The following story was told to me when I first started in management consulting, over 25 years ago:
Once upon a time, a very strong woodcutter asked for a job in a timber merchant and he got it. The pay was really good and so were the work conditions. For those reasons, the woodcutter was determined to do his best.
His boss gave him an axe and showed him the area where he supposed to work.
The first day, the woodcutter brought 18 trees.
“Congratulations,” the boss said. “Go on that way!”
Very motivated by the boss words, the woodcutter tried harder the next day, but he could only bring 15 trees. The third day he tried even harder, but he could only bring 10 trees. Day after day he was bringing less and less trees.
“I must be losing my strength”, the woodcutter thought. He went to the boss and apologized, saying that he could not understand what was going on.
“When was the last time you sharpened your axe?” the boss asked.
“Sharpen? I had no time to sharpen my axe. I have been too busy trying to cut trees…”
One of the most common refrains I hear from clients is that they are “too busy” to engage in improvement initiatives. Employees are already working overtime, how can we possibly ask them to engage in an improvement initiative?
WHY are they too busy?” Many times it’s most likely because their “axes” (i.e., processes) never get sharpened. I like to tell this story to clients and also add, “what happens if you don’t do anything at all? Will things ever get better? Or will they get worse?”
Another familiar refrain is, “I understand, but now isn’t a good time to do something.” The thing is, it’s NEVER a good time!
Once you’ve agreed that you need to improve, the key questions become WHAT to improve and HOW to improve. This is where many companies go wrong. They take on too many improvement initiatives and as a result never get anything done. I talk about this in the article I wrote some years ago, ““How Constraints Management Enhances Lean and Six Sigma.” Every organization has limited capacity – FOCUS your improvement efforts on what’s important.
More on this topic in subsequent posts.
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