In my business and my political career I
have used Systems thinking as a way of managing and incentivising staff, The
world can thank a pioneering Japanese man for systems thinking. Taiichi Ohno, former
executive vice president of the Toyota Motor Company, pioneered ideas that
later became coined as Lean by American's.
It all came about because levels
of demand for cars in the post war economy of Japan were low and over
production in the factories had to be avoided.
Having visited and seen
supermarkets in the USA, Taiichi Ohno
recognised the scheduling of work should not be driven by sales or production
targets but by actual sales.Toyota still uses Lean to this
day – some 50 years after Mr Ohno started the revolution
What is Systems thinking and what relevance is there to modern day
Policing?
Well rather than being
some over complicated academic theory it’s based on common sense, it empowers
staff and creates a culture of continuous improvement.
The concept
of unnecessary and avoidable process’s being built into jobs and then taken for
granted was noticed by motion efficiency expert and former bricklayer Frank Gilbreth who saw
that masons bent over to pick up bricks from the ground. The bricklayer was therefore lowering and
raising his entire upper body to pick up 2.3kg brick, and inefficiency had been
built into the job through long practice.
To any Police
Officer reading this blog will immediately realise why Systems Thinking can help
the Police, the same habit of building in efficeny into their work practices have
plagued the Police for years.
Frank
Gilbreth introduced a non-stooping scaffold which delivered the bricks at waist
level and allowed masons to work about three times as quickly and with less
effort.
Small
commonsense changes suggested from the grassroots at the sharp-end improves
effiency and increases staff morale
For example, I remember
when at the Council we were discussing a target, should we target to answer our
phone calls within 5 rings or 6 rings, (this was the type of Top down Micro
management we had to implement under the last government).
Systems’ thinking
approaches the question from a different angle, rather than ask how many phone
rings you should have, it asks the question why are we having so many telephone
calls in the first place?
When an organisation
does not do something properly it generates negative demand, People phone up to
complain about something that has not been done, Systems Thinking deals with
the negative demand by leaning systems to be simpler, so to get it right first
time. Nobody rings up their
council to say things have gone right, they just expect it to be so.
large organisations over
the years have built up over complicated process’s or moved manual process’s on
to Computers without any thought of reform, this sometimes involves up to 30
different actions from start to finish to complete one function or outcome, if
you study what needs to be done from start to finish and reduce the number of
actions you get a more efficient and workable process (Not complicated), yet over
decades organisations, many in the Public Sector have done this. Leaving us
inefficient top down structures.
How do you “get buy-in” from staff and middle
management, well you walk the floor and talk to them, most staff at the sharp
end know what needs to be done, but they are compelled in working a certain way
by the Control and Command management style. Once you start to trust your
grassroots staff to make decision and redesign process your efficiency and
staff morale rises and you have a much more dynamic organisation,
This would be one of the
changes I would implement to Sussex Policing if I am given the chance.
The issue though for
Sussex is the lack of Unitary Councils, Brighton would be an obvious case for
introduction, but where there are District, Borough and County government structures you
have issues of Rural and Urban mix, the current draft of the legislation says
that it has to be District or Borough wide, this would penalise Rural Pubs when
you want to keep them going as they are useful social hubs for communities.
