Participative management takes effort

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Dear Joan:
The plant I work in and the area the plant is located in is rich in tradition. The new push by the company leaders has been toward more participative management. This has involved pushing more authority and responsibility down toward the front lines. The effort to promote participative management has also included trying to get the represented employees to take a more active role in the decisions being made that affect the day-to-day operations of the plant.

The problem as I see it is that the employees regard this as another attempt by management to break up the union or get the employees to do more. Some seem to go as far as suspecting management of setting them up to be blamed if anything goes wrong, no matter who's at fault.

A variety of systems have also been installed to streamline the paper work and schedule maintenance work. The following have resulted: productivity is down; morale is at an all-time low, front line supervisors appear to be so fed up that they just don't care anymore; quality communication has degraded. At the same time, everyone feels that they need to know everything that is going on; people are beginning to protect their little kingdoms.

My problem, in this wonderful world of change, is how to get anything done. As engineers, we provide technical assistance, manage projects and evaluate plant performance. Since we are management, the represented employees view us as "one of them."

We have no supervisory authority. Any work we request or oversee is subject to political eddies occurring within the supervisory ranks. When the projects go over budget or come in months late (nobody would work on it) upper management fails to take any action to correct the deficiencies in the system. We hear "When will it be done?" asked with little attention paid to the answer. How do we do a good job in this environment?

Answer:
Imagine, if you can, growing up with parents who control your every move, expect to control every decision, enforce strict rules and expect complete obedience. Then one day, their mood changes completely and they suddenly expect you to come forward with your opinion and be participative. They want you to make your own decisions and tell you it's better if you solve your own problems. Your reaction would be: "Where's the catch? This must be a trap! They must want something big from me if they're being this nice to me!"

That is how employees feel when a company decides to implement a participative philosophy suddenly, without adequate understanding developed through communication and training. Companies who think that all they have to do is to say, "Let's become more participative!" have a lot to learn.

Words are cheap. Employees watch where the budget is spent; whose wrists get slapped; who gets promoted; what rules are enforced. Unfortunately, what top management says and what they do are often two different things. They say, "Why don't you meet together to solve your own day-to-day problems," yet, when a group comes up with an idea they want to try, their bosses say, "We'll run it past management for approval" or "Prove that will save us enough money to make that worth our while, then we might try it." They beat new ideas to death and everyone watching gets the message loud and clear.

Although the bottom line cost savings are very important, employees who are learning to self-manage must start somewhere. Unless you let your employees test your promise to let them have some authority on the little stuff, they won't go any further. And little stuff adds up to be big stuff; big money saved and big morale gains. To expect employees to learn how to participate in decision-making without a huge re-training effort is naive. And the union leadership needs to be brought in on the goals and the implementation planning, so they can buy in.

The linking pin in a change effort such as this is the supervisors and middle managers. Employee participation is a threat to their hard-earned power. Unless your company takes major steps toward educating them about their new roles and what is expected, your company's efforts will continue to backfire. The company must pay close attention to who gets rewarded with money, promotions and recognition to send a strong and visible signal that they mean what they say about change. An outside organizational expert might be needed, since they are probably too close to the situation to realize the conflicting signals they are sending.

As engineers, you are in a key role. Visit the companies who have won the Malcolm Baldridge Award for quality. Watch how the engineers work like a swat team. Work teams call them in as consultants to help them with their projects...not the other way around. Take some of the most influential managers with you on these visits and with a little luck, your company will realize that the journey to true employee participation is hard work but worth every bump in the road.

Would you like to bridge the commitment gap with your employees?   We provide management consulting, executive coaching and customized, skills-based training for managers and supervisors, that changes behavior, creates a healthy culture and builds a customer-focused team.  Call us today at (800) 348-1944.