> Continuous Improvement Strategies

Your Ideas Don’t Seem To Get Used By Your Leaders

Last updated by Jeff Hajek on September 11, 2019

There are many things that affect job satisfaction, but a handful carry more weight than others. Trust in one’s boss and good relationships with coworkers are both important factors. The ability to have a say in how the job is done is another significant influencer of job satisfaction.

When a person makes an attempt to improve a job and they feel if falls on deaf ears, a person tends to like their job less, and their performance frequently suffers.

Problem

Your Ideas Don’t Seem To Get Used By Your Leaders

How this affects you

Your leaders don’t seem to think your comments or suggestions are very important. Your boss or kaizen team leader hears you out, but your ideas are not put in place. When they are discarded, you are worried that you are not viewed as a valuable team member. It also makes you less likely to offer ideas in the future.

Action to Take

Everyone has an idea about how to fix one thing or another. Go to any local watering hole, and you can hear dozens of ways to fix the legal system, end unemployment, and bring prosperity to the country. Coming up with ideas is not usually a problem. It’s making sure they are practical that is not so easy.

Even if you present a workable idea to a manager, he still might not use it. Your boss has some additional hurdles to overcome—prioritizing the good ideas, making a plan, and finding the resources to actually implement them.

Your satisfaction will increase if you find a way to get more of your suggestions used. To do this, make them stand out. Your first order of business is to make sure you’ve done your homework. The more fleshed out an idea is, the more likely it is to be considered. Give examples of where a similar idea has been used in another department. Calculate how much the idea would cost to put in place and how much it will save, or what other benefits it might offer. Make sure you use specifics. General ideas just add to a boss’s workload. Specifics make his job easier. Which of these descriptions sounds easier for your boss to follow up on?

  • We shouldn’t use glue to seal the product’s case.
  • Several customers have complained about glue that has seeped out and hardened along the seams of their product’s case. This has increased our customer complaints by three percent over the past two months. We should consider using a hinge and a screw to secure the case, like we do on the WidgetMax 3000. Tooling said it would only take a few hours to modify the mold, and the screw is only a few cents.

When presenting ideas, put your thoughts into terms that the boss understands. Speaking in a common language with your leaders makes them have faith in what you are saying. Mention the Lean tools you think will be needed—for example poka yokes (mistake-proofing devices, like the switch in your microwave that shuts off the unit when the door opens) or Pareto charts. Talk about how the idea adds value to the process. This shows that you have put a little effort into thinking about the issue.

Above all, continue to offer suggestions, even if the majority are discarded. And don’t be afraid to ask for feedback about why they weren’t implemented. Use that feedback to make future proposals more likely to be put in place.

Why this works

The Why this Works section is only available in print copies of Whaddaya Mean I Gotta Be Lean?


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