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Not Respecting the Front Line Workers
August 8, 2007

Road Commission under fire - mlive.com:

One of the two pillars of the Toyota Production System is "respect for people." It's a shame that we have to work on something so basic and fundamental, as this, but respect is often lacking -- from manager to employee or in the other direction. The news story I've linked to is from a county road commission in Michigan, the article says, in part:

"...the Road Commission's middle management had little respect for their employees who do the front-line work. County Commissioner Mark Ouiment, R-Scio Township, said employees and retirees are being 'treated badly'' by management."

The article didn't elaborate on how that played out on a day-to-day basis, but it's sad to see even the allegations, but it's not uncommon, is it?  I've seen the lack of respect for workers play out in many different ways throughout my career.  I've had manufacturing employees complain to me that management, for many decades, had told them to "check their brain at the door."  A technician in a hospital laboratory told me once, "I feel like a robot" because she just ran automated test instruments and didn't get much of a chance to think -- nobody ever asked her about how to improve the workplace.  This is all sad and has less to do with our particular industry than it has to do with human nature and the state of our managment education methods.

Having respect for your employees doesn't necessarily mean "being nice" all the time. Sometimes respect means we challenge people to do better, in a constructive way, we hold people accountable.  Going back to Dr. Deming, he always talked about the need to listen to employees and to understand their work.  Thinking, "well those people just put cars together," is a very disrespectful view.  Have you ever walked a mile (or worked an hour) in their shoes?

Have you tried working on the "Respect for People" side of Lean in your workplace? If so, how have you tried to influence behavior or set expectations for what Respect means? Click comments to share your thoughts.

Posted by Mark Graban on August 8, 2007 | Comments (0)