- We are interested in creating motivation for innovation and continuous
improvement. If you drag people around by the nose and direct them, you’re
likely to get routine execution of what is measured, not innovative thinking.
- We know that when rewards stop, or if the person gets the sense that the
rewards are not being administered as intended, motivation stops.
We can’t think of anyone at Toyota who works on an improvement project
solely for the money or the brownie points. Undoubtedly some do, but we can’t
think of examples. In contrast, we know lots of people who knock themselves
out at Toyota to do the right thing for the company. Mark Twain said with a
touch of bitterness: “Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astonish
the rest.” Wouldn’t it be nice if you could create a culture in which your team
associates did astonishing right things without being directed by metrics?
The Toyota Way(Chapter 16) discusses the variety of motivators that Toyota
taps into at work. Some are intrinsic, such as working to achieve a challenging
goal and getting direct feedback from doing the task well. Others are extrinsic,
such as getting praise from others or even getting small monetary rewards. But
no one we know who is working on improvement expects that each time they
solve a problem they can ring up the money in their cash register.
We’ve seen remarkable satisfaction, and excitement, when someone finishes a
project and it gets significant results. The desire to please the customer, to contribute
to the team, and to make Toyota a stronger company are all strong motivators.
You can’t measure your way to a lean learning organization, but metrics do
play a critical role in any improvement process. The proper way to use metrics
is as improvement targets. The well-known SMART objectives apply well to lean
improvement (see the box below). Any improvement process should be driven
by targets that have these characteristics. Then consistently measure and plot the
measures on simple visual trend charts as discussed in Chapter 14. In this case,
you aren’t trying to measure every aspect of performance of a group, plant, or
manager. The work group or task force or managers are signing up for challeng-
ing but achievable targets for a specific improvement project, then measuring
progress toward these targets. Toyota uses their hoshinplanning process, a.k.a.
policy deployment, to set aligned objectives from the president to the shop floor.
Chapter 20. Leading the Change 451
TIP
Goals Should Be S.M.A.R.T.
Specific: John does x(someone on team to be accountable)
Measurable: John tracks OEE on M7 and updates team
Action-oriented: John leads 5S and reports results
Realistic: John develops an all-employee overview by tomorrow
Time-based: John to lead 5S in Area 7, report results by 7/12
