Have you already heard that in your company?
- hey! something went wrong on <the new project or service your team was supposed to deliver>
- of course, this is Kevin’s* fault, he didn’t do what was expected, he is late and… well, i’m pissed of and I think he is incompetent.
- sure he is, we should tell his boss so that his boss can blame him and force him to work harder Sounds familiar? Or anything similar in a way or another?
When I arrived at Aramis Group, I was told that 𝙋𝙧𝙤𝙘𝙚𝙨𝙨 𝙞𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙗𝙡𝙚𝙢 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙥𝙚𝙤𝙥𝙡𝙚 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙤𝙡𝙪𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣. Fair enough. But I didn’t really get totally what it meant to its deeper level until a meeting where
Romain Boscher
(CEO of Aramis France) attended:
Someone was sharing a customer issue of something that went wrong (a 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙗𝙡𝙚𝙢, which is a good thing because in the Lean Way, the problems are the opportunities of improvement). And he was sharing that Kevin* didn’t call back the customer, Kevin failed to abide by the standard, Kevin forgot to take a picture of… “Stop it right now” said Romain. “This is 𝗡𝗢𝗧 Kevin’s fault. What have we done wrong so that this poor Kevin couldn’t handle his job properly?”. (In reality, Kevin was kind of a superhero, dealing with both his customers and the ones of his sick colleague, he never had the right training on the job, no information about the standards and did his really best to get customer satisfaction).
𝙒𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙥𝙧𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙖𝙣𝙮𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙙𝙤𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙝𝙞𝙨/𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙟𝙤𝙗 𝙘𝙤𝙧𝙧𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙡𝙮?
- 𝗦𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹𝘀: does he/she have the right skills to do what is expected? Did we (management team) choose the right person for the right job and did we help him or her with the right trainings, gave him/her the time to ramp up? How can he/she asks for help (in a trustful and not reproachful way)? It’s fine to be on a job where you don’t have all the skills yet. And you will make mistakes. So you can be better, and learn, along with the company that will learn with you. The minimum skill you need to have is to 𝙗𝙚 𝙚𝙖𝙜𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙤 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙣, accept and acknowledge your mistakes so you can learn from them.
- 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀: does he/she have the right conditions to do the job? Does he/she have the documentation, the standards or the procedures? Does he/she have the right tools to make his/her job? Is the workload consistent with the available time? Are we clear on the priorities he/she should work on? Our job as managers and leaders is to 𝙢𝙖𝙠𝙚 𝙨𝙪𝙧𝙚 𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙩𝙚𝙖𝙢𝙨 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙧𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙙𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 𝙩𝙤 𝙙𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙟𝙤𝙗. And even more, to do their job + kaizen. Improving the conditions of your job is also part of your job (thanks to kaizen). And we often underestimate how bad conditions prevent the best skilled teams to do their job properly.
- 𝗪𝗶𝗹𝗹: does he/she wants to do this job? What are his/her motivations? Did we give the wrong tasks to the wrong teams? Who will be motivated by this job? Of course, in every job, you may have some tasks less fun than others and you still have to deal with those, but it shouldn’t be your whole job. Our role as leaders is to chose wisely who will be the best team and the best people to deal with the job. At every level of the company. We at Aramis have incredible developers, who works on very complex new systems to deal with multiple countries, and they love it. We also have incredible mechanics who love to fix the most complex engines of the weirdest cars. They are car artists in an industrial process. They are the right people in the right job.
In a nutshell, 9 times out of 10, people want to do their job and they want to do it the best way they can. And when it fails, it’s probably one of the 3 issues described earlier.
This is one of the major mindset changes I’ve had thanks to Aramis’ culture and thanks to Romain who fosters this every day with his teams.
Next time anything fails in your project or your business, remember to ask yourself not 𝘄𝗵𝗼 but 𝘄𝗵𝘆.
Disclaimer: of course, first names have been changed and nothing I wrote implies any Kevin in the company or anywhere else <3
