Intimidating Supervisors Get Better Results. But...

Do intimidating supervisors produce better results? Do nasty bosses who agressively hold their people accountable for mistakes get better performance than more enlightened, respectful leaders? Yes. But...

A health-care study by Amy Edmonson (one of many she's led on fear and silence in the workplace), examined the error rate in eight different nursing units, and looked for a correlation between the number of errors and the style of leadership. The hypothesis was that units with aggressive, intimidating leaders would produce more mistakes, while the units with enlightened, supportive leaders would make less.

The researchers were shocked to find that the units with the best leadership (enlightened and supportive) reported TEN TIMES as many errors as in the more fear-based units. The bullying worked - aggressively holding people accountable for their errors resulted in one-tenth the number of errors! Hooray!

Unfortunately, if you'd like to use this evidence to justify your evil-boss philosophy, you're out of luck. The research also showed that, in the units with more aggressive leaders, people were scared to report any errors because they knew they'd be criticized, belittled, and humiliated. So, they only reported errors if they absolutely couldn't avoid it. In the supportive units, nurses felt free to report mistakes, with a common focus on finding root causes and improving patient safety. So, they reported all errors, without filtering them to protect themselves.

So, the numbers were dramatically better in the units with nasty, intimidating supervisors. But the numbers did not reflect reality. The numbers in the units ruled by fear, were distorted by that fear, distorted to minimize the exposure to the supervisor's wrath.

There is ample evidence to show that supportive, positive leadership produces better results. That a more civilized workplace produced better results. But if you don't care so much about results, and just want better measurements, you might try being an aggressive, bullying, fear-based, nasty, intimidating boss.

For more on this, check out The No Asshole Rule by Robert Sutton, a quick read that led me to this interesting and revealing research.

Six Saskatchewan HR Basics That Can Bite You

Recent discussions with a potential immigrant investor made us both realize how overwhelming all of the regulations and requirements can be for starting a new business in Saskatchewan. Ranging from provincial business registration, to city business licenses, from GST and PST to income tax and specific licensing issues for specific industries, there truly is a lot to learn. You want to make sure that you don't miss something that will come back to bite you later, and most of these something's have really sharp teeth.

After talking about general business, we got into specifics of hiring staff, and she commented on how much more regulation there was compared to her home country. She exclaimed, in broken English, "Workers treated very good here!" as we went through a few of the HR basics that can bite you when employing people in Saskatchewan:

1. Provincial Labour Standards outline annual holidays, hours of work, minimum wage and other employment rules.
2. Occupational Health & Safety (OHS) sets rules for safety in the workplace, including requirements for employee-driven Occupational Health Committees or Representatives, and penalties for safety violations.
3. The Worker's Compensation Board provides mandatory coverage and compensation for workers injured on the job.
4. Withholding and remitting Payroll Deductions, including Canada Pension Plan contributions, Employment Insurance premiums and Income Tax.
5. Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System (WHMIS) defines rules for safe handling of hazardous products in the workplace, and defines employer responsibilities for safety of employees.
6. The Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission protects people from discrimination based on age, ancestry, marital status, disability, religion, gender and other factors.

There are lots of other HR basics that are good business practice and nice-to-know, but make sure you know and understand how these six apply to your business - they're need-to-know.

The Backbone of Your Organization

From one vertebrate to another, a backbone is a wonderful thing. Compared to slime molds, jelly fish and malpractice lawyers, our backbones give us integrity; holding us together and providing a unifying structure on which we can hang all our other nifty bits and pieces.

Working with companies to map and improve their work processes, it's clear that a good, solid process map can serve as a very effective organizational backbone.

First, you map out the things that you do, step-by-step-by-step, to do good things for your customers. Then, you examine every step of this step-by-step-by-step sequence of events. Then, you think about all the things that can and could and should and shouldn't happen at each step...

• Standard Work - Do the people involved in this step all do their work the best known way possible? How do you know? What typically prevents them from doing the work correctly? What gets in the way?
• Pride of Work - Do the people feel proud of this step? Do they enjoy their work? Is it mind-numbingly boring? Is it stimulating? What can you do to improve it?
• Customer Requirements - What are the requirements of the next step in the process? And the step after that? Do the workers know those requirements? Does the next step understand this step?
• Communication - What does this step communicate to the next? What do they fail to communicate? And vice versa?
• Training - Do the people know how to do this step? Is the training material correct? Is the work activity done correctly? What parts of this step are likely to be done wrong?
• Quality - Does this step produce stuff that meets specifications, that meets customer requirements? Are we following our stated work processes? Could we prove this to a customer? To a regulator?
• Regulations - Does this step conform to all applicable regulations? Some steps may have no regulations, some may have many? Do the people doing the work know what regulations are applicable?
• Standards - Are we following the applicable standards in this step, both internal and external? What could cause a non-conformance at this step?
• Capacity - How much can this step produce? How much does it need to produce? Is it a bottleneck? Is it consistent?
• Variation - What causes results to vary at this step? How much variation is there? Is this part of the system in control or does it fluctuate wildly due to special causes?
• Safety - How can a person hurt themselves in this step? What opportunities for injury can we address? What are the ergonomics of this step? How can we improve them?

