One of the best pieces of advice I have received over the years is to be wary of process problems, and 90% of the problems are process based. As a leader and a manager, one has to be constantly cognizant of the difference between a process and performance problem.
One of the truths in life is that we tend to tell tales about our daily life. These are not tall tales, but the way we perceive the world. In most of our stories, we are the hero and someone else is the villain. Truth be told, the world is not like the comic books. There are some "bad" people in the world. However, at least in the environments I have been blessed to work, most people come in everyday to get a job done. Some individuals truly throw their all into the job, a few others put in just enough effort to qualify, and most everyone else ends up in between these extremes. So there should be a few performance problems, which place most of the problems into the process bucket.
Process problems take effort and a teaming attitude to resolve. One has to look at the big picture and then deep dive into the smaller part of the process. Hospitals have a process improvement or quality management department to help this effort. Additionally, lately several organizations have started to utilize the lean six sigma methodology to improve workflow.
So when you are sitting back, relaying a story to your friends and co-workers, perhaps one should start to look at the process as the villain, not an individual. Additionally, the stories one relays are the basis of your culture, so throw in some good ones about teams working together.
I hope you enjoyed reading this post, you may also enjoy these posts:
One of the best pieces of advice I have received over the years is to be wary of process problems, and 90% of the problems are process based. As a leader and a manager, one has to be constantly cognizant of the difference between a process and performance problem.
One of the truths in life is that we tend to tell tales about our daily life. These are not tall tales, but the way we perceive the world. In most of our stories, we are the hero and someone else is the villain. Truth be told, the world is not like the comic books. There are some "bad" people in the world. However, at least in the environments I have been blessed to work, most people come in everyday to get a job done. Some individuals truly throw their all into the job, a few others put in just enough effort to qualify, and most everyone else ends up in between these extremes. So there should be a few performance problems, which place most of the problems into the process bucket.
Process problems take effort and a teaming attitude to resolve. One has to look at the big picture and then deep dive into the smaller part of the process. Hospitals have a process improvement or quality management department to help this effort. Additionally, lately several organizations have started to utilize the lean six sigma methodology to improve workflow.
So when you are sitting back, relaying a story to your friends and co-workers, perhaps one should start to look at the process as the villain, not an individual. Additionally, the stories one relays are the basis of your culture, so throw in some good ones about teams working together.
I hope you enjoyed reading this post, you may also enjoy these posts: