There is a song by The Stranglers with the title “No More Heroes.” One reading of the lyrics is that it bemoans the absence of heroes in the modern age, but there are still many out there, if you know where to look!
Businesses are often full of heroes – though in this context, I mean those people, who you work with, who are there at 0600 and don’t go home until 2100, at the earliest. You will know of their existence, because they will probably tell you, or at least book meetings for you deep into the evening. Do you really want to be the one that doesn’t attend?
It is often true that many of this type of hero do an excellent job. To work with the drive of these people is a remarkable trait but, in the long term, it cannot possibly be sustainable.
Indeed, one could argue that this type of colleague, who incidentally are often managers, are actually doing their respective businesses a disservice. It sounds counterintuitive, as much of lean and lean management often is, so let me explain my thinking a little further.
There are two overriding aims for a lean enterprise. One is to create a deep culture of respect for people, the other is to nurture a habitual learning environment for everyone within the business family. It is possible to argue that our 14 hour a day super-hero-managers are doing neither. Let’s look at some of the possible reasons a little more closely.
Firstly, as we have alluded to above, we can end up creating a battleground of presenteeism. Who is going to blink first with weakness and go home the earliest? This sort of working surely cannot be healthy. A good work life balance actually creates an environment where greater value is given without coercion, either stated or unstated. When we are happy, we have more energy, we are more relaxed and we work with greater clarity and accuracy. This must surely be better than working 12 hours a day, but seeing a huge drop in productivity come Wednesday evening.
Secondly, if your manager is in all hours, does it say much for the trust that he or she place in their team? Are they really respecting their people? Potentially, the message coming across is, “I don’t think that you can do your job, so I am going to work extra hours so that I am available to do the stuff that you have been unable to.” This is particularly true when these heroes are working across shifts, eager to understand that the first shift have met their targets and the second are off to a good start. There is, of course, the positively intended behaviour, where the hero sees themselves as part of the conduit in the information flow – but the shift handovers will, more often than not, achieve this with little difficulty. The hero needs to show some respect and trust in the team.
Thirdly, we have spoken about the value of a learning environment. This can be stifled if the heroes are always on hand to steer the problem solving. A learning opportunity is always lost where a manager comes straight over the top with a solution that saves the day. Obviously, there will be times when this is appropriate, perhaps in the cases of safety or severe emergency. But often there is space for the leader to take a coaching role and to guide a coachee to their own innovative and growing solution. From experience, this can be incredibly difficult, especially if you can see the coachee disappearing down a path you suspect will be fruitless. The right thing again feels counterintuitive. Show your colleague respect. Let them go off on their journey, armed with a satchel of PDCA cycles. They will, with your guidance, find the way. Let them, and all of their colleagues who do the VA everyday work, be the real heroes. Why not go home and have a cup of tea instead?