• Errors - What kind of errors could happen here? What are the consequences of an error here? Does this step produce a lot of rework? Can we disrupt the possibility of an error here?
• Ethics - Do our people face ethical dilemna's in this step? Privacy issues? Inappropriate temptations? Couldn't we anticipate these and address them in advance?
• Waste - Does this step add value for our customers? Is this waiting or transportation really necessary? Are we producing more than the next step can handle? Does all that frenzied motion really make our service better? Can't we identify these wastes and get rid of them? Can't we make our backbone stronger?
• Risk - Does this step expose the organization to risks, whether liability, injury, financial, security, technical, intellectual property, or maybe even a really big explosion?
• Reporting - What do we truly need to know about this step to manage our company? What do we measure? What should we measure?
• Money - What are the costs and investments associated with this step? Can they be identified? Verified? What about contributions to revenue? What about added value? What about efficient use of resources?

The list goes on. At every step of what we do, there are things that we want to happen and things that we don't want to happen. A good process map can be the backbone on which we hang all these other nifty bits and pieces - our Quality Management System, our Safety initiatives, our Lean improvement efforts, our variation-reduction and process control, our ethics and privacy practices, our financial analysis or our business process modelling.

So, unless you work for Slime Mold Structures Inc., the Jelly Fish Facilitation Co., or the Wees Krew Yu & Laff Lawfirm, take a look a process mapping as a first step in understanding, controlling, and improving your business.

We Removed a Shelf That None of Us Could Reach

In a recent report-out session with a hospital department, one of the changes that the group was most excited about was "We removed a shelf that none of us could reach." Among the many other improvements they made, this one stood out for several reasons:

1. "We" removed a shelf. It was the people in the area that made this change, not a facilities department, not a Six Sigma black belt, not a Lean guru, not a project team. "We" did it. "We" owned the change. "We" liked the change. If someone else had tried to impose this change on them, they probably would have resisted.
2. We "removed a shelf". We didn't add a shelf, we removed it. This was a simple, inexpensive change that required no budget and freed up a resource for someone else to use. It goes against the common thinking that bigger is better, more is better, just-in-case is better. In a small way, it goes against the annual budget dance, be voluntarily reducing what they needed. They improved their area by reducing the amount of storage capacity.
3. We removed a shelf "that none of us could reach". Not only was this shelf too high for convenience, it was too high for safety. Getting rid of it eliminating the climbing, the standing on chairs, the reaching, the give-me-a-boost's. They took away one structural factor that might have contributed to an accident, and made their environment safer.

Simple changes like this, taken one-by-one, seem insignificant. We're tempted instead to look for big, dramatic breakthroughs. But taken over time, these little day-by-day changes add up. After ten, twenty, one-hundred little changes, we're surprised to realize that our entire department has been transformed. "We removed a shelf that none of us could reach" is a perfect example of what Continuous Improvement is all about - small changes, made daily by the people doing the work, to make things better, bit by bit.

Prescription for Simple Language and Better Communication

It's clear that doctors and pharmacists need to improve their communication. Some headlines in the science press include Most Adults Misunderstand Standard Warnings on Prescriptions, Prescription Labels Geared Toward Pharmacies, Not Patients, Low Literacy Equals Early Death Sentence. Even with highly literate people, studies reveal that as many as 70% of patients do not correctly understand the instructions on their prescription medicines.
One study of less-educated patients, Low Literacy Impairs Comprehension of Prescription Drug Warning Labels, revealed the following shockingly common misinterpretations of the instructions on prescription drug labels:

1. Patients thought "Take with food" meant "Don't eat anything."
2. When the label said "Do not chew or crush, swallow whole", many thought it meant "Chew the pill and crush it before swallowing" or "Don't swallow it whole because you might choke."
3. A warning to "avoid exposure to direct sunlight while taking this medication" meant that they weren't supposed to leave the medicine in the sun.
4. "Do not drink alcoholic beverages when taking this medication" was seen as a warning about drinking and driving, or a warning not to drink alcohol at all, because it's poisonous and will kill you.
5. "Do not take dairy products within one hour of this medication" was interpreted either as "If allergic to dairy, don't take medicine" or the more general "Don't eat for 1 hour after taking medicine."
6. "Take medication with plenty of water" was misinterpreted as "Don't take pills when you are wet", " You don't need water with this medicine." or even "Don't drink hot water."
7. "For external use only" was interpreted as "Take this medicine when outside", "Use extreme caution in how you take it", or "Take only if you need it."

