Negative Aspects of Collaberation
Negative Aspects of Collaboration
Several years ago, my employer embraced the idea of conducting a Kaizen event anytime a significant process issue was identified. Kaizen is based on a Japanese philosophy which means continuous change or improvement. Many manufacturers that embrace a lean methodology use a kaizen approach to continually tweak their processes. (Lean Thinking and Methods, 2011) It seemed like every time we had some supplier complaint or a supply disruption, we conducted some team inspired problem solving. Some of the kaizens worked well, others did not. The kaizens that did not go well had a lot of common issues. Too often the same people were being tapped to participate in the events again and again which caused their workload to suffer. It got to the point where the right people for the event were simply declining to attend so people with little direct knowledge were participating. Sometimes, the kaizen events were held for too long a period of time; many attendees just could not clear their calendars for several days in a row. In some cases, the groups experienced groupthink in which dissenting viewpoints to the majority opinion were not truly expressed. I also saw episodes of group shift, a condition that happens when the discussions influence members to take a more exaggerated view. (Robbins & Judge, 2013) For example, one of our kaizen events was supposed to determine why the commodity managers couldn’t focus on creating strategic plans. The end result was a mish mash of petty complaints such as, “I have to spend too much time figuring out how to print cafeteria vouchers for my supplier visits”. The true reason was because they did not know what management meant when they asked for “strategic plans” so they didn’t know how to create a strategic plan. I think all of the attendees were eventually appalled at the extreme answers they came up with as a group for that event
In the situation outlined above, the silly conclusions
Several years ago, my employer embraced the idea of conducting a Kaizen event anytime a significant process issue was identified. Kaizen is based on a Japanese philosophy which means continuous change or improvement. Many manufacturers that embrace a lean methodology use a kaizen approach to continually tweak their processes. (Lean Thinking and Methods, 2011) It seemed like every time we had some supplier complaint or a supply disruption, we conducted some team inspired problem solving. Some of the kaizens worked well, others did not. The kaizens that did not go well had a lot of common issues. Too often the same people were being tapped to participate in the events again and again which caused their workload to suffer. It got to the point where the right people for the event were simply declining to attend so people with little direct knowledge were participating. Sometimes, the kaizen events were held for too long a period of time; many attendees just could not clear their calendars for several days in a row. In some cases, the groups experienced groupthink in which dissenting viewpoints to the majority opinion were not truly expressed. I also saw episodes of group shift, a condition that happens when the discussions influence members to take a more exaggerated view. (Robbins & Judge, 2013) For example, one of our kaizen events was supposed to determine why the commodity managers couldn’t focus on creating strategic plans. The end result was a mish mash of petty complaints such as, “I have to spend too much time figuring out how to print cafeteria vouchers for my supplier visits”. The true reason was because they did not know what management meant when they asked for “strategic plans” so they didn’t know how to create a strategic plan. I think all of the attendees were eventually appalled at the extreme answers they came up with as a group for that event
In the situation outlined above, the silly conclusions
Cited: Francis, K. A. (n.d.). Group Vs. Individual Decision Making for a Business. Retrieved 1 22, 2014, from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/group-vs-individual-decision-making-business-448.html: Lean Thinking and Methods. (2011, 11 10). Retrieved 1 22, 2014, from United States Environmental Protection Agency: http://www.epa.gov/lean/environment/methods/kaizen.htm Robbins, S., & Judge, T. (2013). Organizational Behavior. Boston: Prentice Hall.