A Look from the Bottom Up!

TRX Machine Company

A company in the throes of dying a slow death due to bad Management, lack of trust of its people, and Poor Leadership!

__________

By

Jag B Mahadeo

When Leadership is Missing from Management

Copyright © 2016 by Jag B Mahadeo

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the author.

ISBN 9781310846410

Table of Contents

Dedication

Foreword

Preface

Introduction

You’re Fired

The Revolving Door

Hammers & Nails

Negative ‘Motivational’ Tools

Meetings & failings

Lean Manufacturing

The Napoleon Complex

The Effects of Micromanaging

Looking for Waste (in wrong places)

The Blame game

The Missing Message

A Matter of Respect

Manufacturing in America

About the Author

Dedication

This book is dedicated to the thousands of hard-working people who work in the manufacturing businesses, especially the machine shops across the United States of America. These skillful machinists, talented programmers, nimble assemblers, conscientious inspectors, hustling end-of-month shipping personnel, overwhelmed maintenance support, purchasing, sales, planning and finance people, all look for true and trusted Leadership, and when this is found, they excelled in their tasks and kept the American manufacturing industry healthy, alive and well.

I have been in some of your shoes in the capacity of the machinist, programmer, inspector, and various management roles over the years, and have shared in your wonderful sense of accomplishment, but I have also felt your sense of disappointments and frustrations at so many different levels when things do not go your way, by no fault of your own.

Your dedication and hard work have fulfilled the many millions of dreams of your families and children, and your talent and expertise at your trade and career has kept this great country of The United States of America, great!

Foreword

I have known Jag for 24 years. Jag has worked in the manufacturing industry since he migrated from his native land of Guyana, in South America, first as a machinist, then a programmer, supervisor and eventually found his niche as an Agent of Change in is various positions of Management and Leadership. As a Lean Leader, he is skillfully adept at engaging people and motivating people in creating and sustaining positive changes in businesses.

I believe that being a Hindu priest has influenced him to show the kind of tolerance and patience to influence change in the behavior in anyone he has worked with. This has shown especially in his position of a Leader and Manager in the manufacturing industry where he showed the balance between working for a business, yet caring immensely for the environment and wellbeing of his people. In this way he has changed the lives of many and focused on not working less, but working with less stress, by facilitating and implementing processes which makes work easier.

This book is his astute observations of many things and approach that can be done wrong by management which will ultimately lead to the downfall of any company.

Neil Cahill – Independent Quality Contractor

Preface

During the years 2003 to 2004 two small machine shops, employing a total of about one hundred and forty people were acquired by a billion dollar company. The goal of course, was to increase profits and shareholder value, as it should be for a major corporation such as TRX, but somewhere, somehow, lost in the stream of Corporate reporting structures and getting told what they wanted to hear, the very essence of the company, the people by whose sweat these companies grew, were disappointed to discover that they were ruled by a hierarchy of dictators who, if they knew how to lead, seemed to forget how to put it into practice a long, long time ago. This led to a slow trickle of good, backbone-of-the-company type people leaving, which eventually became a mass exodus of exceptional talent and thus begun the slow and sure demise of these two companies.

If this sounds a like a situation where you have been over the years or unfortunate to be in presently, then please, read on my friend!

These writings are an effort to document some of what has been done over the years to hopefully help others see the folly before they, themselves, are tripped up by the same mistakes and mired in the muck of inflexibility in a world which is influenced and propelled by change. These follies have been pointed out numerous and countless times by visitors, consultants and by the companies’ employees over the years. It is documented here as portrayed and told by those people looking from the bottom up.

Introduction

This book is intended to be read as a business manual of those things what-not-to-do in a business, the ways in which leaders should never behave, and the business practices which can only lead down the pothole-filled road to failure.

It was written to demonstrate the very essence of what can be wrong in the world of manufacturing when Leadership is missing or intermittent; where in fact, the only leadership style present at the top of this organization can be best described as a ‘dictatorship’ and when the few who knows better are forced to flee or submit to the slow demise, out of fear of losing their job or other necessity.

This work illustrates business stagnation, the true way of how to prevent a company from growing, by disempowering its people and doing nothing to encourage teamwork and positive communication among its employees!

Even though the name of the company and people have been changed to protect the unfortunate and the innocent, the tale is still, all too real

You’re Fired

“You’re fired!”

These two words were almost shouted in a gruff, controlled voice by the square-jawed, bushy browed man sitting at the head of the rectangular conference table, and they were uttered to prove a point. Or were they?

He was sitting upright, his wide face framed by thick glasses over which he glared at the object of his wrath. The one outspoken member of his staff who dared to voice objection to one of his ideas, now sat defiantly in the chair which a few seconds ago held the rather large rump of the speaker. This seat commanded a view of the wide, slightly tinted windows which looked out upon the lonely street and the other manufacturing company across the way.

This was the weekly staff meeting conducted by the General Manager known as Terry. He was a highly intelligent individual who was well trained in the Six-Sigma and Lean Leadership concepts. This knowledge which is highly touted and valued in the manufacturing industry was a crucial reason in his selection to the enviable position of General Manager. At first pass, his people skills seemed incredibly, and unbelievably high and his character was unexpectedly, rather charming. His start as GM at the Company was received with excitement. The employees at these two small companies, trying to work as a seamless unit, were desperate for a true leader to emerge after many long years of just plain bad management and short-term fill-ins at the GM position. But somewhere along the way, somehow, maybe because of personal issues that no one else was aware of, his composure started to unravel, and when it did, it did so quickly and with a huge negative impact on the psyche of his employees and the shock of his management team.

