We Have a Culture Problem!

“Houston, we have a problem.”  That now infamous quote from the Apollo 13 crew set a whole series of actions in motion to correct a potentially catastrophic problem with their flight.   In a similar manner, “we have a culture problem” that can be stated in three ways (from Toyota Culture, p460):

1. Organizations throughout the world have amassed large amounts of resources and are responsible for the well-being of large numbers of people, and they are seriously underachieving in business and failing to develop their people.

2. Organizations wishing to become better and more efficient have been adopting lean and six sigma programs but will inevitably hit a wall unless they seriously work on culture that is compatible with the technical and performance changes they desire.

3. People throughout the world are spending their most productive waking hours working in beaucratic organizations that are shamefully wasting their potential as humans.

TWI (Training Within Industry) Job Relations is being used by a number of companies to develop a positive culture by:

a) using the 4 foundations to create a positive job relationship between all people at all times, and

b) using a straightforward 4-step process to positively solve job relations problems that will inevitably come up.

Training in Job Relations (JR) is a focused 10-hour program that develops skills in supervisors so they can effectively use the foundations to prevent employee relations problems, or in the worst case, deal with these problems when they’re still quite small.   It also develops skill in the 4-step process of:

1. Get the Facts (be sure you have the whole story)

2. Weigh and Decide (without jumping to conclusions)

3. Take Action (don’t pass the buck, and don’t procrastinate)

4. Check Results (be sure you achieved your objective)

The training is through case studies, classroom presentation of key concepts, useful job aides, and repetition through live demonstrations by the participants.

Immediate results from the JR program obtained from class feedback show the participants get a lot of positive value from it and usually make comments like:

“My manager needs to come to this training”.

“We should have had this years ago.”

“I can put this to work immediately.”

Longer term results show fewer grievances, less turnover, better attendance, and far fewer employee issues in the workplace.

Companies that are serious about TWI JR have had all of their supervisors trained, including front office and production, and from the senior manager to the first level team leaders.  They’ve usually taken the Train-The-Trainer program as well in order to have their own certified JR trainer(s) who they can dedicate to this culture change effort.  In companies like this, Human Resources (HR) is instrumental in leading these changes and in reinforcing the desired positive culture.