15
When Process Gets in the Way

For many people, it seems as though process has become a dirty word, something to be avoided at all costs. The technology security and electronic medical records companies I mentioned in the opening chapter are prime examples. In both companies, experienced executives could see the need for process improvement in order to achieve efficiencies, but they were also fearful of binding the organization and stifling creativity. Some of the most experienced managers in these two companies had escaped overly bureaucratic and process-intensive organizations that had limited both creativity and initiative, and they had no intention of bringing that kind of restrictive thinking to their cool, fast-moving companies.

We have probably all experienced bureaucratic processes that seem somewhere between mindless and useless. The example from Chapter 2 about the state of California enforcing obsolete practices and out-of-date laws would seem to represent in spades what these executives fear. Who wants to take on the burden of repetitive processes that have outlived their usefulness?

Sometimes processes or other organizational rules need to be reengineered or set aside altogether. I remember meeting a lovely gentleman who owned a couple of black cabs in London. One day while driving me to Heathrow, Harry told me that English law still requires cabbies to carry a bale of hay in the boot, and they do not have to accept fares longer than six miles. Why? Because you just can’t overwork that horse with such long fares, and you do need to stop and feed the poor bugger every once in a while. Cute, I suppose. Obviously, no one bothers with enforcing any regulation that blatantly outdated, but this example harks back to our earlier discourse about start, stop, and continue. Let’s agree that six-mile fare restrictions and bales of hay belong in the “stop” bucket.

On either side of the ocean, what happens when you encounter burdensome processes that serve only to impede progress? What if the process actually works against its intended purpose? Again, it is important to think about original intent and keep in mind that the process you now find burdensome probably served a useful purpose at some point. The compliance process of the state of California had its roots in prudent financial-management practices. It just needed to be updated. Care and feeding of your horses makes sense as well, but we’d be safe to scrap that one from the procedures for modern-day taxi fleets.

Following are a pair of rich examples of processes that hindered and two very different workarounds.

THE IRREVERENT (BUT EFFECTIVE) MUSICIAN

This is one of the riskier versions of seeking forgiveness rather than approval. If you wish to implement anything this bold in your own job, you will need to be extremely confident in the outcome, as well as extremely willing to bear the wrath of potentially unforgiving managers. Make certain your résumé is current if you want to follow a similar path!

Evan Taubenfeld is a 25-year-old guitarist and instrumentalist who is flat-out not willing to let process get in the way of success—even if it is a “tried-and-true” process that has withstood “the test of time.” In fact, Evan could be the spokesperson for challenging conventional wisdom. After several years of playing and writing music for other groups, he broke out with his debut solo album in May 2010. He says of himself:

For the first time in my career, I’m not hiding behind anyone else, whether it be as a guitarist or drummer in someone else’s band, or being the writer and producer. I’ve been sitting on the sidelines waiting for this for so long. I’m like that kid on the basketball team who is pretty good but rides the bench the entire season for three years until finally, the coach is like, “You’re in. Don’t screw this up.” It’s Chapter One of the story of my life.

I caught up with Evan on a particularly cool day, one that was revealing of both the kind of determination (intention, responseability, and commitment) he embodies and the kind of playful irreverence that has enabled him to continue climbing to the top of his musical genre.

Evan, under contract to Warner Music, put it this way: “Workarounds are the day-to-day life experience for a single entity tied to a large, bureaucratic record label.” As irreverent as that may sound, he went on to display a level of wisdom and insight most of us would cherish.

He noted that there are important interests driving large record labels, and they are perfectly understandable. He also understands that while these companies might have developed a number of processes over the years that used to create value, some of those processes just don’t work well with the current music scene and the way younger music fans find and buy music.

As he said, “These guys have some incredible strengths. The only problem is that sometimes those strengths turn into their greatest obstacles.” Evan is on a mission to loosen up the industry so it can thrive in the next iteration of music supply and demand, as well as to have fun making music and getting it out to his fans. He is well aware of the differing interests between those on the front lines and those who work on the back end. The artists, the music scouts from various record labels who troll clubs every evening looking for talent, and the music fans are all about getting the right music out as fast as possible, while the VPs of marketing, sales, and distribution are all about following those “tried-and-true” processes that got them where they are now.