At this time, just three months into the job, the perception of him changed drastically. He was by all accounts; a very proud but high strung individual whose mood swings hit both extremes, but most of the time, this happened only in the presence of a few. These mood swings exposed his shallow nature as he almost visibly changed masks that varied from pure eyes-bugging-out rage at one individual who dared to oppose him, and then all smiles the very next moment if someone else, especially one of the female office workers approached him. This forced smile looked plastered upon his face since his eyes under his black, slightly bushy eyebrows never seemed to smile except for when he is observed huddling over a large plateful of food. Then his face and entire demeanor became one of pure, ecstatic joy. He loved to eat and his prominent paunch betrayed this love of food.

On this day, this Leader of the company was questioning the trust of the floor workers in his company’s employ, those very people who set up and operated the CNC equipment which produced their customers’ aircraft parts. He stated that they were not to be trusted and that they need to be watched. He said to his leadership team “They are a sneaky bunch and need to be watched!” Loudly and arrogantly he proclaimed that the workers need to stand at their work stations and not move and they will waste time and are looking to “screw the company every chance they get!” After a long pause, one Manager finally spoke, following his first-raised hand, saying that he did not agree with the GM’s perceptions. He explained to the GM who was fairly new to the company (about three months) and was not familiar with the employees that “we need to trust people and show trust in them until someone gives us a reason not to be trusted” and that “no one wakes up and comes to work with the intention of screwing the company, that everyone comes wanting to do a good job”. The GM looked at him; his clean shaven face now flushed crimson, quickly turning to a shade of dark purple. He pushed himself back from his seat at the head of the conference room table, stood up and commanded “come and sit in my seat!” To which his Manager responded “No, I do not want to sit in your seat.” At his loud insistence; they exchanged positions, with the Manager taking the GM’s chair, and the GM squeezing his tall portly frame into the narrow area on the side of the table against the gray wall. After reaching his temporary seat, the GM sat down, his hefty stomach pushing against the edge of the narrow conference table, and pointing his thick index finger at the one, who dared to oppose him, screamed “You’re fired!”

The other eight members of his management team sat in stunned, almost breathless silence, as this spectacle suddenly, and unexpectedly unraveled. The actions of the GM were always considered somewhat unpredictable, but this was a new low and no one knew if and how to respond. They did not know whether the words were actually true or were shouted just to prove a point. There was no fidgeting and it seemed that no one dared to breathe until, wide mouth twisting in rage and his face flushed, he asked again, “If I was the president of this company, he’s fired right?” The manager, the object of all this fuss sat and looked at him half-smiling and un-intimidated and the GM stared at him angrily, waiting for someone to speak. After a long and uncomfortable silence, Dora, the only woman in the room who held a management position within the company, finally spoke in a low voice. “I agree that he has a point. We cannot treat our people like that!” “No!” the GM shouted. “My Managers have to understand that we set the rules and people in the shop will try to get away with whatever they could. This is the one way in which we can minimize waste and get our productivity up!”

This was the daily life at TRX Machine Company, a manufacturer of varying sizes of structural parts for aircrafts. The three companies were previously privately owned and were acquired over the course of about six years by a multi-billion dollar entity trading on the NYSE. Two of the machine shops were located on an island on the coast and were about forty miles apart and at this time, had a total workforce of one hundred and twenty five people. The third much larger machine shop was located in another state down south and had over two hundred workers. This was where the President of the company, the one ever-seeing and responsible for the entire hubbub within TRX Machine Company, maintained his office along with most of his close supporting staff.

A few months later, the decision to show the infamous clip from the movie ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’ as a supposed motivational ploy, backfired and Terry was subsequently relieved of his duties at the Company and unceremoniously walked to the door.

The Revolving Door

The change from being a small family-owned machine shop to being thrust into the corporate world was surely a culture shock to most of TRX’s employees. They were used to the Mom and Pop shop’s identity and the small company mentality but within a few months, they had to deal with an HR department, many corporate meetings, and all the fussy, confusing rules of a large public company which was genuinely concerned about its public image. It was an interesting, but shocking change to most.

The first year of TRX ownership was an intriguing mix of the quick expected change of management, but the surprising use of the previous owner as the General Manager to keep the businesses humming along. Along with these changes came the big-business attitude, escalating hourly operating rates to cover the higher overhead rate, and infusion of a Human Resources management-centric model that in this case, leaned brazenly towards the protection of the company at all costs. This HR department showed no inclination of being helpful in any way to its people, while management kept proclaiming that the people are its most important asset. Within the first year the previous owner was replaced by a General Manager, Mark who was by far the best Leader that the two companies located on the Island had, or will see in the next few years as it spiraled downwards and out of control.

Mark was a charismatic, respectful man who spoke and acted the part of the true Leader, and he earned the respect of most of his people. The few years under his leadership were the best for these two companies located on the Island under the TRX ownership. A few of his business decisions were not very popular at the time but was generally regarded as necessary. These were key decisions which kept the businesses growing over the period of time he was there. These decisions included favoring on time delivery of more profitable parts to a few companies and forsaking others which were not so profitable, but these unpopular decisions kept the companies profitable during turbulent market times.

His leadership style drew a following of loyal staffers and employees who marveled at his ability to mix an enlightening sense of humor, with strict adherence to the rules of the fun, yet effective work atmosphere which he slowly created. His ability to push up his people by challenging, empowering, encouraging, training and promoting them was a testament to his true leadership qualities. He showed tact and confidence in dealing with people and had a shrewd understanding in what made people tick, and what it took to motivate each and every individual. This unique ability was demonstrated daily in his treatment of each employee as different and unique as the individuals themselves.

