Banking on Productive Change

I pretended I was a bank clerk today. It taught me rather a lot.

I’ve never played a management simulation game before. I rather wish I had.

The event was an IDEAS seminar, delivered through a collaboration of Lancaster, Manchester and Liverpool universities at Daresbury Science & Innovation Campus.

Our game was focused on improving a loan-assessment procedure, initially bogged down in a clunky, confusing and desperately cluttered stage-by-stage process. We came up instead with a simple, smooth process which was robust, largely error-free and scalable……which was just as well, as these people (myself included) seek to portray themselves as players and leaders in the entrepreneurial business world!

What was of key interest to me were the broad objectives and the way of going about them. Despite having been exposed to many process and quality management theories across my engagements in a large variety of manufacturing companies, until today, whilst I had always respected their relevance, I never connected properly with them with any deep resonance.

Presenter Dr John Mackness, of Lancaster University Management School, brought it all to life. He explained the 7 Wastes mantra of: Overproduction, Transport, Inappropriate Processing, Unnecessary Inventory, Excess Motion, Defects. He unpacked the DMAIC acronym of Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve & Control.

And you know what? Those kinds of things that you often find yourself talking about more than actually experiencing suddenly started happening – we rapidly found ourselves forming a team of free-flowing and creative ideas. People broke off naturally into tasks at which they thought themselves most suited. We worked hard at the job, exceeded our expectations and felt real elation at having cracked the exercise within about three hours instead of the anticipated four or five.

But, I hear you ask, it was only a game! Well, in terms of commercial connectivity, it might have been only a game but, in relation our human needs, interactions and expectations, if was far from a game.

As we keep saying within our own corporate culture consultancy, there is no joy in mediocrity - there is joy in excellence.

When we debriefed later, I remarked that I found some of John Mackness’s terminology of manufacturing still a little distant - but then the penny dropped for me. We were talking about the same things, only from different viewpoints. His Lean Manufacturing was my Flow (Positive Psychology’s Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s term for that state of semi-relaxed engagement which is actually marked by intense and time-suspended productivity). John’s constant asking of “why” and “how” was my recursive determination to free human cultural relationships from the debilitating friction of misunderstandings and poor sense of direction.

And we were both talking about creating an enabling methodology which boosts productivity and human satisfaction without adding just another dead weight of mechanisation.

From the shopfloor of manufacturing to the outer edges of intellectual endeavour, we need to be always alert to the possibilities for eliminating waste and setting the productive spirit free.

At The Cultureship Practice we always argue that it rests on Community, Contribution & Recognition (CCR). We had those universal productive resources in abundance this morning – and you can take that to the bank!! Thanks John.