It’s complicated

I used to say if it’s complicated, we’re probably doing it wrong. I still believe that, but ironically, it’s complicated.

My position on complexity was born from running frustration over shop-floor execution. Seems like we could never make a batch without some kind of deviation fouling the outcomes; whether procedural, final product spec, timing, materials, etc. Deviations delay batch release, frustrate customers, and (often) result in reworking the product. Sometimes (rarely) we had to reject the product. This was costly to our financial performance, damaging to our professional reputation, and had negative impact on our primary constituents, the Patients. And it made us all very upset.

Humans love autonomy, and because of this all Human-work is fraught with interpretation, perception, bias, preference, independence, motive, and will. Autonomy in the absence of instructions, context, experience, oversight, and control practically begs for variability in outcomes. This is the essence of the creative experience, and ought to be nurtured in its proper context. Creativity, for all its intrinsic worth is unfortunately outside the scope of shop-floor control.  We’re talking about life and death stuff – build to specification, deliver consistent results, minimize variability, zero deviations. Consistent and predictable outcomes are necessary in complex, high-risk endeavors.

Complexity isn’t necessarily bad though. Complex operating systems control complex operating environments. Supply chains are complicated. From raw materials (ores, crops, petroleum) to finished product (drugs, aircraft, buildings) getting the right stuff to the right place at the right time in the right quantity takes thoughtful planning and coordination. Neural networks are complicated, and that’s important – information uptake, processing, and response dictates supreme accuracy. Governments are complicated, and for good reason. Freedom, social welfare, and defense are important, hard to maintain, and vulnerable. Biological systems are complicated; they respond to myriad, changing, and constant disruption. The consequence of failure is dire and often fatal. Space travel is complicated. The deadly environment and the vast distances require self-reliance and autonomy. Complexity correctly and appropriately enforces stability and resilience. Complexity is necessary and proportional to risk. We cannot remove necessary complexity. The magic is isolating complexity into simple, executable steps.

So why the deviations in my clean, efficient pharma factories? Deviations occur when unnecessary and unwanted complexity arrives. Individual and sequential tasks seem easy enough in their own right. But when tasks are linked to form processes deviations happen.  Deviations occur at task interfaces and process handoffs from one group to another. Tasks are simple, processes are complex. The leader must understand where and how unwanted complexity occurs and take actions to reduce complexity back into simple, known contexts.

But deviations come from other areas of needless complexity. How about those 40-page SOPs nobody reads? How about those processes so corrupted by well-meaning corrections over the years that now, at revision 25, they bear little semblance to the original intent and are impossible to follow. Meditate too, if you will, on the relentless hurry to be done with this and start on that. In the face of financial pressure front-line supervision becomes an exercise in completion rather correctness.

Perhaps most important is the bias of our own experience as leaders. We see tasks and processes through the eyes of our own vast experience. As managers we know everything that can go wrong, we anticipate certain outcomes and we automatically correct as we go, keeping the process under control. This experience comes from countless reps, countless mistakes, countless incremental and cumulative learnings. We often and mistakenly assume everyone else comes so equipped. But they don’t come that way; they arrive as newly minted operators with zero experience, zero context, zero purpose, zero guidance. This needs to change.

I look around my life and see good examples everywhere of complex processes reduced into very simple instructions. Like evacuating airplanes in emergencies – but maybe I’m underselling the chaos of a forced landing.

Or the simplicity of conducting automated banking transactions? To me the instructions seem intuitive. But again, am I victim of my bias, e.g. if it feels simple to me it must be simple for everyone?

I ask front-line supervisors to think like McDonalds. Because: The McDonald’s front-line workforce is transient, poorly paid, and stressed. The production environment is custom assemble to order, there is little to no finished product inventory, the kids aren’t paid enough to care and aren’t trained enough to make decisions. It’s complicated! But when I order a quarter-pounder-no-pickles, it always comes out right. Even more with Chipotle or Subway. It’s like McDonalds, but the customer actually gets to supervise the production process. Why are these brands so successful? A superior operating system. The kid has one job and it’s not to create a customer order. The one job is when this light turns green you push the green button. The line staff at McDonalds is not trained to manage the operating system; they are trained simply to follow it. Authority for complex and independent interaction with the operating system is given to highly trained, experienced, and competent professional managers. Consider this when you are putting a kid on the line, and more importantly when you are putting a new supervisor on the line. The leader’s job is to manage complexity out of line execution. I also ask new Managers to study mission control and the role of NASA’s CapComm (full story here https://rework.withgoogle.com/blog/nasa-communication-teams/).

Our front-line staff are barraged with conflicting information; too much information to process coherently. They need a voice they can trust, a voice that knows their job, and one voice only. CapComm intentionally manages simplicity and clarity into an innately complex operating environment.  

There is so much that goes into a robust operating systems and production environments, and the full treatment of that subject is written in volumes, not blog posts. I can say with reasonable confidence the Operator’s job is made complex by environmental variability and uncertainty, lack of training, lack of oversight, inadequate planning, and inappropriate tools. These things can be controlled and that’s your job, Leader.

I’m a list guy, so here’s my list for you, front-line Supervisors and mid-level Managers:

1. Capture complex processes into simple, visual, one-line work instructions.
2. Simplify communications.
3. Ensure process steps are verifiable and provide immediate feedback.
4. Pay lavish attention to training the specific task and its process interfaces.
5. Teach your team everything that can go wrong, how to detect it, how to anticipate it, how to prevent it, and how to correct it.
6. Ensure expert oversight is proximate, visible, and accessible.
7. If it’s still complicated, continue to reduce & dissect the process.

What happens when you bring them together? You get reliable, repeatable outcomes with minimal deviations. You get McDonalds (or Chipotle, or Subway). You get Mission Control (remember CapComm). You get no more deviations.

Complexity is proportionate to the seriousness of the job. The complexity of the job must be reduced to simple, known tasks. Remember this – it’s your job to clarify the mission, control the environment, and reduce the noise.