He made very insightful decisions which were definitely ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking, and these highlighted his understanding of people and how to get them engaged, focused and accountable. An example of this was the education of his people. After a few months on the job, he insisted that HR made a packaged deal with a local training company to provide training in the use of the Microsoft Office tools. Then he approached each of his people and challenged them to sign up for any training which they thought they needed to improve their performance on the job. This infusion of knowledge was critical to the kind of skill each employee needed. Consequently, in the following months his team’s performance took off for new highs and of course, so did the company.

Despite his success however, his position at the helm lasted only a few short years as he moved on to take a more challenging position at another company.

His abrupt departure from the GM position was preceded by the installation of a new President Relix, whose office was located at the larger sister company down south. Many felt that the obvious dislike for him by the new president, who was unprofessionally vocal about this dislike, was what forced Mark to eventually seek opportunities elsewhere.

His departure also put an end to his aggressive, detailed plan to move the two companies into one large building a few miles down the road, with much room to grow, instead of the aged, confined buildings they occupied at the time. The millions of dollars which was supposed to be spent for this planned move was now diverted by the new President to create his ‘Palace’, the out of state sister company where he was based.

Over the next few years at TRX Machine Company, what the corporate entity dictated and what was actually done at the operations level was very different. This was very evident by the shockingly low morale among the employees. This obvious disconnect in communication eventually grew into an emotional chasm which sapped the energy of the workforce, and caused many good people to head for the exits. The resulting burgeoning workload was spread among the remaining few since no vacated positions were refilled. This smaller workforce, whipped to perform more was eventually popularly known as ‘cost savings’.

The chosen leadership style of wielding the whip to the uninitiated, produced positive results, but as expected, this positive trend was only short term. The corporate bonus structure which was put in place encouraged the wielding of the whip to secure the bonus for the higher levels of management. When knowledge of the bonus structure eventually trickled down to most of the employees, anyone can venture a guess as to the effect that this knowledge had to the already low morale of the workers on the shop floor.

The president of this segment of TRX Machine Company was by all accounts a very intelligent man who climbed up the corporate ladder at another, much larger manufacturing company. As was normal practice, he soon surrounded himself with his cronies from his previous employ. It was no surprise to find that they were all molded after him, in his image and even his style of management. They were all a bunch of very good by-the-book, classic managers. However, true leadership quality, the ability to understand, motivate, coach and lead people were all very obviously missing.

The president of the company was a shrewd businessman with good financial understanding of the business and he commanded and demanded attention when he chose to lambaste his ‘leadership group’ as he took his turn at the podium during his quarterly business reviews, during which he would proceed to demean his managers and teasing them about shopping at the local Walmart for deals. His style of managing was perfectly described as ‘a dictatorship’ by most of those who experienced a meeting at which he chaired. Because of this glaring deficiency in real, true leadership, he failed in gaining the trust from his people, except for those loyal few whom he had brought over from his previous employers. This type of leadership at the helm resulted in the expected behavior where most managers and supervisors performed their functions in fear, instead of trust and respect. Subsequently, the CYA (cover you’re a**) attitude became prevalent and predominant at all levels in the business.

His deficiency in emotional intelligence was evident, and he demonstrated this on a daily basis with the demeaning and accusatory way in which he treated his people. His meetings followed the same pattern. He spent the good part of the first hour berating everyone including all of his managers. He told everyone how right he was and described his expectations to the group and the expectations of Corporate. In these speeches, he set the tone of negativity, low participation or even non-participation for the rest of the meeting. Then in a round table approach, he asked what each person was working on. His response to each person was typical of him. He found obvious pleasure in bringing people down a notch and added new meaning to the expression ‘cutting off the heads of others to appear taller’. His disdain for others, their expertise and their opinions were thinly disguised as being funny, and garnered no respect even from the chosen few who followed him to TRX. These meetings usually ended with everyone leaving in frustration and eventually these meetings were nicknamed instead as ‘Beatings’, even by his own staff members who referred to him as ‘Relix the Cat’.

Many also saw the demise of the smaller companies on the Island as part of his covert planning in building up his palace at the larger company at the expense of these smaller companies. This was loudly evident like when he asked the smaller companies to cut costs and watch the pennies, yet spent millions in shining up the ‘palace’, the facility which housed his office. This habit of ‘speaking out of both sides of his mouth’ also caused great distrust of him by his managers and most other employees. The obvious failure here is simple to see. Real, true Leadership is built on the foundation of trust and respect. And both of these are earned, not commanded.

Hammers and Nails

As most companies do, TRX Machine Company has had its own share of problems, many of which were people issues. The company spent a lot of money on training as was mandated by its corporate parent. Unfortunately, for the most part, the training was focused not necessarily in the wrong area, but in the area which will satisfy the immediate corporate training requirements. But they did not focus on the small company’s immediate and crucial needs to keep functioning on a daily basis. These were not even prioritized to address, as Steven Covey succinctly put it, first things first. It was very evident to all - suppliers, customers and the employees, that this organization was in dire need of true leaders, beginning from the top down.

But while the intensive training was focused in Lean, (the use of a selection of lean tools to minimize and eliminate waste) safety and environment, zero attention was given to true leadership training and the art of developing and pushing up people. There was no attention given to the critical, tactful, and diplomatic ‘people relationships’ which puts the focus on developing and utilizing the brains of the company.

Mark Twain said “To a man with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.” In this case, seemed that all the managers at this company were armed with hammers, or maybe, more accurately, whips. These whips in the form of the authority in each of their positions were used to enforce and drive the remaining people to do their bidding without regard to how the message or order was delivered or received. Many of the top managers themselves spent their day surfing the internet, played computer games and watching music videos on YouTube, and only came out of their offices to oppress, bend and break the will of those who cared about the company and those who knew and expected better. They practised the opposite of ‘reprimand privately, praise publicly’ and was very often used to threaten and humiliate others into submission.

As the most competent, seasoned and well respected managers tripped over each other making a beeline for the exits, promotions to fill these vacant management positions were given to the favorites, those who were mostly incompetent, untrained people who had no clue how to even communicate at the most basic human level to anyone, even their own peers. But this was not their fault! These people were thrust into these positions and they were expected to know how to manage and lead. And when they failed miserably as expected, blame was quick to follow. Of course, these individuals could not be held responsible for not doing what they did not know how to do. When thrust into these positions, they were not given the right tools for the job; they were not offered training to address this deficiency in leadership skills or offered to be coached how to handle people. They knew only how to wield the manager’s whip by learning and applying the example which they saw their superiors use everyday, and this they used very effectively.

The behavior of the entire management structure of TRX mirrored that of the President. Of course this should be expected. The president liked those who patterned their behavior to be like him, and their management style to be like his, and this trickled down all the way to the floor level. Tact, people skill, and diplomacy seemed like a foreign and almost alien concept to management. In every department the tension hung as thick as the smog sometimes given off by the CNC equipment many of the employees operated. Evidence of the ‘us versus them’ culture, which eventually took a stranglehold, overshadowed everything else. You were either one of the ‘managers’ or one of the ‘shop boys’ and no attempt was made by the HR to pacify, eliminate or even redirect this negative attitude. It seemed that HR, like all other levels of management, was comfortable existing on its own island, for any such effort to bring people together was exactly that, an effort that meant that HR had to perform actual work. No one was held accountable for their behavior towards their peers or direct reports and the expected consequence for this type of leadership or non-leadership quickly blossomed into full-fledged and open distrust and disrespect for all of management.

For the first eight years HR infused the culture which was almost one of a caste system. In all company meetings and social functions HR made sure that this caste system remained intact.

Even at the Christmas parties, this structure took precedence and HR made sure that this ‘caste system’ was adhered to. The President was on the stage and sat at his own table with his cronies. Other than for a firm handshake and a curt ‘thank you’, he did not interact in any way with the ‘common’ employee. The managers were at their own table on the stage. The rest of the office employees shared the rest of the stage area. Then the tables of the shop floor day-shift employees migrated outwards and away until, way at the other end of the huge room, almost out of sight, the night-shift employees gathered at their lowly table like the proverbial ‘red-headed step-child’.

In this organization, the analogy of the hammer seems even more fitting as we try to better understand the dilemma that TRX faced. If all that the managers knew was how to do was wield the hammer, then they cannot be blamed for using the only tool at their disposal. And instead of criticizing them for using the wrong tool, it should have been the top leader’s responsibility to teach them, or have them taught how to used a wider array of leadership tools so that they can have the knowledge and choice of how to respond to the difficult, but expected people-challenges at work.

The present behavior and practice created an atmosphere which did not encourage even the remotest of teamwork. The regime seemed to believe that if they were to ignore a problem long enough that it will eventually go away. However, instead of the people issues going away, as expected, they festered and as time passed, became giant sores which infected and poisoned the entire living, breathing company.

Negative ‘Motivational tools’

The motivational techniques used at TRX were used constantly and one can predict the eventual and guaranteed results. These tools were:

- Assault of Authority

Authority was used as the choice motivational tool. It was used often and effectively, to get things done and to sour the morale of the workforce even further. The deliverer of the message, command, or order rarely gave consideration to modifying or adjusting the words or tone of voice in which it was delivered. This of course, guaranteed that the response was always unpredictable and most times, silently negative. The whip of authority said ‘Do it because I told you so’ regardless of the practicability of the order. It invited the dreaded hard-to-deal-with passive resistance which slowly undermined whatever semblance of authority there was remaining in the group.

- Words like whips and swords

Basic communication between these untrained managers and a shop floor employee was almost one of tempered animosity when the employee was forced into assuming the submissive role, and those who did not play by these ‘rules’ were rewarded by some of the below.

- Threats of insubordination

Employees who refused to submit to the ‘power’ and ego of his manager were threatened to be ‘written up’ for insubordination. As management always believed the word of their managers over even a multitude of floor employees, these employees eventually were forced to look for employment elsewhere or submitting to treating his manager as his superior being, and himself being akin to a slave.

- Time equals money - overtime

The typical employee averaged ten hours of overtime per week and this was considered the norm. Right or wrong, because of the constant overtime, their domestic budget included the weekly overtime. Those employees who toed the line, treated his ego driven manager as his superior and play the political game were rewarded with the available overtime. Those who did not toe the line had their overtime slashed to the bare minimum which then forced them to find the exit door.

- Laugh it off

Any concerns of employees, their complaints, and dissatisfaction with a manager’s behavior was laughed at and made fun in company meetings and was done often enough to send a return message of the selfish and uncaring, and that complaining to management about management was simply an act in futility.

- Invisible on schedule

Whenever there is some dissatisfaction in the shop, as in a slow down of work, questions about bonus, annual raises, union questions, available vacation time and scheduling, the managers, especially HR, was nowhere to be found. Even though there was a set schedule as to when HR should be available at each facility, whenever there were some rumblings through the workforce, the HR office was conveniently empty. This weekly disappearing act drove the frustration levels much, much higher and the morale even lower across the entire workforce.

