Have you ever been faced with an ‘untouchable’ in the organization?

These folks are the ones that are some how connected or protected.

What dynamic does this setup in the organization and more importantly who should take care of fixing it?

Maybe an example will clarify the situation.

Lets say that a supervior in an organization has a ’supporter’ in the Executive office.  It really does not matter how this relationship developed.  But now it exists.  The supervisor can do no wrong.  The supervisor even makes it obvious to everyone (including the supervisor’s manager) that he is tight with the VP.

People see them together at lunch.  They sit together in presentations.  Heck, jokes are passed over email to each other.

Now again this situation begs the question… what dynamic does this setup?

In order to answer this question, one needs to understand the power in the organization.

The supervisor has the power over the manager and over the employees.  What is scary is that the supervisor probably realizes it.  What is even scarier… they don’t know how to control or handle the power.

Well lets just say it is sort of like giving a a really fast car to a teenager.  They simply just don’t understand the power that they have. 

So now we have an ineffective power user that is screwing up the organization.

How to handle these situations.

Talk to the Executive - maybe he or she does not realize the dynamic that has been setup.   If you get no where with the executive, lay it out with the human resources team.

If no movement is made in this area, then the only other method is minimize the person’s impact on the organization.  Now you have to be creative in this situation.  You can’t make it seem like the person is losing responsibility or you make get burned.  You need to create a position that is still ‘important’ but has limited people involvement.

In this way, you can at least minimize the chance of the cancer spreading.

I wish I had better news.  But unfortunately when upper management is not willing to deal with true leadership (or power) issues in the organization - you may have to realize that it is probably not an organization that you want to be a part of.

I have utilized the 5s lean tool for nearly 15 years now.

For a quick refresher, 5s is a disciplined approach on making sure that you have a ‘visual order’ to everything.  It should be blatantly obvious to everyone if something wrong or out of place or missing.  There are five steps in the process.  They are listed below:

• Sort - figure out what is really needed and what isn’t
• Set In Order - organize, identify and arrange everything
• Shine - setup regular cleaning and preventative maintenance schedules
• Standardize - make it easy to maintain
• Sustain - maintain and follow the established rules

Originally, I really did consider it as a precursor to the Visual Workplace or factory.  It would reduce time trying to find something; or it would reduce inventory because it was obvious if something was needed or not.   But it wasn’t until recently that I took a slightly different look at the usage of the tool.

I took the 5s implementation as a Leadership Development oppportunity.  Specifically, natural work groups were assigned to each area (which is normal).  These teams established the rules for the area.  An audit list was developed for each area.  I had the management team be the auditors for the areas utilizing the rules established by the teams.

Now, it was a learning experience for both the management team and the hourly workforce.  The managers wanted to change the rules (ummm not their job - they should have been part of the team!)  And the hourly team at times did not think through the rules that were written on 5s board for the area.

For example, in one area a rule stated that the board would be updated every day with initials and a date stamp.  So, I walked to area with one of the natural work group’s team members and saw that the board had not been updated nearly for 3 days.  I said ‘what gives?’  The manager wanted to answer the question for the hourly person, but I did not let him.

The hourly person said ‘Well the train has not delivered anything for three days, so no one has been down here to check it.’

My reply “But your rules say that you are going to check it everyday.  The management team let you come up with your own rules and you can not even follow them?  What gives?’

I did not ride him or the manager any further.  This point quickly made its way around through the facility.

Eventually the rules were updated and reflected the true practice.  It was a joint effort by the manager and the natural work group.

Utilize the 5s approach to start the accountability and leadership development process.

We were eventually able to work this plant site up to having hourly personnel creating and writing human resource policies for minimum staffing requirements and vacation scheduling.

They understood the importance of thinking through all of the rules and holding people accountable to those rules.

How many questions do you get asked a day?

How many decisions do you have to make during the day?

Chances are the number of questions asked is more than the number of decisions made.

The easy questions get answered immediately.  No big deal there.

Now for those really hard questions.  The ones that you told the person you needed more time to think about it.

Did you really go out and get extra data?

Did you ponder the real answer to the question any more?

Or did you actually already have the answer and you were not sure how to tell it or sell it to the person that asked?

What I have witnessed with many leaders of people is that they know the answer already.  Heck they knew the answer 15 seconds after the person asked the question.

But instead of answering the person directly, they said they needed time to think about it.

These are the questions that I want you to focus upon.   If you already know the answer and you don’t need to collect any more data.  Then it is all about the way you need to deliver it.

First if you are scared, say you are scared.  Now ask yourself why you are scared.  Is it that you are going to hurt the other person’s feelings?  Is it some monumental precedent that you are setting?

You need to be a leader and look past that fear.   Figure out how to have the hard conversation.  Delaying it is only going to make it worse for you and worse for the person hearing it.

It is not fair to individual to be strung along.   Get it out.  And don’t be scared.