Here’s a related example of how misalignment produces conflict:

Let’s flip the calendar back to December 2009. Evan dashed off what he thought was a funny song that referenced country-music star Taylor Swift, naming the tune “Merry Swiftmas (Even Though I Celebrate Chanukah).” It’s a playful song to Santa asking if the singer could have Taylor Swift for Christmas. He wrote the song and recorded it in a day. For the heck of it, he put it up on YouTube on December 7, with a still shot instead of a video, and tweeted the song to Taylor Swift, who responded, “This made me smile.”

Well, it made a lot of their fans smile as well, capturing tens of thousands of views in just a couple of hours. Evan thought this was pretty cool, and even though his contract did not permit him to even post the song as he had, he then went on to create a music video the next day and posted that as well. The Internet went nuts, with more than 500,000 people watching the video and hearing the song. No two ways about it, this song resonated with a whole bunch of people. Thousands of requests came pouring in from fans asking where they could buy it. All this in two days.

Evan contacted his folks at Warner, asking that they release the song immediately on iTunes. They weren’t exactly pleased. It hadn’t gone through the “tried-and-true” process. No one had tested it for market acceptance or otherwise checked to see if it would work. Then again, it was hard to ignore 500,000 fans. Well, not that hard, actually. After a lot of back-and-forth, with Evan going so far as to say, “Just get it out—I don’t even need to be paid—just get it out,” Warner came back and said it would release the song on December 29. Why December 29? More “tried-and-true” internal processes had to be followed, coupled with the fact that the company’s standard practice of releasing new music on Tuesdays pointed toward Tuesday, December 29.

Hello? Did anyone at Warner notice this was a Christmas song? Even though Warner executives had the capability of getting the song out by the second week of December, they finally released it on December 22. Results? It sold more downloads than all of his previously released music combined, music that had undergone the “tried-and-true” process of testing, refining, market research, and beyond. In fact, “Merry Swiftmas” became his first song to crack the Billboard top-selling list for “hot country.”

According to Evan, had he gone through the normal “process,” the label wouldn’t have been able to cobble together a budget, let alone an actual release, before the season was long over. Why did he tell Warner he didn’t need to be paid? Because he was more interested in having fans gain access to his music, fans who then might want to go to one of his shows, buy a T-shirt, and download even more music from iTunes.

Hard to fathom why Warner wouldn’t want to follow the lead of someone who so clearly understands his market and who is clearly so much closer to the customer than any analyst sitting in an office somewhere in L.A. However, the story continues. Three months later, Evan sent copies of a new song he had just cut to 10 of the top radio stations in the country. Evan thinks this will be the lead song on his new album. Warner isn’t so sure and wants to debate, study, and otherwise apply its standard process to this song as well.

Evan merrily sidestepped the process again, and the song got immediate play in the most popular time slots. Why? Because people everywhere knew him from his Christmas song. The radio stations soon were fielding a plethora of excited calls from fans asking where they could buy it. Bitter news: they can’t buy the song because the process hasn’t caught up yet.

Unless, of course, Evan has just invented a new process.

LET THEM INVENT THE WORKAROUND

My good friend Michael Winston has spent his career helping large organizations manage significant change in aerospace, technology, and financial services. Michael is both a psychologist and an M.B.A., so I always highly respect his insights. When I asked him to summarize the lessons, he did not hesitate for a second: “People do not like changes made to them but don’t mind changes made by them. Just be sure to give them criteria with meaning and oversight.” How’s that for simple, direct, and to the point?

You may remember my friend Irwin Carasso from Chapter 4, the title of which says it all: how you frame the problem is the problem. Following is a great example of how someone else helped him see a puzzle and its solution, one that involved changing a process so that his workers would be better off. The change also produced an unexpected and very positive customer benefit.

In the early days of Tree of Life, the natural foods distribution company, Irwin had difficulty retaining people in certain positions. In particular, his order packers would turn over rather quickly. I had been working with Irwin and his employees on engagement and motivation issues, but I completely missed this wonderfully insightful workaround idea.

Order packers dragged tape machines, packing paper, and boxes from pallet to pallet around the warehouse, making certain that product count was accurate and then preparing the order for shipment and finally creating the bill of lading. No one seemed to care for the job. High turnover led to order inaccuracy and poorly packaged goods that sometimes arrived damaged.

A computer programmer and friend of Irwin’s watched the order packers one day and offered an observation about why people would leave so quickly. He told Irwin that the job lacked dignity—dragging equipment around the shop floor seemed more like itinerant work and failed to give the workers a sense of belonging anywhere. The programmer suggested that Irwin give them their own work area and have the orders brought to them for packing.