Meetings and Failing

There are a few employees who approached their jobs in a systematic manner, like using their calendars, planning, scheduling and prioritizing their daily work and appointments. But the spontaneous and endless company meetings slowly and eventually dragged them down into the midst of the daily chaos, and left them feeling frustrated, de-energized and demoralized. Any one of these meetings could be selected as a perfect example of all the things to do wrong in a company meeting. It is definitely good practice to stay as late as it took to get the job done and most employees were committed to doing so. However, the GM was divorced and had no family to go to and his expectations were that everyone should stay as late as he did in the office.

- Meetings which were not of an emergency nature were scheduled for the same day or the next day, without any regard to the carefully planned day of other employees. No effort was made to check their calendars, a task which could have easily been done through the network email calendar.

- Participants for meetings were not carefully thought out and this resulted in a full conference room where half of the people had no idea why they were there. At the end of the extended meeting, these people left confused after contributing nothing.

- Upon entering the conference room, the ‘important’ attendees placed their blackberries and iPhones on the table, sending the subtle message to the others that the meeting was only second priority. Then they spent much of their time during the meeting scanning through emails and sometimes leaving the room to attend to the ‘more important’ phone calls.

- These meetings had no published agendas and the only clue to the subject of the meeting was buried in the subject line of the meeting invitation which was usually a very vague description of what the meeting was really about.

- With no published agenda, ground rules, or preparatory notes, participants came mostly unprepared for the meeting and a large majority of the meeting time was spent in ‘data-mining’ through the company network for the kind of information that should have been prepared prior to the meeting.

- Consequently, the meetings strayed way off subject and took much longer that scheduled. One hour meetings went to one and a half hours and a three hour meeting lasted five hours. Over the extended period of time, people grew disinterested and uncomfortable, and no longer focused on the task at hand.

- Also as the result of a missing agenda, there was no structure that controlled how the meeting flowed. Who chaired the meeting became fuzzy, and constant demeaning remarks by some loud-mouthed managers soured the already non-existent ‘team’ mood.

- No attempt was made to utilize a meeting parking lot, so the group stuttered and jumped from one subject to another. Because of this, at every meeting, important and relevant ideas and suggestions were lost in the confusion and disorganization which ruled. The frustrated members eventually stopped making suggestions and bringing ideas to the table, since it was seen as a wasted effort.

- More often than not, the meetings ended after the next scheduled meeting was supposed to start and this resulted in some people running from one meeting to the next, with no time in between to get any actual work done or take care of their direct reports’ requests.

- A few people often dominated the discussions which led to others being dejected and disinterested after their attempts to participate and speak were over-run and totally ignored.

- Many side conversations were the norm to the point that they became meetings within meetings. Because most of these were initiated by the key managers, there were no attempts to get back to the topic at hand or to put a stop to this practice.

- Minutes were not recorded at meetings; so many tasks which were volunteered or delegated during the meeting were left only to memory. Many times in follow up meetings, those who were previously tasked with action items failed to follow through and were not held accountable. Instead, the task was re-delegated to someone who gets his job done. The loud message here was that ‘if you do not pull your weight, someone else will be delegated to do it for you, and then you can do take it easy’. This caused a select few to become overwhelmed with work which led to frustrations and low morale while others skated by without being forced into accountability.

- Many meetings were scheduled for late in the day and ended at 5:30 or 6:00pm when most employees with a family would have preferred to go home to their families. This practice de-motivated the attendees and as expected demoralized them even more.

- The people who were immersed in meetings all day say that it was just the way things were being done. Each day they shuffled like robots, from one meeting to another, and built them so solidly into their psyche, that however ineffective the meeting were, they would not dare try to go without these meetings.

Now, given a choice what would most people do? They would choose to do either the things which they like doing, or the things at which they were very good. This was exactly the case here and no one dared to suggest differently. Of course these meeting started out as a necessity. There was a good reason why they were started, but instead of being used temporarily to resolve the issues that brought them into being, they became a part of just how the business was run. The people running these meeting defended their activities and failed to get the most important point of these meetings.

‘That an effective, well run daily or even weekly well-structured meeting, with a true team, eventually gets to become unnecessary and irrelevant!’

However important and necessary, one of the goals of these daily meetings should have been to get to the point when meeting daily was no longer necessary; when the group could meet once every two days, then once every three days, and so forth.

Lean Manufacturing!

What’s wrong with Lean Manufacturing?

If this question was asked of any Lean practitioner the answer would be, that with Lean itself, nothing!

The only thing that can be wrong, not with Lean, but about Lean, is the way it was implemented by the businesses. Whereas the Lean tools are techniques which are used to identify, minimize, and eliminate waste, from systems and processes and by so doing, directly reduce cost and increase profits for the company, there is so much that can go wrong with its implementation.

Any Lean practitioner will admit that most of what can go wrong with Lean is centered upon people and people involvement. These same Lean gurus will also readily agree that the ability to involve, engage, trust, empower, motivate, and develop people, will determine weather or not a company will eventually succeed or fail in its implementation of Lean.

At the center in its push for people involvement and empowerment, is the often used mantra of ‘working smarter, not harder’. When this message is touted and strategically communicated by an adept Lean Master in every step of implementation, then success is imminent. Many companies have proved, time and time again, as the business goes consistently forward on its Lean journey, through all its Value Stream Mapping and other Lean events, that success is almost guaranteed.

It is definitely a fact that ‘how the message is communicated’ is of the utmost importance, since a hundred different human minds can hear and spin the same message, more than a hundred different ways. Care and patience has to be taken to tweak the message for each specific group, in whatever specific way which makes that particular group, different. Ignoring this basic rule of human behavior will make failure inevitable. Some of the more easily identified ones may be:

- The fact that all people want to feel important in some way. They want to feel that they matter! So if it meant that pre-training for some ‘cement-heads’ which makes them feel ‘special’, that they have the inside track and more knowledge, prior to the general training, the time involved in this approach is well worth it.

