Let's talk about your culture.
Connect with us
It Is My Job: A View from the Frontline of a Leading Medical Manufacturer
Picture Adam, a mechanic for a long-established global medical manufacturing company, looking quizzically at a machine. While cleaning it, he has spotted a higher amount of scrap on one of the lines.
It’s that kind of moment when you’re at your job, no matter what your job is, and that question dawns on you: “Is this my problem?”
It isn’t necessarily Adam’s problem, in terms of his job description. However, he is part of an organization going through a Culture Equation Journey™, and his story is one that serves as an example of how aligning in a collaborative, results-driven culture empowers everyone to be better, to do better than just clock in.
Instead of ignoring the higher scrap rate, instead of waiting and seeing if someone else would notice or take accountability, Adam enlists one of the engineers.
Now let’s pause here: this may sound like a very simple thing, reaching out to a coworker for support. But this 60,000+ organization had for many years stagnated in a siloed culture that didn’t foster feedback or cross-department communication. Adam’s action was counter to that prior culture.
Moving from “It’s not my job” to “Absolutely, this is on me.”
Something had changed in Adam and in his workplace culture. “It’s not my job” had been a hallmark belief of this organization’s culture prior to our work with them. Engineers and frontline mechanics like Adam were working in silos, creating division rather than collaboration. In turn, silo culture and divisions between teams were generating poor results: low product quality, high amounts of waste, a threat of not passing FDA inspections, and impending lay-offs.
But this global medical manufacturer had done the culture work to shift from “it’s not my job” to “it is my job — and, I can ask for help.” Adam and the engineer took a look at the problem and found what looks like, to an outside viewer, a simple fix to a small component, a tiny nub on a loading tray.
The tiny tray fix saved this plant $242,000 that year.
And their focus on culture led to our client identifying twelve areas where they improved savings by $3M/year. The impact didn’t stop there. They passed FDA inspections, and they saved 3,000 jobs.
You can unleash the power of your organization’s culture and empower your teams with accountability. Start your Culture Equation Journey™ today.
Connect with us