Taking a cue from the engagement work we were doing, along with the suggestion from his programmer friend, Irwin sat down with the order packers over lunch one day and asked them what they thought about the idea. The order packers came up with even more ideas from the control side of the equation that both streamlined the job and made it more enjoyable to them.

Here’s what transpired, in Irwin’s own words:

We followed the combination of advice from my computer friend and that of the packers, creating a separate packing station. My packers stayed for years (they were still there when I sold the company 10 years later). They trained and apprenticed their new employees to make sure all orders were packed and counted properly. The packing team took considerable pride in their work and often held meetings on their own to keep improving the process.

One day, I got a call from a large customer in New Orleans, the Whole Food Company. The owner was Peter Roy, who later went on to become president of the Whole Foods chain. He called to tell me about the incredible quality of our orders, including the accuracy of each order and, in particular, the packaging. He told me that in the whole last year, he had not received one damaged product.

What a lovely and powerful story. Faced with a big turnover problem along with order inaccuracy and damaged goods in shipping, Irwin was able to solve several problems by the act of engaging the employees in the solution. In my consulting career, I cannot tell you how many times incredibly creative solutions have come from people on the front lines. It’s unfortunate that more often than not, management tends to view the front line as cogs in the machine more interested in the paycheck than performance improvement.

Try engaging those on the line when performance issues arise and you may well find any number of workarounds. This advice may turn out to be particularly helpful when the process seems to be the problem. You may be surprised to discover just how many process improvements these folks can bring to bear—you just have to ask!

RELOCATE THE PROCESS

The following case has to do with a time-consuming and cumbersome decision process. The quality of decision wasn’t the issue, nor was it the people making the decision (both of which had been under attack until a new program manager showed up).

In Chapter 9, we talked about the kind of negative decision making that many people employ, taking aim more often at what’s wrong with an option than at how to move forward. In this case, the team was forward focused.

As it turned out, the real issue had to do with where decisions were being made, which greatly influenced how they were being made and how long it took to arrive at a solution! This example is a follow-on to one featured in Chapter 10. I’ll set the scene again for you in the first three paragraphs before proceeding.

In the mid-1990s the U.S. Air Force commissioned a new, powerful missile-defense weapon that would require the development of a complex new technology. The prime contractor, Airco, had extensive experience building aircraft, while Satco had equal experience building space vehicles and advanced technologies. Their combined expertise looked like a perfect match for the new weapon system, which was to be deployed from aircraft in flight.

The multibillion-dollar program initially targeted testing in the early 2000s and full deployment by 2009. As is often the case in the aerospace world, the program ran into numerous schedule delays, some related to the complex technologies involved and some having more to do with relationships between the two contractors and the customer.

The initial test finally took place in 2007, several years late, but at least it worked. The customer agreed to go forward but with a much sharper focus on timing and budget for the second test. Among the most troubling issues that contributed to the multiple delays the first time around were inadequacies in information sharing, decision making, and communication. That would be par for the course. Just about every organization I have ever worked with endures some version of these three problem areas within its leadership and management ranks.

One part of the inner workings of the program that had held back performance the first time had to do with how the team resolved problems as they arose. In the trade, they call these problems “nonconformance issues.” Typically, nonconformance issues required involvement and sign-off from 15 or so different specialists from the customer, Airco, and Satco. The groups were located in different cities miles apart from one another.

In itself, passing the information along to multiple sites would have been challenge enough. When you add to that three subteams, each needing to coordinate with others, the scheduling challenges for getting together created huge delays. The upshot was that each issue required an average of 76.5 days to resolve. When delays are measured in minimum increments of one million bucks per day, you can imagine that soon, you could be talking about serious money. Oh, and did I mention there were more than 2,000 nonconformance issues!

The quality of decisions and resolutions, as previously stipulated, was seldom the rub. It just took forever to resolve anything because of the geographic and scheduling nightmares. As the team on the ground brainstormed options to accelerate the schedule, it hit on a brilliant if not inexpensive answer: hire the 15 specialists specifically for the program and locate them literally outside the door of the aircraft, so that when an engineer discovered a problem, all he or she had to do was walk down the stairs and over to the conference room where the team was housed.

This idea virtually eliminated any challenges associated with scheduling across three organizations or handing off data back and forth across locales. Average time for resolution shrank from 76.5 days to 4.5 days. Hmm. Let’s see, 2,000 issues × 76.5 days versus 2,000 issues × 4.5 days. The math sort of speaks for itself. Of course, it took some selling to get approval for another $4 million to $5 million in budget and head count. However, given just a little bit of math, the program manager was able to convince the brass that even if he cut the time only by half, the money would be more than well spent.