- Laying out have-to goals and ideas, and when opposition to these are identified, feeding key individuals enough information so that they have that necessary ‘ah-ha’ moment and that they then ‘come up’ with the ideas themselves. This way implementation is followed through without their pushback.

- Actively lead by example. Even if it is just for the initial hours of an event, to see a Leader actually involving himself and actively participating in the event, is a very powerful motivator, even if all the Leader does is don rubber gloves and help wipe down a piece of equipment. His very participation is immensely motivational.

- Show that you care. This behavior means more than money to most employees. People like to know that others care about what they think, how they feel, and how they are as human beings. Most true leaders will admit that the weekly of even bi-weekly visit to each employee in a medium sized company for a couple seconds of “hello, how are you” acknowledgement, carries a lot of weight and is definitely worth the time and effort.

- Walk the talk! Speak respectfully and as you speak respectfully, you must also behave respectfully. Our words and actions must correspond or respect will not be earned. A position of authority only commands respect in the armed forces. In civilian life, positions of authority have to earn respect. Being nice only for the sake of being nice earns no respect.

- Share the savings! The reason that most of the prime customers are practicing Lean and want their vendors to also implement Lean, is to reduce their cost over the long term. The trap into which TRX and many other companies fell, was the one in which they tried to keep all of the thirty to forty percent profits. Over the years, TRX had made measurable strides in use of the Lean tools such as Value Stream Mapping to find specific steps in the processes from which to eliminate waste. Most of the floor employees jumped into these continuous improvement projects with enthusiasm and this led to drastically improving profits year over year. The company managers reveled in showing the profits to their corporate bosses and shared richly in the year end bonus which was based on cash and profit. However, the company (and employees) soon suffered losses in major contracts after the competition caught up in performance and their bid for the same work reflected much lower prices. The Management of TRX failed miserably in one most basic Lean rule. That ‘Customer satisfaction always cost less’. That given the same quality, delivery performance, and other factors, the lowest price will always win. The company failed to give back some of the savings to the customer and they paid dearly when half of their contracts were lost to their competition.

The Napoleon Complex

(Classic micromanaging at its finest)

And just when it seemed that it could not get any worse, it did! The new GM Ike Mazotta, was hired to run the two companies on the Island. He turned out to be a short, arrogant, little man with a monstrous Napoleon complex.

Upon being introduced to anyone, the source of his behavior, his inferiority complex became immediately obvious. At every opportunity he attempted to show how much he knew, how emphatic he could be, and his penchant for loudly throwing in important-sounding buzzwords became a point for ridicule and giggle by others.

He, like his boss, was the classic dictator manager, lacking in any, even the most simple of leadership qualities or people skills. He thought little of earning trust and respect or treating his people with respect, and obviously expected the position of GM to automatically grant him ultimate respect and fear from all others at TRX.

Upon his arrival, he began micromanaging every one of his managers. This style of managing returned the expected results, where eventually none of them were capable of making a decision on their own. Meetings became a forum where just the GM spoke since they were all afraid of saying anything that would bring them in his spotlight of attention, and for many, having the decisions made for them became the norm.

This approach worked for those who were submissive by nature, feared the Napoleonic attitude, or feared for their jobs. Those who did not submit were publicly put down, ridiculed and fired. This was done in a deceptive yet obvious manner. Excuses were manufactured to ‘discipline’ them, and get rid of them, to be replaced with ineffective friends and ‘puppets’ of the GM. This practice took the ‘team’ to a much lower level of distrust for each other and the fear of reprisal effectively rendered each of them mute.

This quietness which now permeated every single management meeting was now gleefully mistaken for respect by the GM Ike and he reveled in this false glory. He absolutely loved to hear himself speak and showed great pride in taking over every meeting where he expounded his knowledge of everything while at the same time belittling anyone else who dared to think for themselves, or make a single decision without his knowledge.

There was one example where one manager developed a spreadsheet for tracking current improvement projects. The criteria were that it was easy to understand, count days to completion, showed status and responsibilities and to be printed on one sheet of 11” X 17” paper which was to be posted on the company bulletin boards. Upon given a printed copy, he asked for the editable file which he proceeded to spend hours modifying. The end result was a sheet that were full of duplications, input of dates for countdown were missing and which no longer fit on one sheet of paper, and missing color keys.

As was his practice with all his managers, this exercise in futility was simply just to show that he always knew best and always had the best ideas. That no one could out-think him. And the typical response was that ‘he is the GM and even when he is wrong, he is right’ and he should never, ever be questioned. In this manner, in a constant effort to feed his burgeoning ego, he chose to lose himself in the weeds while more important, real direction-of-business tasks were falling by the wayside.

This gave most of the people working for him the feeling of being on a bus with no driver, and with no one watching the direction in which the bus was heading. He demonstrated a vicious intolerance for those who opposed him and disliked anyone who questioned his methods.

The GM brought in some of his cronies and friends and with this came the favoritism where the workload tipped in favor of his friends. He helped them to delegate most of their work to others so that they did mostly nothing. Whatever motivation for teamwork was left in this ‘team’ balloon quickly dissipated and absolute distrust ruled.

The Effects of Micromanaging

(No teamwork required)

If something prevented the top managers from coming to work for a whole month, TRX would have continued to function as a fairly successful business. Machines would have continued production and deliveries to customers would have continued seamlessly. This is a testament to the hard work and dedication of just about every employee in the company, even under the tremendous stress of time constraints and reduced workforce. After many years of building ‘their’ company, they were committed to its success.

