What if enterprise leaders participated with performers[1] to design the work of the enterprise? Beyond identifying better work processes, this question is intended to address identifying the kind of life the people working in the enterprise want for themselves. Such work design would not be for individual performers, rather for teams of performers that work together and support each other in their work.

The life design approach as advocated by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans in their book Designing Your Life and their related Stanford University course applies design thinking toward designing the future of individual lives. Their approach focuses on improving the quality of life in the areas of work, love, health, and play.

A work design approach that is concerned with the development of people is at the heart of Toyota’s success in implementing the Toyota Production System, the inspiration for Lean practitioners. A 1977 document from Toyota managers cited “Respect for Humanity” as a key principle. Taiichi Ohno, a principal catalyst for the Toyota Production System is cited as believing that it was as important to build the people of Toyota as to build the cars [get real quote]. It’s probable Ohno and others at Toyota did not fully anticipate the path they started traveling. The current Lean recognition of the Respect for People principle appears to be concerned with designing work to more holistically support the needs of performers.

The Burnett and Evans book cites case studies that focus on the large career changes people made using their design thinking approach, while recognizing that life design is an ongoing process. They state, appropriately, that a life design sensibility is as important to small adjustments we may want to make to our life as the major changes they illustrate in their book.

Work is such a big part of life that designing our work should result from collaboration between colleagues. Applying design thinking to work design in a Lean context is an opportunity to use the same care about how we experience work as we use in how processes can be designed most effectively to minimize waste and increase flow efficiency.

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Here’s how enterprise leaders might consider applying design thinking practices to work design when working with internal teams. First, assess how the current work environment shapes the quality of life in four areas. Burnett and Evans suggest work, love, health and play for individual assessments. An enterprise might substitute social connections for love. How satisfied are performers on each team in these four areas? Lean practitioners will recognize this step as assessing the current state of the work of the problem solving process.

The second step is to develop among each team a shared understanding of what gives life and work meaning today. It’s possible many people on each of the teams have never completed this exercise for themselves. Developing a shared understanding will dig into the core of what it means to be human. This isn’t determining the future state of the work – it’s defining the value and importance of transforming work into something better than what currently exists.

The third step is to observe what about the work engages the team and what tires the team. Both observations will point toward sources of improving the work by helping to identify the activities that support the meaning people are seeking from work and activities that subtract from this meaning.

The fourth step is to reframe the current situation to start to identify possibilities for improving the work. Is a change in the marketplace a challenge to a product line, or is it an opportunity to develop a more profitable product line? Is a supply chain bottleneck a disruption and threat to production or an opportunity to create partnerships that support your enterprise and that of your partners.

The fifth step based on the Burnett and Evans approach is to develop three basic plans, countermeasures in the language of Lean, for moving forward. One plan is based on a supposition that needs of the enterprise stay much the same. A second plan is based on a possibility that the market served by the enterprise team disappears. The third plan is based on the assumption that infinite resources are available to the enterprise team.

The sixth step is to develop ideas based on the ideas coming out of the previous step, and then prototype those ideas that appear promising to the team. Prototyping means designing and pursuing quick, cheap, and fast experiences that provide opportunities for learning which of the ideas deserve more serious consideration. Prototyping these plans will make visible opportunities that had previously been hidden.

The final step is to implement the most promising ideas for improving work design. The implementation should still include the steps of checking whether the improvement made the expected results, and then acting to adjust based on what is learned.

Of course, that really isn’t final step. Repeat the process.

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For design thinking to be successfully applied to work design an essential result of this design needs to be improved work performance at work – creating products and services for which people will pay enough to reward the financial and pragmatic capital invested in the enterprise. Work design needs to include considerations of how performers will work toward increasing flow and reducing the coordination waste that spawns all other wastes. Work needs to be designed to be Lean.

What about shareholders and customers – those work partners on whose behalf performers are doing the work being designed? Improved processes with increased flow and reduced waste produces good and services at lower costs and the opportunity for higher margins, while allowing performers to be well compensated. The promise of a work design as described here is that it will serve shareholders and customer far better than the currently prevalent profit maximization work ethic.

While increased compensation is important, the other important reasons for work design is the joy of performing at a high level, while enjoying health and time to play with family and friends as well as colleagues, internal and external. It’s an opportunity to transform work from pure economic necessity to a social virtue.

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One goal of work design needs to be continuously learning how to improve the processes that create economic growth for the enterprise.

The familiar Lean practices supporting improving flow and minimizing waste and variation are an important part of reaching this goal.

Another goal of work design needs to be continuously learning how to improve trusting relationships within and outside the enterprise.

Trust is an essential element in the elimination of coordination waste, the source of much of the waste that plagues work and destroys not only value but also the spirit of performers frustrated by the waste.

Another goal of work design needs to be continuously improving the health of the performers working together in the enterprise.

The moods that propel enterprise teams toward higher levels of performance are awe, curiosity, ambition and trust. These moods require high amounts of energy if they are to be cultivated and maintained.

And perhaps the most important goal of work design is the possibility of making work play, enjoying the sheer joy of learning how to perform the work better every day.

 

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[1] The term performers is used to identify people more commonly referred to as employees or associates with the intent of idealizing people working within the enterprise as an integral part of the enterprise and not simply a resource available to enterprise leaders and shareholders.