Well spent, indeed!

THEY JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND THAT THEY DON’T UNDERSTAND

Have you ever been in a situation in which you had discrete knowledge on how something worked but were obliged to abide by processes or decisions from someone lacking the same knowledge? The following reflects just that kind of disconnect.

Deborah works as a senior buyer of complex electronic goods used in certain defense systems. Much of her career has been with electronics firms. Her current employer, however, has a long history of manufacturing mechanical goods and therefore has employed buyers who negotiate contracts for mechanical goods. That also means it has processes geared toward mechanical purchasing requirements.

The buying processes for mechanical goods are very different from the buying processes for electronics, especially when your final product is destined to spin around in space. Deborah was hired because of her deep expertise in buying electronics that meet what in the trade is referred to as “mil-spec,” short for “military specifications.” Suffice it to say that mil-spec is precise, very precise. Especially for equipment that will eventually make its way into orbit.

Deborah’s current challenge has to do with educating her purchasing organization on the ins and outs of buying electronics to mil-spec. Since no one else in the company has electronics milspec history, Deborah gets involved in purchasing everything from million-dollar contracts to five-dollar parts. The larger purchasing organization, which monitors how she spends her time, is currently agitated about how many hours she spends on buying small parts. As a level-three buyer, she is expected to focus on larger contracts, leaving the small potatoes to junior buyers.

Unfortunately, the company does not have junior buyers who understand what it takes to comply with mil-spec purchases. Does the phrase catch-22 come to mind?

The good news is that the managers of the process organization (Six Sigma) understand that they need to develop processes that work for mil-spec electronics. However, since Deborah is the only person who understands what is required, the Six Sigma group needs her time and expertise to build the processes. It follows that when she is spending time on developing processes, she is not spending time on million-dollar contracts.

What do you do when you have multiple catch-22s? What Deborah will need to do in order to smooth out the dilemma is to first understand the various silos and what their residents’ marching orders are. Then she will need to organize a summit, similar to that mentioned in Chapter 7 on silos.

COMMON WORKAROUND THEMES

The common threads that connect the musician, the packer, the aerospace team, and the mil-spec buyer all have to do with bringing solutions closer to the people who experience the problem and the opportunity firsthand. Too often it happens that processes and procedures start with information that emanates from people in direct contact with the challenge and then migrate over to specialists who have little or no contact whatsoever with the actual circumstances being addressed.

Much has been written on why process-improvement efforts come up short, with the most common theme being “resistance” to change by the people involved. My mentor used to tell me that resistance was typically a lack of understanding and that if you encountered resistance, the workaround was to develop understanding. Once people understand, they can usually go along.

Michael Winston’s observation that “people do not like changes made to them but don’t mind changes made by them” holds considerable weight here.

In the examples cited, the crux had less to do with what needed to be changed and more to do with who was in the best position to know. Irwin’s packers were originally hired to do a job and then told how to perform the task. The instructions and processes all made sense from a management point of view, but not to the actual person who had to perform the task.

In the Airco and Satco example, executives far removed from the manufacturing facility reasoned that scientists and experts located at their respective HQs would be best suited to figure out resolutions. Of course, these executives were looking at the accuracy of resolutions, not the timing of resolutions. Asking the engineers on the ground what they needed was the impetus for a practical workaround that preserved the effectiveness of the resolutions but appreciably accelerated the timeliness factor.

In Deborah’s case, the purchasing department does not fully understand the complexities of mil-spec and therefore needs expertise to guide its decisions. However, the group that understands the need for guidance is removed from the group monitoring how time is spent. When Deboarh devotes effort to helping develop the processes that will benefit everyone over time, she also gets dinged by the very group that hired her for her expertise.

When you’re confounded by roadblocks, delays, low morale, or a host of other performance imbroglios, it may be best to stop and ask those on the front lines what the problem looks like from their vantage point. I realize that this qualifies as a pretty lowtech workaround, but it may just be the low-hanging fruit you’re looking for. Too often in my experience, management spends considerable time and resources in conference rooms looking for complex, high-tech solutions when simple and effective solutions are staring them in the face. These solutions can often be had by simply engaging those who perform the work, where they perform the work.

FORM YOUR OWN SKUNK WORKS

If you are being waylaid by someone or something in your attempt to get something meaningful done, you may need to form your own version of a Skunk Works.

