just fine.
In summary,Increase: Revenue, Profit, Growth, Market, Share, Retention, ROA or ROI, Efficiency, Cash Flow, VisibilityReduce: Cost, Time/Effort, Complaints, Risk, Turnover, Conflict, PaperworkImprove: Productivity, Process, Service, Information, Morale, Image, Reputation, Skills, Quality, LoyaltyCreate: Strategy, System, Process, Business, Product, Service, BrandThanks for the inspiration.
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This comment was originally posted on shmula
Well, that is what Mark Graban would call L.A.M.E. I prefer to think of TPS as the Thinking People System. So I agree this is all wrong. I can’t believe that was posted somewhere.
I couldn’t have said it better myself – it’s magic – both growing yourself as well as see other grow. I just whished it happended more often..
It’s magic to see the most defensive people change once they are given the responsibility to think and decide within changes.
A bigger plus is if the are feeling heared; in that way the biggest NO can turn into an even bigger YES.
That’s clearly a joke poster (the heads are characters from the show Futurama).
That said, it’s no joke that many organizations tell their employees to check their brains at the door. This is usually never said explicitly in a modern workplace, but the message gets through anyway.
I heard “check your brain at the door” sentiments in the auto industry (1990′s) and healthcare (the past few years). It’s sad in either environment.
I had a nurse tell me once how her bosses told her to quit trying to improve processes, just do your work.
What a waste.
I hesitate to even bring up how extreme this “check your brain at the door” mentality can be in the construction industry. I’ve known construction managers who have supervised construction crews for months on end without having a real conversation with anybody except for maybe the team leads. They often blame it on language barriers or something lame like that, but I think it boils down to lack of respect for the employees’ ability to say something important. So sad that so many people toil away for years on end and are only known as “strong-backs” or “warm bodies.”
Read and commented on a post from @shmula Leadership – Happy Employees | shmula – http://lnbg.us/18L
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
I 100% agree. The factors that atually make people happy and motivate them don’t include “mindless work”. I actually wrote about it recent article Motivating People Without Money:
http://theleanwayconsulting.blogspot.com/2010/03/motivating-employees-without-money.html
I love the posts!
Ankit
RT @shmula A Mindless Worker is a Happy Worker http://tinyurl.com/ygmbx98
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Software industry is considered as knowledge based industry and every one is expected to think and are expected to be knowledgable. However, I have seen that in larger companies heavy weight processes are created to reduce the problems and employees are forced to just follow the process. This would lead employees to check in their brains at the door
This is also true in Indian Industries, we preach and enforce diff things. http://www.shmula.com/1822/a-mindless-worker-is-a-happy-worker
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
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This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Thank you for the inclusion. Great list.
Jamie
This comment was originally posted on Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog
I believe it was Ford who said, “why do I keep getting full people when all I want is hands.” This is an encouraging post as I believe we are seeing the re-humanization of the workforce. Creativity, passion and connection are increasingly more important in our complex world. In a lot of ways companies still need to transcend the industrial revolution’s heritage in terms of recognizing employees.
Thank you for this article. I’m currently a temporary employee, and going brain dead at my assignment. The work is mindless and tedious, and I get depressed as soon as I begin my day. Actually, I get depressed just at the thought of having to go to work, so it’s constant. I’m unable to focus and it’s taking me forever to finish because I can’t tolerate the boredom. I thought I was being too picky, and perhaps too proud because I know I’m capable of so much more. (And, I was trying to \straighten\ out my bad attitude because I should be grateful to have a job.) But, I am an intelligent woman who needs stimulating and challenging work!! I called my agency and told them to replace me. I know this will sound foolish, but I’d rather be homeless than do mindless work. So, yeah, I guess I agree:)