As with every other form of communication, simple language helps. And, as with every other form of communication, closing the loop with discussion and confirmation is invaluable. Findings from various studies all point to similar concepts for improving understanding, including:

Explain things clearly in plain, simple, everyday language, avoiding jargon

• Instead of adverse reaction, say side effect. Instead of hypoglycemia, say low sugar. Instead of topical, say on skin. Instead of suppository, say that the pill that goes up your bum.
• Slow down the pace of your speech.
• Pay attention to patient's own terms and use them back.
• Be specific, not vague. Say "Take this pill 1 hour before you eat breakfast" instead of "Take on an empty stomach"

Focus on Key Messages and Repeat

• Limit information. Focus on 1-3 key points.
• Develop short, simple explanations for common medical conditions and side effects.
• Discuss specific behaviors rather than general concepts. Focus on what the patient needs to do.
• Review each point at the end.

Use "Teach back" and "Show me" to Check Understanding

• I want to make sure I explained everything clearly. If you were trying to explain to your wife how to take this medicine, what would you say?
• Let's review the main side effects of this new medicine. What are the 2 things that I asked you to watch out for?
• Show me how you would use this inhaler.

Draw Out Questions

• Don't say, "Do you have any questions?" or "Any questions?" While these appear to invite discussion, their effect is to produce a quick, risk-free "No". There is an implied accusation of stupidity - I'm done explaining it so you should understand it now.
• Instead say, "What questions do you have?" This makes it clear that you expect questions, and makes it safer for people to ask. There is no implication of stupidity - I've explained it as best I can but I probably missed something; let's clear up any confusion I've created.

We look for grand technology solutions and system-wide initatives to improve our organizations. Those are great, but don't ignore such simple things as simple language, repeating yourself, getting people to teach back what they learned, and drawing out their questions. These simple ideas can dramatically improve understanding, and dramatically reduce mistakes.

Sewer Rats and Corporate Learning

If you ever have to kill a sewer rat, you can take advantage of a serious weakness of the varmints - they remember what they've experienced and use their memories to predict what will happen in new situations. "But wait," you cry, "how can memory and experience be a weakness? How can memory and experience make a rat vulnerable? Isn't experience a good thing?"

As it goes in the sewers, so it goes in the corporate world, with a high value placed on experience and corporate learning. An entire industry has sprung up around the areas of knowledge capture and learning management systems. Companies create Chief Knowledge Officers (CKO) and pursue Knowledge Management (KM) solutions. We strive to capture memory and experience in our companies, but we never really question memory and experience themselves? When does memory help us? Does experience ever hurt us?

We assume that memory is good, that past experience protects us, that our accumulated memories and experiences help us make better decisions in the future. However, the influential pshychiatrist W. Ross Ashby, in his classic paper Principles of the Self-Organizing System suggested that there is no faculty or ability that is universally good, universally beneficial. An ability is only good or bad in relation to the environment. And this takes us back to our sewer rats.

A normal sewer rat is very suspicious. It has learned, in the relatively consistent world of the sewer, not to trust strange new food sources. If you put a pile of appealing, but poisoned, food in the sewer, the rats will hesitantly eat only a tiny sample of it, not enough to kill them. Because their environment is generally stable, their memory serves them well and protects them from this new and dangerous situation. But their memory is not always helpful.

In Ashby's words, "If, however, wholesome food appears at some place for three days in succession, the sewer rat will learn, and on the fourth day will eat to repletion, and die. The rat without memory, however, is as suspicious on the fourth day as on the first, and lives. Thus, in this environment, memory is positively disadvantageous." So, if the sewer environment includes the pest-control practice known as pre-baiting, memory and experience will lead rats to their death. What does this suggest for business?

If your business is in a stable, predictable industry in a consistent, unchanging business environment, experience and memory are valuable assets. If what happened before is a good predictor of what will happen next, experience is valuable. If how we handled this before is still useful and relevant, we can use it to determine how we will handle this today. If, however, your business is in an emerging industry, operating in a fast-paced unpredictable environment, the value of experience lessens, and may even become harmful. This is a judgement we all have to make as we face decisions and predictions about the future, as we design strategies and tactics, and as we choose people for our teams.

