No holds barred
Customers are an excellent source of ways to improve. CSI surveys and on-the-spot conversations provide plenty of formal and informal feedback.
But an even better source of ideas and opportunities can often be found much closer to home: your own employees.
At Lakeside Marine Group, Lakeside, Ohio, President and CEO Lowell Joy recognized an opportunity for his company to improve its overall efficiency, competency and profitability. But in order to determine exactly how Lakeside could make such improvements, he and Lakeside “embarked on a unique employee involvement and input program.”
The company set up weekly meetings between each department and senior management, where it was made clear that no topic was off limits and there were “no holds barred,” Lowell says.
It quickly became clear that all the doom and gloom heard on the daily news was hurting employee morale. These fears were calmed by sharing stories of past economically challenging times, through which the company had persevered.
“All of this history, combined with open discussions and sharing of where our industry really is,” Joy explains, “led the employee group to focus on just what we need to do right now to deal with the challenges we face as a company and as individuals.”
That to-do list came to life in ensuing sessions where management put up three flip charts, titled Keep Doing, Stop Doing and Start Doing.
The employees brainstormed and listed off the company’s strengths, weaknesses and deficiencies. Some ideas were kept; some were dismissed; but involvement in the process continued to grow.
The charts were then placed in the break areas, and employees were encouraged to add items as they came to mind. The ideas are collected and discussed during the weekly meetings. “With this system and involvement,” Joy explains, “we have identified multiple inefficiencies, multiple redundancies (most of which we have eliminated), and multiple opportunities for increasing services, sales and profitability.
“We are continuing to work toward empowerment rather than allow paralysis by the negative media bombardment.”
