Getting Out Of Jail

In this article, I'm going to talk about a very common behavior that we have, especially amongst the first-line leadership. It is what I call a "get out of jail" card. Keep reading for more about that.

When I'm out working, there's a very, very common situation for me, that we're looking into problems that are happening in operations, right? Things go wrong in all sorts of places and directions, you can say. A very common behavior that I find is that we use something I would call a "Get out of jail card". Get out of jail free Card. If you guys know what to say, you could get out of jail, meaning that, let's say you have a problem, and you want others to stop talking to you about it, this is what you say, this problem came because we had this newcomer who is in training, so he made a mistake, so what can you do? Normally, if you have the right kind of get out of jail phrase, so to speak, the question stops right now, right? Good card. Nobody's going to ask you again. That might feel good, however, the problem is you haven't improved anything, if you just explain why things are going wrong with no actions, it doesn't help. Unfortunately, many organizations just explaining is good enough. Nobody is thinking about them doing more than that. You can do better than that!

Here's the challenge that I like to give to everyone and to you too now. What if you would work on the five why analysis? They're quite complicated to do sometimes, but what if you could do one why, or two? What if you do that and then try a little bit because it's a good way of slowly moving into the five why analysis and getting everybody on-board with that.

If you want to know more about how you can train people in a fun, engaging way, you should contact me. Email me, let me know if we can help you with that, so that you get going on your five why journey for root cause analysis.

Johan Majlov, CEO Lean Dimensions International
[email protected]