Leading OEE from the front
April 12, 2010 by david.evanson
Randomly i was just drawn onto the BT website to sort out my phone bill and i came across an article on leadership that resonated with me and from which i’ve lifted the first paragraph below:
“Let’s be clear – leading is different from managing. Leaders have a vision of what the company could be – its ethos, brand image and place in the market; they set the direction, steer a course and inspire others to share the belief. Managers help realise the vision, directing staff and operations; they measure and control resources as well as establishing plans, rules and timescales. Of course, managers encourage and motivate too, and some people can both manage and lead” - From BT Business Insight Articles
I’m wondering how do great leaders cascade their vision throughout their teams on a really practical daily basis? In my mind a great leader not only sets the vision, they live it every day and show by example that they understand the intricacies of being aligned to a common goal.
Consider a business that wants to drive performance using OEE and tactical reviews. Quite often we see a great emphasis on documenting, clarifying, and standardising meetings at Non Management, Junior Management, and Middle Management level. If these guys are meeting every 4hr we’d better make the process optimised and efficient so let’s write down what we want them to do and then audit against the documentation. Let’s ensure that all these meetings are highly effective with great quality and impact to our business (sound familiar?).
As we go up through the organisation we tend to see this attention to structure and repeatability weaken until we see Senior Managers carrying out review meetings without an agenda, minutes, or any rating for effectiveness or quality.
Let me ask a couple of questions -
- Are senior managers intrinsically more structured, disciplined, and aligned than a junior or middle management team?
- At senior manager level what is the potential impact on the organisation for each decision made?
- What message does a leadership team give to the rest of the organisation if they insist on structure and discipline that they don’t themselves adhere to?
Leading is different from managing. Great leaders don’t just set the vision, they live it every day. A manager may insist that a team follows a specific structure to get the most from their day, a great leader brings that team into their own daily routines and leads by example. Imagine taking a group of junior managers into a board review in which they see the same documentation, the same structure, and comparable outputs to their tactical review meetings.
Surely it makes sense that if i want my team to perform in a standardised, structured, disciplined, and repeatable manner then the first person i need to change is me?
What disciplines around OEE leadership do you demonstrate each and every day?
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