Five Ways to Accelerate Root Cause Investigations. Part 2

In this final installment (Part 1) I'll cover a surprising element of investigations that you don't hear much about.  Yet this is the element that produces most of the facts that you need to get at the truth.

3. Drive out fear.  W. Edwards Deming, the famous quality guru, insisted that managers must drive out fear.  But in training seminars many managers would ask, "Why should employees fear me?  I'm a nice guy, and besides, I'm just doing my job."  Deming would respond that fear arises from the structure of the employee – manager relationship.

In the mind of the employee the manager has all the power in the relationship.  The manager determines the employee's raise.  The manager can hire.  The manager can fire.  When someone has that kind of power over anyone, it's natural for that person to have fear.

Even if you're a new manager walking in the door, sight unseen by the employees, there is fear in the workplace.  Unless you do something active to drive it out, it will remain.  And it will inhibit you from rooting out the errors in your business processes.

Fear makes the workers defensive. 

Fear makes the workers hide any data that might put them in a bad light.

Fear is the investigator's worst enemy.

4. Assume that all your employees want to do a good job.  You'll be surprised how true that is.  Sure, you might get disappointed at times, but those occasions will be rare.  People will rise to your expectations.  They will feel your attitude and will be more open to brainstorming solutions rather than covering up.
5. Manage By Walking Around.  Don't wait for the next crisis before getting up from your desk and out where your employees work.  But if the only time your employees see you is when you storm out of your office with a problem and an attitude, they will be ducking for cover at first sight. 

Sure, you're overloaded.  But the reality is that your in-box will never be empty.  Now the question is how to prioritize it.  Getting a direct feel of the workplace, bypassing all the reports and buffers, is the only way.  It doesn't have to take a lot of time!  A few minutes per day is enough.  By staying in touch with the people who actually do the work you'll know what's truly important in your department.  When you have all the information, you can make better informed decisions about how to prioritize your work.

When your employees get used to the sight of you circulating around when there is no crisis to resolve, they'll be more open to brainstorming when the time comes to search for root causes for errors. 

Once you've implemented your corrective actions don't forget the next step:  Preventive Action.  Look for similar situations in your process that have not yet occurred.  That's where the money is!

Follow these five principles and your error investigations will improve quickly.  Your corrective actions will prevent similar errors from occurring.  Each error prevented will create more time to research other errors and the process will feed back on itself. 

Your employees will become more open with you in the error investigation process.  Soon they will learn to take more of the responsibility on themselves.  This will free you to take on additional responsibilities.

How about you?  Do you have a similar story?  What has worked best for you?  Comment below.