We are a relatively small manufacturing company employing around 200 people, but we are ambitious to expand. In order to fulfil our longer term objectives we realised some time ago that we would need to create scale. To that end, we recently acquired a local 100-employee company that makes products which are complementary to our own.
However, we have experienced a real culture clash between the two companies.
We had spare capacity at our factory so, to save costs, we closed the other company’s plant and moved all its staff – administrative and shop floor – to our own facility.
Everybody was happy with this arrangement and the move went really well – that was about six months ago. The administrative staff settled in quickly – one or two minor disagreements early on, but, on the whole, fairly straightforward.
But it is a different story on the shop floor. Our existing employees were much further down the CI road than those we took on. For example, over the past two years, we have created three Six Sigma black belts and our deliveries have improved from 89% on time to promise to 94% on time to request. We have also generated savings of £70,000 by introducing 5S and tightening up our PDCA performance.
However, these successes mean many of our existing employees tend to act in a superior manner, putting the backs up of those who have joined us.
Secondly, the senior leadership team of the company we bought had a very different management style to ours. We tend to operate through consultation and agreement. We also encourage our people to take ownership of the operations for which they are responsible and that means they contribute ideas for improvements freely.
The company we bought was far more directive, basically telling people what to do. This means that the workforce we inherited shows less initiative than our existing employees and, for example, they rarely make improvement suggestions.
I would like to know how we go about integrating the two sets of workers quickly so they operate as a single, effective team.
Ci Solution - Martin Barrett of Suiko gives the expert view…
It is always a challenging time when two different cultures are required to integrate. It rarely happens smoothly, but rest assured with the right level of foresight and commitment to the cause, there is light at the end of what currently seems a dark tunnel.
Multiple studies have shown that around 70 percent of large change programmes fail to deliver the target outcome. Our experience reaffirms that successful implementation of change programmes depends on the organisation’s ability to develop a holistic approach, incorporating the right process with employee engagement. The output should lead to an integrated, joined up programme that will result in a sustainable and common journey towards the vision.
Firstly remind yourself of the original journey you made, how long it took to change and develop your original team, both shop floor and management - and focus on your successes. How did you do it last time? What worked well? What approach did you take (strategy, training, coaching, education, workshops, improvement activities, reward and recognition)? This would be a very beneficial first step in order to produce a plan for the new team. It is important to create alignment of goals and ensure the new plan is cognoscente of the overall vision.
It is always useful to understand the blockers too – generally the old style, top-down culture is not the most effective way of getting ideas and engagement from the team. This all starts at the top. The new team need to understand that it is not only ok to raise issues and suggest improvement but that it is something that is actually expected! This will only happen if the management team changes too. It sounds like you need to start there as a priority. Challenge the Leadership Shadow the current management team are casting. Is it aligned to how you want to operate and the future vision of the organisation?
We would advise setting goals for the entire team, with a particular focus on ensuring the new team is collectively part of it. Make CI part of their accountabilities. By helping the team to work out how to make CI part of the day job you effectively start to build a unified culture that makes CI mandatory and not optional.
Find a few new team members who want to participate and embrace change, and put some real effort into supporting them. Let them lead by example and with your support they will influence their peer group.
It may also be useful to use a bit of cross fertilisation to integrate the ‘newbies’. Create CI teams made up of new and existing employees (management and shop floor). Breaking down hierarchical and departmental silos is an effective way to bring people together to collaborate and share improvement ideas and projects.
The overall programme must be made a strategic priority, with a clear framework to provide guidance on what needs to be done. People need to have the right tools to deliver the expected results. The tools and techniques, when used appropriately, will help them see more clearly, measure, focus, problem solve, collaborate and as a result be more effective. Ultimately, this can develop into the group operating system.
In close, it is also important to face reality. The new way of working my not be for everybody, and you may have some change casualties, but remember it is for the future of the business.
