All Life Is Problem Solving

(Co-Authored with Steven A. Cavaleri)

Enhancing the power of an organization’s PSP is a matter of moving it toward the Open PSP from whatever position in phase space it is in.

The Vision: Moving Toward the Open PSP

Moving an organization’s PSP is driven fundamentally by re-focusing the attention of employees from implementing existing solutions to improving those solutions, by replacing them with newly created ones. We might call the general process of enhancing an organization’s PSP, Problem Solving Pattern Management (or PSP Management). PSP Management activities include all initiatives directed at enhancing the abilities of an organization’s employees and collectives to perform:

— seeking, recognizing and formulating problems,

— solving problems by developing new solutions, and

— communicating solutions to people who may need them.

Enhancing Seeking, Recognizing, and Formulating Problems: The Importance of “Looking for Trouble”

Problem seeking activities cross the boundary between the OP and the PSP. They are vital to the PSP, because, without them, initiating it becomes dependent on passive problem recognition, alone, thus reducing the frequency of PSPs and the growth of knowledge in an organization.

An organization’s problem seeking activities may be dormant, or function at a minimal level, because of a shared belief that finding new solutions is unnecessary, or that they can be found by hiring consultants. They can, more often, be dormant because corporate cultures often include predispositions that have the effect of discouraging employees from seeing problems and from “looking for trouble.”

One of the first things an organization’s executives must do to enhance problem seeking is to forcefully contradict and campaign against the shared belief that equates problem seeking with ‘rocking the boat,’ and then legitimize employee efforts aimed at “looking for trouble.” Six Sigma and Lean thinking have had the beneficial side effect of institutionalizing looking for trouble in business processes in certain areas of organizations. In Toyota’s kaizen-based lean manufacturing system, standard-setting by workers followed by problem seeking is viewed as one of the key drivers of organizational learning and continuous improvement. As Takeuchi, Osono, and Shimisu, making reference to Toyota President, Katsuaki Watanabe point out (p. 3):

“Voicing contrarian opinions, exposing problems, not blindly following bosses’ orders—these are all permissible employee behaviors. Watanabe, who recounts how he fought with his bosses as he rose through the ranks, often says, “Pick a friendly fight.” We were surprised to hear criticism about the company and senior management in our interviews, but employees didn’t seem worried. They felt they were doing the right thing by offering executives constructive criticism.”

Work groups are the focal point of ongoing problem seeking and problem solving efforts at Toyota. The company’s management structure and responsibilities are all oriented around helping team members become highly effective problem finders, a key aspect of PSP management in open PSPs. Managers here often view their primary responsibility as being one of teaching problem seeking and problem solving methods to operational employees. As a result, there is a small span of control at Toyota and also a relatively flat organizational hierarchy, which, in turn, contributes to effectiveness in communicating problems to the hierarchy.

A good example of the differences between Toyota and American car manufacturers in the depth of their hierarchies is provided by the joint venture of General Motors and Toyota formed in 1983 called New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. (NUMMI) (See Matt May’s The Elegant Solution, pp. 61-65) Amidst comprehensive changes introduced by Toyota at NUMMI, including its introduction of a problem seeking, finding, and solving culture, Toyota also replaced 101 job line descriptions with only one – team member, and also reduced GM’s 14 level hierarchy to three levels of management: Plant Manager, Group Leader, and Team Leader.

Developing standards including ideas about acceptable defect ratios enhances problem seeking and problem recognition because these things support a process of monitoring outcomes to see if they exceed acceptable levels. If they do, it may signal a problem. Specifically, that knowledge about the operational process involved is flawed and needs to be improved, which is another way of saying that the problem must be solved and, what is the same thing, that new knowledge must be created.

Organizations like Toyota, Alcoa, Navy Reactors, Asin, Pratt Whitney, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Avenue A (See Steven Spear’s Chasing the Rabbit), that institutionalize continuous process improvement and either “kaizen,” or kaizen-like procedures, “look for trouble” in an even more radical way. They assume that only zero defect levels are acceptable in the long run. Therefore, they are always monitoring deviations from perfection and are looking to continuously improve process knowledge, i.e. to continuously close knowledge gaps, to get defect levels lower and lower.

To Be Continued