However, instead of providing the tools and help required for success, management seemed to be the only wrench thrown into the cogs to render the whole inner workings of the company into chaos.

Upon taking over at the helm, the GM took a certain pleasure at belittling the few of those who seemed to be able to help themselves, and who did not seek his advice at every turn. Those who would dare make a decision without his input (his decision) were ridiculed and put down in front of their peers. This led to the line leading into his office being a very busy one. His Godly proclamation of ‘So be it’ were heard loud and clear in the office as he granted his blessings on his decisions.

This type of managing took its toll and soon, no other manager dared to make a decision on their own. Now, if someone else was to always make the decisions every time, and if the employee’s decisions, however right, is always second-guessed and ridiculed, why would he want to make a decision on his own? So for many managers this burden taken off their shoulders was a relief. But continuing in this manner found these very same people eventually incapable of making decisions on their own! The General Manager effectively took away their ability to make decisions on their own!

This questioning and mocking of the decisions of each of them were viewed as distrust of them by the GM and this also ultimately blossomed into a distrust of the GM himself.

Because of his Napoleon complex, his lack of people skills came as no shock to most employees. He saw the people on the shop floor as willing recipients to his harsh ridicule and mockery, and not worthy of his time.

Pointing the finger at others and laying blame became the focus of his management style. This was more evident even by his demands for disciplinary action against any employee who had an injury, even thought the root cause of the injury was system based, and no fault of the employee. His distrustful behavior included parking where his car would not be noticed and sneaking into the machine shop area through side doors, clearly hoping to catch someone guilty of some wrongs. Since, to most humans ‘trust begets trust’ this behavior ensured that no one person in the company trusted the General Manager.

At the beginning of his tenure, he lashed out at those who held production meetings on a daily basis. There were indeed too many meetings through the day, but as the months went by, nothing changed. Meetings became more prevalent, ran longer, were less effective and the employees were beaten down and micromanaged into ineffectiveness. Who called a meeting were of no consequence, for they were all overran by the GM as he enjoyed hearing himself lecturing his employees into submission.

A few of his managers who were not particularly submissive to his liking were brutally branded as ineffective and failures and eventually shown the door.

Looking for Waste ….

Looking for waste in all the wrong places!

At TRX the feeling seemed to be that wielding the whip in use of the Lean tool and forcing people to get on board with the changes or else; is the only way to do it. Saving a few minutes of cycle time on the shop floor took precedence over saving the many hours which were wasted in the office processes and this, since it was also very obvious to the shop floor employees, did not help in the overall attitude and atmosphere in the shop.

The parent company’s focus was on operating profits and cash and if the company can show this improving year over year, then looking through its corporate eyes, all must be well, and there was no need to take a closer look at the detail operation of the company. Business appeared good. The company’s profits looked good and as was his job, the president was comfortable announcing that all was indeed, well. Upon closer inspection however, one could tell that the fact that the company was doing well will definitely be short lived because it was looking for waste in all the wrong places.

- Instead of focusing on reducing set-up (changeover) times, the company was forcing people to run two and three pieces of equipment. This went against one of the ‘mantras’ of Lean, ‘Work smarter, not harder’. Of course, in the proper implementation of Lean, this multi machine operation would eventually happen, but only after reducing set-up times, creating standard work, and improving organization by implementing the5S, which would then give the people the tools that they need, where they need it and result in reducing their frustrations. This would indeed have them work smarter and not harder and then multi-machine running would be more readily acceptable.

- The planning of the sequence of jobs to run in the shop was done with the focus to reduce inventory. This of course was the primary goal of Lean, but here, the shop was forced to reduce lot sizes and thus reduce inventory before any effort was made to reduce set-up times. This led to a great backlash from the shop because the impact of this miss-step was only to increase the level of the shop floor worker’s frustration. The reasons were clear and simple. For the shop floor worker, he had to do more of the long and tedious set-ups which also increased the risk of producing a defective part and when this happened, he was punished. To the previous point, along with more, longer and riskier setups, the push was to also have them run another piece of equipment while performing a setup.

- As previously noted, training in areas which were relevant to the day to day business operation was not a priority. Basic people skills, communication skills and how to work as an effective team were deemed not important enough to address in training since ‘They are paid to do as they are told’.

- Production to meet the monthly ‘numbers’ were always shown to be more important than the well-being, or happiness of the employees and no effort was made to address the low morale in any way. Common courtesy to each other seemed a foreign concept.

- Any person or manage who micromanages should never complain about having too much work and being too busy. This behavior became prevalent among the managers and supervisors since it also fed their egos and self-importance. And of course, when one micromanages, one also dis-empowers those whom they micromanage. Instead, tact, trust, training, and delegating responsibility should be used to empower people. This has been proved by many companies to be more motivating than money.

The Blame Game

They were a group of people working together. They were certainly not a team! A team can be described as ‘a group of people linked in a common purpose’ or more accurately ‘A group of people with a complementary skills required to complete a task or project.

In such a collaborative group, the members:

1. Operate with a high degree of interdependence.

2. Share authority and responsibility for self-management.

3. Are accountable for the collective performance.

4. Work toward a common goal and shared rewards.

A team becomes bigger than just a collection of people when a strong sense of mutual commitment creates synergy, and this generates a total performance greater than the sum of the performance of its individual members.

