Reducing Employee Errors How can you reach the lofty goal of "zero defects"?
Q: Ihave a small printing business, and employee errors are driving mecrazy. One customer rejection or one shipping error can cost me acustomer and a month's profit. I've fired people. I'veyelled and screamed. I've trained till I'm blue in theface, and still I have errors. I know that large companies talkabout "zero defects," but is that possible? Are myexpectations unrealistic?
A:Your concern about this problem is not misplaced. Customers havezero tolerance these days for any kind of error. Ever since thepublication of Philip B. Crosby's book Quality Is Free, organizations haverealized that errors in any part of a business are extremelyexpensive. Crosby estimated that the cost of quality was 25 percentof revenue! This caught on to the extent that companies are almosttotally intolerant of any form of poor quality. "Zerodefects" was the battle cry of organizations large and smallfor many years. When they realized that zero defects arerealistically impossible, it led to the current fad, "SixSigma." This means that Six Sigma organizations are notsatisfied unless error rates one in 1 million or less. While no onewould argue with such a goal, the problem is how to get from whereyou are to there.
Technically, there are only two ways to get there. One is withpositive reinforcement, and the other is negative reinforcement. Inother words, we can demand improvement (negative reinforcement), orwe can do things to cause people to be excited about makingimprovement. The most common way is to demand improvement and tofire, discipline or "chew people out" when they make anerror. The problem with this approach is that contrary to commonbelief, it is the slow and costly way to get improvement. In mybook, Bringing Out The Best In People, I write about thefact that negative reinforcement gives managers the "illusionof control," not real control.
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The fastest way to make an improvement in your situation seemsthe slowest. That is, you should identify the behaviors that createhigh-quality or error-free output, develop a way to measure andmonitor them, and then provide positive reinforcement forimprovement. You should not measure errors, but instead trackdesirable behavior like "shipments without an error."Remember, you want to measure what you want people to do. Thisdiffers from what is commonly done, which is to measure errors.Create a graph so that you have increasing numbers, not decreasingones. Place the graph in an area that people frequent every day.Try to track results daily if possible.
Once you have determined the behaviors and results you want, youneed to develop a plan to positively reinforce the behaviors whenyou see them and celebrate sub-goals along the way. Set small goalsin the beginning so that improvement is easy. This will allowpeople to receive the positive reinforcement that will createenergy and excitement about improvement. Remember, the more youpositively reinforce, the faster the improvement. Think of positivereinforcement in this case as any interaction with your employeesthat communicates that you like, appreciate or value what they aredoing. When you reach a sub-goal, spend some time letting peopletell you what they did to make the improvement. And finally, bepatient with the small improvements. If you are, you will find thatyou will make more and better progress than you believedpossible.
Aubrey C. Daniels, Ph.D., founder and CEO of managementconsulting firm Aubrey Daniels & Associates (ADA), is aninternationally recognized author, speaker and expert on managementand human performance issues. For more about ADA's seminars andconsulting services or to order Aubrey's book Bringing Out the Best in People: How To Apply TheAstonishing Power of Positive Reinforcement, visit www.aubreydaniels.com, orcontact Laura Lee Glass at (800) 223-6191 or lglass@aubreydaniels.com.
The opinions expressed in this column are thoseof the author, not of Entrepreneur.com. All answers are intended tobe general in nature, without regard to specific geographical areasor circumstances, and should only be relied upon after consultingan appropriate expert, such as an attorney oraccountant.
