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“This program is the benchmark I use whenever I’m evaluating training. It’s the most effective out there.” |
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--Training Manager, Lockheed Martin |
“Our managers need to
improve quality, achieve 6-sigma, decrease scrap.” These are common reasons
for bringing in Interact. Helping managers improve quality involves more
than a half-day training program and a few rote steps. Below are a few of
the questions we ask, and some of the answers our customers have given us.
| Interact Questions | Examples from Interact's Experience with Customers | ||
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What actions are undermining quality in your organization? |
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Employees have learned many new quality
tools, but use the tools to beat up on their internal suppliers instead
of to fix problems. At first managers and employees put a lot of energy into finding and resolving quality issues. Now the issues are tougher, and the energy level has dropped. People are not taking the extra initiative required to achieve the next level of quality. Supervisors aren’t getting the support they need from the functional and support areas. |
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What business impact do these actions have? How common are they? How costly are they? |
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Engineers, managers, maintenance, and
employees all point fingers at each other, while the problems remain. People come to accept current quality levels as adequate or even excellent–but they aren’t. Managers push employees, and employees push back. You begin to get “It’s not my job” kinds of behavior. Supervisors move their focus off of quality, and put it on productivity, where they feel they have more direct control. |
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What are some approaches for addressing these issues? |
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Organization Design: Re-organize groups in
order to bring them closer to their customers. Integrate quality
specialists into production teams. Map and redesign key value-adding
processes. Organizational Systems: Improve measurement and feedback systems. Implement SPC and TQM tools. Integrate quality measures into performance management systems. Training: Interact’s courses in Team ConsensusTM, Performance ManagementTM, Team ProcessTM, and Performance Problem SolvingTM have played a key part in improving managers’ effectiveness. |
