Ghostism

A strong culture of continuous improvement relies heavily on teamwork. When there is a problem, team members need to be able to rely on others to come to the rescue.

Ghostism is the Lean affliction in which a person becomes invisible whenever it is their turn to provide help to others. They are always present when they need help. It is only when it is time to return the favor that they can’t be found.

Ghostism is most prevalent in unstructured, loosely defined teamwork situations. In a Lean production environment, teams operate with little margin. There are defined support people. It might be a ‘floater’ in the area, a group lead, or a manufacturing engineer or tech who is on call. They come running when there is an andon light lit. This support is a specified in their job description.

The issue comes when there is not a defined relationship or clear responsibilities. Every organization has a handful of ghosts. These people are never on kaizen teams outside of their own area. They never volunteer in meetings to take leadership on a project when there is overlap between areas of responsibility. They are hard to get a hold of on the phone and have long delays in answering emails or providing necessary information.

This is a tricky ailment to treat.  For people who just don’t have the helpful gene in them, there is not much that can be done to change the person’s view on being part of a team. They will only do it when it is specifically part of their job. Those people are not the ones that will thrive in a Lean organization, nor are they people you want to ever promote. Sometimes people will surprise you, though, and will change if you tell them the reason that they are not advancing. Just be careful that the helpfulness is not just an act to secure the new promotion.

Some people have other reasons for not helping, though. Make sure you understand the nuance before judging a person for their ghostism.

In some cases, the person is just overwhelmed. Many people are constantly swamped in their job, and have a hard time even taking time off for vacation. The ghostism in their case is actually a symptom of your poor leadership.

You should never have an employee on your team who is overwhelmed, and you should certainly never be surprised by it. And if you know about it and did nothing, that is on you, not them. It is completely understandable if a person avoids helping others get over a small hump when it will cause them a massive pile of problems that develop.

The issue often stems from coverage. Many office jobs have no backups. A person has to dig out of the piles when they return. That means…

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