Some days are better than others

It will be a familiar feeling. The journey to work takes longer than yesterday. At work, we produce less widgets than yesterday. And yet, the amount of effort that we expended didn’t seem any less than yesterday. Of course, producing ‘less widgets’ is intended as a metaphor for whatever line of work we are in. But the important question remains ‘Why are some days better than others?”

There seems to be little understanding of the causes of variation in the workplace. Most of the blame seems to be laid at the door of individual employees. And yet, the true nature of organisations is that there is a complex and constant interaction between people, methods of working, materials used, equipment employed and environmental factors. Take a look at the errors, defects, waste, and rework that happens around your workplace – open your mind to all the possible factors that could cause these problems. How can you distinguish one from another?

‘Good days’ and ‘bad days’ are the net result of these influences. In reality, much of this ‘common cause’ variation is built right into the system and we need to understand that it is wrong to attribute the differing results to one factor or another.

Because the level of understanding about variation is so low, we make poor decisions that can have a serious effect on organisational performance and employee morale. One common example is to take two pieces of data and treat them as if they were an indication of a trend. How many of us dread the monthly meeting where we present our performance figures? If this month is worse than last month, what consequence will we experience? How will this impact on our next appraisal session? What impact will it have on the assessment of our annual bonus?

Somewhat perversely, managers also miss trends where they exist and consequently dismiss events as ‘nothing unusual’. I have seen examples where lives have been lost through shrugging off significant medical data with a cursory ‘it’s a bit high this month’.

It is a common, though misguided, managerial reflex to regard anything that goes wrong as a special cause attributable to some person

Peter Scholtes

But the mistake that I see most frequently is to attribute ‘common cause’ variation to an individual; to fail to recognise that the individual is only part of the interaction between different parts of the system. I worked with a group of shop-floor workers under pressure from the leader of the organisation to work harder to meet his target. He argued that his expectations were reasonable – after all, he had measured output once for 10 minutes and then multiplied this up to give a target for each shift. Unfortunately, the leader had been trained in the school of SMART objectives. He didn’t understand about variation nor the interaction between parts of the system.

Common cause variation shown in a process behaviour chart

With carefully gathered and analysed data, I was able to demonstrate that the production process in its existing state was incapable of delivering to meet his target. The relief amongst the workforce was palpable. The fear that had suppressed their intrinsic motivation was lifted; together we were able to work on improving the process. The outcome? Levels of production consistently above the previous target and staff fully engaged in improvement.

Why can’t we all be working towards more ‘good days’ like these?