I have spoken with a number of people about my blog on counter or counterfeit measures and I realize how often people miss the mark on this topic. Leaders misinterpret walking through an area and generating action lists for true countermeasure management. When you create a true countermeasure culture the benefits are synergistic. Before you read the message below, how do you think your company is doing with successful countermeasures?

I had a discussion with a person that was in charge of safety and maintenance for a large company. Safety always came first. When the company or corporate leaders spoke on the state of the business or at any company meeting, safety was always the first topic. Every kaizen event had safety goals and there were a number of safety programs/promotions in place. Not surprisingly, the safety record improved but accidents still occurred.

Fast forward 400 plus days later; zero accidents. What changed? The leadership changed. While the previous leadership took safety seriously, a backlog of safety-related items accumulated due to the resource requirement to implement all of them. The list continued to grow until there were literally hundreds of items in the backlog. The new leadership held an offsite safety meeting and asked what was needed to improve. He listened and then resourced the effort to clean up the safety item backlog.

Today, there is almost no backlog and new items are quickly addressed. The result is that not only has the plant gone over 400 days without an accident, but there is an overall plant-wide productivity increase of around 5 percent.

Do you think the simultaneous improvement in safety and productivity is coincidental? My guess is that it isn’t. When I worked at United Technologies Corporation we had a saying, “watch my feet’. People see what get’s done and what doesn’t. Associates decide whether or not leaders are listening to them based upon the leaders’ ACTIONS and not his or her words. People take notice and the culture changes. Even more powerful is when associates participate in the countermeasures, creating even greater ownership. When a company culture changes for the positive, results are compounded.

What have you done to improve countermeasure effectiveness? What are you actions communicating to others? If you were to poll your associates, how would they rate your ability to get things fixed?

While culture tends to be an elusive subject, the definition I prefer is Larry Bossidy’s, “Culture is the behavior of our leaders, we get expect and what we tolerate.” In previous articles* I stated that a sustained lean transition is more about culture change than it is about tools. We need to change leader behaviors if we are going to sustain results and create a continuous improvement culture. One of the most important behaviors is ensuring effective countermeasures. Whether it is a ’30 day homework list’ at the end of a kaizen report out, or a countermeasure sheet on a SQDC board, the principle is the same. Leadership has the opportunity with each action item to advance or to hinder the company culture. A good friend of mine, Frank Stroscio, Director of Lean Operations at Steris, captured the essence of the point when he used the phrase “counter or counterfeit measures,” Each action we assign is a ‘moment of truth’ and Associates are always watching to see what gets done and what doesn’t.

Every time we document an action item, we need to think about two factors:

• What is the chance that it will be completed on time?
• Will it have the intended effect?

If we assign names and completion dates without ensuring the proper resources available, it becomes a counterfeit measure. Likewise, if we simply assign an action that does not get to the root cause, it is also a counterfeit measure. The effect of counterfeit measures is deadly to a company’s culture. People soon see through the façade and become complacent or worse, skeptical or even cynical of their leaders. The overall effect is that people lose trust in leadership, which as Patrick Lencioni states in his book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, is the very foundation of attaining high achieving teams.

How well are you doing? Take a walk and go to Gemba. Whether it is a business or shop floor environment, go and see. Audit the countermeasure lists and look for the following:

• Is there clear accountability for each assignment with name and scheduled completion date?
• What per cent are being completed on time?
• If complete, do the results verify that the intended effect has occurred?
• Is is being sustained? How do you know?
• If not complete, why not and what is the status?
• Has the reason for non-completion been shared with the affected people?

How did your audit go? Did you take the opportunity to talk with people in the area to hear what they have to say? What is being done that you see as effective or ineffective? In a follow up blog I will provide some advice and would like to hear from you as well.