What’s a Skunk Works, you ask? According to bnet.com, the term refers to “a fast-moving group, working at the edge of the organization structure, which aims to accelerate the innovation process without the restrictions of organizational policies and procedures. Skunk Works can operate unknown to an organization or with its tacit acceptance. With the organization’s acceptance, Skunk Works can be an extreme form of intrapreneurialism.” The term was popularized by Tom Peters and Nancy Austin in A Passion for Excellence (1985).”

Fast-moving—that’s the point, isn’t it? You want to accelerate the process, to get something done that matters, to accomplish something of consequence. There are dozens of examples of Skunk Works that work, beginning with how the original concept was first applied at Lockheed Aircraft Corporation and continuing on to even more unconventional approaches to getting things done.

The Lockheed-Martin website provides this explanation:

The Skunk Works® was formed in June of 1943 in Burbank, Calif. The Air Tactical Service Command (ATSC) of the Army Air Force met with Lockheed to express its need for a jet fighter. A rapidly growing German jet threat gave Lockheed an opportunity to develop an airframe around the most powerful jet engine that the allied forces had access to, the British Goblin. Lockheed was chosen to develop the jet because of its past interest in jet development and its previous contracts with the Air Force. One month after the ATSC and Lockheed meeting, a young engineer by the name of Clarence L. “Kelly” Johnson and other associate engineers hand delivered the initial XP-80 proposal to the ATSC. Two days later the go-ahead was given to Lockheed to start development and the Skunk Works was born, with Kelly Johnson at the helm.

The formal contract for the XP-80 did not arrive at Lockheed until October 16, 1943, some four months after work had already begun. This would prove to be a common practice within the Skunk Works. Many times a customer would come to the Skunk Works with a request and on a handshake the project would begin, no contracts in place, no official submittal process. Kelly Johnson and his Skunk Works team designed and built the XP-80 in only 143 days, seven less than was required.

What allowed Kelly to operate the Skunk Works so effectively and efficiently was his unconventional organizational approach. He broke the rules, challenging the current bureaucratic system that stifled innovation and hindered progress. His philosophy is spelled out in his “14 practices and rules” that he and his team followed. Many of these “rules” are still considered valid today.^*

Although this approach was originally agreed to by Lockheed management, other organizations have discovered that versions of Skunk Works have emerged without management knowledge, much less agreement. What’s fascinating about the Skunk Works approach is how many incredible innovations have arisen from small groups of dedicated employees who would not succumb to organizational paralysis or bureaucratic encumbrance.

Compaq Computer created a highly profitable server line by sidestepping corporate approval processes. Several years ago, a team of self-described “rogue” engineers decided that an ultrathin, high-speed server could be developed, even though the initial proposal and funding request had been denied. Without funding, and working on their own time, the team of “rogue volunteers” found a way to use existing Compaq technologies from multiple programs to come up with a low cost, high performance machine.

The team worked off-hours and often resorted to “dumpster-diving” for spare parts that they could use in building their prototype. Unburdened by the normal layers of project teams and management oversight, they were able to come up with a sound product in a relatively short time. The product they eventually presented, the AlphaServer DS10L, turned out to be a top seller.

There are countless other examples of companies that were saved from themselves by industrious, resourceful, committed employees who saw something that mattered and worked around the system to produce something of substance.

The Compaq example yielded a multimillion-dollar business with global reach. I’m told that SmithKline French wound up with the blockbuster Tagamet by essentially the same process—a team of research scientists ignored the rejection they received from the internal committee and went about producing the ulcer drug in a clandestine lab.

As you go about finding your own workarounds, you may need to enlist the support of others, or you may need to go it alone. You may be met with agreement, approval, or even collaboration when you propose a different way of getting things moving. It’s also undeniable that you may encounter resistance, roadblocks, or even outright sabotage.

WORKAROUND QUESTIONS

When you’re incapacitated by processes that plainly don’t work, or when the person in charge lacks the necessary experience to understand the straits in which you’ve been placed, you may need to work on understanding the issue from the opposing perspective before you can light on a workaround strategy. Here are some questions to feed your thoughts:

1. What challenges do you face in getting your job done?

2. How is the organization making things more difficult than necessary?

3. What could you improve if you had support, permission, or cooperation?

4. What processes or procedures exist that don’t seem to make sense?

5. How would you suggest the organization streamline its processes or procedures?

6. What information do you need that you don’t have?

7. What information do you think others may need that they don’t have?

8. What other groups, departments, or individuals should you be talking to?

9. How can you help remove roadblocks (for yourself or for others)?