Great Supervisors Drive Great Improvements |
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By: Steven Grant Posted: 2007-10-31 07:35:00 |
| Improvement is one area where you can really shine as a new supervisor. You're already a technical expert because of your years on the front lines, so you know exactly where there are opportunities. Remember you're not an industrial engineer, you're not the chief quality officer, you're a front line supervisor and you need to get the work in and get the work out as a first priority. But improvements, within your scope of responsibility, represent a great chance to make a difference that will highlight you and your team as significant contributors.Don't be a renegade in this endeavor. Many companies have formal programs for process improvement that you may need to work within, depending on the scope of your efforts.Start very small with procedural improvements that require no technology and no investments. Do not run off on your own to do this, get your boss fully involved before you start and then bring in your team to double-check your ideas and build their support for the change.You might have opportunities to train your team to reduce a particular data entry error. You might be able to improve customer listening on your team. You might be able to communicate expectations and due dates to customers more effectively. You might institute peer-reviews of critical documents that reduce errors and re-work. There are an endless number of improvements that are very small, but that add up to big improvements over time.Track your team's improvement, but do not get hung up--at this stage--building elaborate justifications or cost-benefit analyses. Your goal should be to make 1 improvement a month, then 2, then 3, until every member of your team is improving at least 1 very small thing each month. As you gain skill and experience you will also uncover improvement opportunities that are enormous, but keep it very simple for the first few years.These improvements might take one hour of thought to evaluate, ten minutes of discussion to gain approval, and twenty minutes of training to communicate to your team.The biggest stumbling block to engaging in these improvement efforts is time. People are generally overwhelmed with work on a day-to-day basis and do not have the quiet time available to them to think through the improvement suggestion. 99% of the time, service environments that are overwhelmed, are overwhelmed by re-work. If your team is poorly trained, if your technology is antiquated, if your procedures are not standardized than you will have an avalanche of errors, waste and re-work constantly flowing back into your shop. Not to mention the excessive time on rush orders, escalations, complaints and threats pouring in from the customers and the management. If your company is in such a state that they're not making appropriate investments in the infrastructure, then a constant, diligent focus on hundreds of tiny improvements is the only way to hack through the swamp. No one is saying this is easy, but its more fun to hack through the swamp than it is to just sit there and let the mosquitoes eat you alive.Your goal, as a leader, is not so much any one improvement by itself, its to get your entire team thinking about how to take the business to the next level. People want to be engaged in something larger than themselves. They want to feel significant in their jobs and they want to contribute to making the customer experience better every day. By setting a standard of excellence you give everyone permission to contribute directly to making the job better, rather than being passive observers at a train wreck.By engaging yourself, and your team, in this constant stream of improvement opportunities you will energize them and develop them, and yourself, in ways that were not previously imaginable.Copyright © 2007, Lotus Pond MediaSteven Grant is a former customer service executive from American Express with over 25 years devoted in Fortune 500 companies analyzing, improving and delivering on enhanced customer experiences. Share your experiences and suggestions on improving the customer experience at http://www.customerresearchcenter.com |
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