The ‘leadership’ group at TRX Machine Company was a collection of people, of whom none were formally trained in the art of leadership, the communication skills, or the tactful people skills required for leading, coaching and motivating people. They were in the position either because they had a technically sound understanding of that area of the business or in a few cases, the result of favors from the bigger bosses. If one could imagine a large canoe full of rowers who had no inkling of how to wield a paddle, but each doing their best with their present knowledge and skill at paddling, then that would be this management group. Include a few paddlers who were there just along for the ride and created dead weight for the others to carry, and some who had no idea of the direction in which to paddle, and the reality would be more accurate.

The irony though was, all that was wrong with the management team was known and fully recognized by key managers. The GM knew exactly what was wrong. They knew that they had a group of people who did not know how to work as a team. They also knew that the people skills and in some cases, basic communication skills were seriously lacking. They knew that because of this, the communications with customers and suppliers of the Company alike were getting very strained, but treated it as the old, outrageously incorrect adage intoned, ‘ignore it and it will go away’. Instead, each one of these problems festered over time and became open sores which became visible to the rest of the world through the ever-present channels of the machine business gossip-chain. The management team of the company became the much-used examples of what-not-to-do-in-management of the Machine Shop world.

The Missing Message

Most managers make the biggest mistake with people. They fail to understand that like themselves, people are emotionally driven beings. That if you can create or influence the emotion which makes people react towards the identified goal, and then it’s a win-win for all involved. There is an underlying truth to the old saying that a job is not hard, it is people that can make it hard - or easy. Most managers feel themselves too high up on the totem pole to interact with ordinary shop floor people. This could not be farther from the truth. These are the same people who could, and does make that same manager look good or bad on a daily basis and could also affect the manager’s career direction. But the manager who is driven by his own ego fails to see this as the truth in his world, choosing instead to separate himself from them by his title. They really do believe that they cannot be friendly and also be the ‘boss’ and in this they prove it to be true because their behavior prevents them from winning any friendly attitude among their people. A few of the most important needs of people are:

1. People need to have their presence acknowledged as part of a social group.

2. The need to feel important and being a part of something bigger. (As in a team)

3. The need for appreciation and acknowledgement for a job well done.

A Matter of Respect

To change people’s behavior and the way they think, it is more important to be a person of influence, rather than a person of authority or power. However, the position of authority which is lent by having a title such as a Manager does help to sometimes establish that influence.

- But to become a person of influence, one has to be respected.

- To be respected, one absolutely has to behave in a respectable manner.

- One has to win trust in others.

- One has to lead in an exemplary manner which would garner the trust even from those who may resist the proposed changes happening around them.

- The change agent has to be approachable, trusting, trustful, and open minded.

- He has to be a good coach and be encouraging.

- Simply put, he has to be a leader who walks the talk.

Only then motivating people to change becomes possible.

People will generally behave within your expectations. If we behave in a way which shows trust in others, they will generally behave in trustful ways. However, when we treat them in a blatantly distrustful way then they will act in distrustful manner. Contrary to what most managers think, the average person is very intuitive and can discern one from the other and body language is still the most effective of all forms of human communication.

Manufacturing in America

Even as the global landscape has shrunk and many borders have effectively disappeared, there have always been and will always be many obstacles in the world of manufacturing in the USA.

However, no one can point to the intelligence, adaptability, and resiliency of the American worker as part of the problem. The problems have been, as told by the stories in this book, made by those leaders who have failed the people and not the people themselves. When people look for leadership, and finds that leader who is willing to lead into uncharted territory, yet who is willing to show and instill trust, respect and value in his people, there is undeniable success and reward for their hard work.

When Leadership is missing however, and when the fortunes of the few are held in higher esteem over the good of all, there may be short term success, but eventual ultimate failure comes, to no fault of the hardworking American manufacturing worker.

That who hold positions of leadership or even assumes the position of a leader, have to hold themselves to a much higher standard than the ordinary person. They owe it to themselves and their people to learn and demonstrate every quality of a true leader, including caring for each of his people as what they are, an intelligent individual who wants to succeed. They have to walk the talk. Time and again the old adage ‘Lead by example’ has proved that there is no other way to lead!

For people are indeed the most important asset of any company.

****

About the Author

Jag is a mechanical Engineer by trade and also a Hindu Priest of the Arya Samaj – A Hindu Reform Society founded by Maharishi Swami Dayanand Saraswati on April 7th 1875. Influencing change in the way people think at work, at home, and in religious congregations is his preferred method by which Jag seeks to help in creating a world of ‘Peace Love and Unity’.

He was born in 1962 to Pandit Budhram Mahadeo ‘Papa’ and Rajkumaree Mahadeo ‘Mama’ and the fourth of five children. His sisters are Vidya B Mahadeo, and Vishwanie B Mahadeo-heads. His Brothers are Dr. Vishwa B Mahadeo, and Dr. Yoganand B Mahadeo.

He is married to Dee and is the father of two children, Avinash and Vashti Devi.

He is a trained LEAN Expert from Milwaukee School of Engineering and spend his life in the Machine Shop world, utilizing his LEAN and Leadership skills to create leaner, friendlier and more profitable businesses in his few places of employment. Because of his unique spiritual perspective, exceptional leadership and people skills, he has a unique insight into the Manufacturing world.

He is also the author of ‘The Heart of The Sun’, a collection of short stories of growing up in Guyana, South America.

"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them."

Albert Einstein

End!

For more information on ‘When Leadership is Missing’ and other writings which may be published soon, please visit http://theheartofthesun.com

On this website you will find personal articles, poems, power-point files, pdf files, etc. Please use, and acknowledge the source since all these are all copyrighted materials.

Please feel free to leave your feedback, comments, suggestions, ideas, and questions for the author Jag B. Mahadeo and he will respond as soon as possible.

61