The Allure and Danger of Best Practices

By Kevin Meyer

Today's Wall Street Journal has an interesting article on how some companies are using meeting rooms at other companies for offsite meetings, instead of the traditional hotel or resort.  The thought is that seeing other companies will foster increased creativity, especially when compared to the oft cold and sterile environment of the local Hilton. 

I agree - my executive staff has been meeting quarterly at a nearby winery.  Contemplating business issues while overlooking vineyards makes it easier to make the tough calls, which are then followed up by some wine-enhanced team re-building.  Important lesson: always anoint a scribe so the memory of all the great decisions persists after the teambuilding.

When Spartan Motors Inc. CEO John Sztykiel met with his executive team this past fall, he drove to a conference room at manufacturer Peckham Inc., 26 miles away. It is an offbeat tactic that the chief executive has devised for saving money and generating new ideas: holding meetings at other companies' offices.

Managers at companies including specialty-vehicle maker Spartan and utility Duke Energy Corp. say the change of scene encourages creativity and lets employees pick up smart ideas from other companies. At some firms, the practice grew out of the recession, but executives plan to keep doing it as the economy improves. It can be thousands of dollars cheaper than conducting off-site meetings at hotels or rented venues.

New ideas and venues are great, right?  Yes, if used correctly - I'll get back to that in a minute.  Here's one thing those executives realize, which ties right into lean:

Mr. Sztykiel held his August strategy meeting at Peckham; it cost him just $87 to feed eight people breakfast and lunch. He has held two more meetings at Peckham since. While there, he toured the manufacturing facility and noticed piles of fabric within walking distance of the forklift truck and the manufacturing area. The fabric got cut within 20 yards of the shelves where it is stored.

That got him thinking about ways to reduce distances at his own business. He is moving materials storage closer to Spartan's manufacturing facility, and is looking for closer suppliers to reduce delivery times.

Mr. Sztykiel was also impressed with one of Peckham's energy-saving initiatives: waterless urinals, which he plans to install at Spartan.

Great ideas.  But as I mentioned a month ago, be careful.

Why?  Two reasons.  The first is that there's a limit to how many new things you can simply add to an organization.  5S?  Sure, let's try it.  Kaizen?  Of course we must have it.  Value stream mapping?  Obviously a requirement, so let's do that too.  But how many organizations take the time to identify the problem they are trying to solve, do a root cause, and determine if that newfangled tool is the right approach?  Practically zilch.

Which brings me to my second reason for failure: not taking the time to figure out exactly how the new tool or practice should integrate into existing systems and cultures.  So first we need to figure out if there's a problem and what a possible solution might be, then we need to ensure that solution is customized.

That's the problem with simply finding and adopting best practices, especially when they are of the "gee whiz" variety.  And now organizations that have successful systems are actually marketing access to those systems, even if they probably have no clue why they work or how they can be applied to other organizations.

Best practices are only "best" if they make sense for your organization, and often they don't.  What is the opportunity or problem to be solved?  How does solving that problem compare with others in terms of prioritization and therefore allocation and timing of resources?  What alternatives to the "best practice" are there, and which is the best match to the problem, organization culture, and other factors?

Comments

[Jim Fernandez]

Be careful. Good point.

There will always be some disconnect between top level managers and the gemba (where the actual work is done).

Seeing some cool idea and implementing it back where you work is OK. But lets first have some input from the people who it will impact.

[Mark Welch]

Kevin, just curious... Roughly what percentage of those wine-ehnanced ideas don't look quite so good the next day when not seen through the bottom of a wine glass :-) Just kidding, and I've been to the CA wine country before and would certainly support those style of meetings!

Seriously, the temptation for the quick fix is what this is all about and I can't begin to count the CEOs I've known with little to no dabbling in lean who often go for the benchmarking approach purely because they don't have the patience to develop their people, apply PDCA/A3 thinking and solve problems for themselves. Yes, benchmarking has its place, but when used as a cornerstone for improvement... Yeesh!

[Mike]

Yes! Yes! Yes!!! Finally someone that gets it. The fact that you need to look at the entire process and focus on the problem you're trying to solve. Why focus all your efforts on reducing a 3 hour changeover to under an hour when the machine uptime is below 60%?!?! Why spend all our time doing 5S events when first pass yield is 80%!!

I can never get over how managers that don't understand the root cause of poor throughput and how they try to band-aid the problem with misapplied tools. It all comes back to the five why's and root cause analysis. Then using the best tools available to solve the root cause.

[Ankit Patel]

Great points Kevin! The other point I'd make to "adopting best practices" is that you shoot for just good enough instead of what is possible. I wrote about it in a blog:

http://theleanwayconsulting.blogspot.com/2010/01/why-being-best-still-isnt-good-enough.html

Great insight.