There are several areas where there is tension between those who have knowledge, experience and memory and those who don't. Consider the following:

• Is seniority justification for higher pay? Those who've been around longer have seen situations that new hires have not. But, new hires have fresh outlooks unconstrained by the way things were done before. Which is more valuable to your organization given the situations you're facing today?
• Should you promote from within? Internal people know the history of what's gone before, of how we got to where we are; outside hires do not. Depending on what you're facing, is knowledge of this history valuable or harmful?
• Do you seek answers from within your industry? If you're in health care, do you look to other health care organizations for solutions, or do you seek new practices from the world's of customer service, food processing, and manufacturing?
• Do you need to improve? The way you do things today was developed in yesterday's environment to face yesterday's challenges. Is it appropriate for today's environment and tomorrow's challenges?
• Are your policies bloated by past experience? Every time an incident happens, we add some wording to our policies, yet we almost never take things away. It grows and festers until we have six pages just dealing with dress code including precise definitions of "spaghetti straps", "midriff" and a working definition of what constitutes "visible underwear".

So, as with the sewer rat, don't assume that capturing memory and experience is inherently good. If your world is stable and unchanging, it's wise and helpful to base your decision on "how we've always done things around here". However, if your environment is changing, if you're facing challenges unlike those of yesterday, you need some fresh solutions, some fresh voices, some inexperience.

Telling Stories or Writing Manuals?

On my first day helping to install kitchens, my job involved attaching the knobs and handles used to open the cabinet doors and drawers. I'd done a lot of carpentry work and had a lot of experience with power tools so I was pretty comfortable with the task. I made a jig, held the jig onto the door with my left hand, and then proceeded to drill holes in the cabinet doors. On the third door, because of the way I was holding the door, I proceeded to drill through the door and right into the middle finger of my left hand. As I bled all over the lovely new kitchen, I learned a safety lesson that I don't think I'll ever forget. There's still a little scar there twenty years later.

I've told this story to various friends over the years, and was surprised to get feedback on it recently. Chatting with a long-time friend who works at a large technical school, he described a new ten-page manual that the safety committee just released for operating an electric drill. We joked about this, as we were both pretty sure that nobody will ever read that manual, let alone use it in any meaningful way. He then mentioned my story, which pops into his head every time he uses an electric drill, especially while holding the workpiece with his other hand. He credited my story with saving his fingers many times over the years.

Whether you're trying to convey your safety messages to employees, or to clarify your personnel policies or company values, many companies are using "company stories" to augment or completely replace their comprehensive written manuals. We humans are naturally drawn to engaging stories, and we remember them easily, unlike a boring, lengthy manual that we don't ever read.

When you want to develop a certain style of customer service, capture and share some stories about what you consider to be really good, and really bad, service experiences. To convey how you'd like your managers to handle employee situations, capture and share stories of what happened when it was done particularly well, or particularly poorly, in the past.

Tell more stories. Write fewer manuals.

Leader Standard Work

Visiting a small, privately-held food processing plant, the general manager treated me to a tour of the facility. Now this is a busy guy with lots on his plate, but what impressed me was the behaviour he modelled. As we entered the plant, he automatically got me a hairnet, in a calm assuming manner that was easy to comply with, even though it wouldn't look too good with the business suit I was wearing! I'm all for following good practice, yet a common experience in these situations is for senior people to act as if the rules don't apply to them and their guests.

I commented on this simple act of compliance with their food-safety and quality standards. His response showed that he recognized the importance of his role as leader; "It wouldn't look too good for the boss to violate the standards we set."

Going further, I inquired about getting a group tour for a professional association I'm involved with and his response was equally thought-provoking. "We don't do tours, except for customers or key contacts." explaining further that the risk to food quality from groups of unknown people was greater than the public relations or professional benefits that might develop.

The commitment to follow the standards, demonstrate the standards, and "live" the standards makes me think that this company is in good hands.

A Little Safety Incident

While visiting a large food-processing plant, I was waiting in the lobby for my appointment and noticed a sign by the security doors. As part of the safety program at this plant, there was an automated check-in, check-out process for entering the plant to keep track of how many people were in the building in the case of emergency.

Every employee and guest required an RFID pass going in and going out so the monitoring system could tell at any instant how many people were in the building. As I registered with the receptionist, she was searching for a pass for me when my host arrived. Looking through a filing cabinet for a few seconds, she failed to find a pass and they both decided not to bother. So I went in without a pass. Funny thing is, the man I was meeting with was the safety and quality manager for the plant.

Now, the building didn't burn down and there was no accident. But, a tiny little breach like this IS a safety incident, even though it didn't turn into an injury or loss. You can have the greatest high tech system in the world, but people still need to use it. And managers/leader especially need to model and demonstrate as part of building the system-wide safety culture. Just because you get away without an injury doesn't mean your safety program is working.