NO TIME TO WASTE · ISSUE 37
The Kanban Card on the Manager’s Desk
A few years ago, I was working with a team implementing Kanban. I asked a simple question: When you get a signal, what’s the process that follows?
The answer: the Kanban card is placed on the desk of the Purchasing Manager — who also happens to be the Sales Manager. They place the purchase order, then bring the card down to the receiving area. The person who receives the goods matches the item with the card and returns it to where it’s being used.
It sounded tidy. Structured. Under control.
Until I asked: What happens when the manager is out?
The answer: The whole system comes to a stop.
THE BIG IDEA
The Bottleneck that Isn’t a Process Problem
I suggested a simple change: why not bypass the manager’s desk entirely? Give the person in the receiving area the ability to place the purchase order themselves. One point of contact. One supply line. No bottleneck.
The answer I got was: ‘Well, they don’t have a computer. And they don’t have access to our system.’
Now, those aren’t process problems. A computer can be purchased. We can train most people to place a standard purchase order – it might take a few hours. System access is a policy decision.
The real question wasn’t about computers or system access.
It was about trust.
Do we see our people as resources to be controlled?
Or as people to be developed?
The decision to invest in someone — to give them the tools, the access, and the responsibility to do a task that was previously reserved for management — is a culture decision. It reveals everything about how an organisation sees its people.
In this case, implementing a computer in the receiving area, training the person to use it, giving them responsibility for placing purchase orders, and developing the standard work around it would have solved the bottleneck, developed the individual, and built a more resilient system. All for the cost of a few hundred euro and a few hours of time.
But it required something that costs nothing and changes everything: Trust.
“Trust is the one thing that changes everything”
— Stephen M.R. Covey · The Speed of Trust (2006)
THE BIGGER PICTURE
How Organisations Lose Trust Without Realising It
This pattern repeats everywhere. A task that could be done within the operation gets pulled into management. A decision that could be made by the person closest to the work gets escalated to a senior manager. Not because of policy — but because nobody ever invested the time to train, equip, and trust the person to do it.
Over time, management becomes overloaded with tasks that shouldn’t be theirs. Staff become disengaged because they’ve been cut out of meaningful work. And the organisation wonders why nothing improves — while the people who could improve it are standing idle, waiting for someone else to act. Management perception is that these people don’t care as much as them.
The irony is that most staff want to contribute more. When I ask team leaders what percentage of their people genuinely care about the company, the answer is usually around eighty percent. But when I ask management what percentage they’d trust, the number is far lower. That gap — between how much people care and how much they’re trusted — is the culture problem. And it’s almost always a management gap, not a workforce gap.
THE THREE FOUNDATIONS
Where the Rebuild Starts
1. Start with Standard Work
Before we can trust people with tools, tasks, or decisions, we need to be sure they’ve been properly trained. Not once, at induction, and then forgotten — but continuously, with standard work developed by the people doing the job.
Standard work answers: how should this task be done? If that answer doesn’t exist, we haven’t set the person up to succeed. The failure isn’t theirs. It’s ours.
2. Communicate Values and Metrics
Most staff don’t know how the company is performing. They don’t know the targets. And they often don’t know what the company truly values.
Before we communicate with staff, we need to establish what we actually measure that we absolutely value.
Once that’s clear, communication becomes specific: sharing the score, regularly, and showing people how their work connects to the result.
3. Own Your People’s Development
Managers must own their people’s training and development. Not HR. Not a system. The direct manager.
This means knowing how each individual is performing, providing regular feedback, offering recognition, and identifying development opportunities.
Some individuals just want to come in and do a good job. But everybody wants feedback, a little recognition, and a little involvement. Those three things don’t cost anything — but their absence costs everything.
“Eighty-five percent of the reasons for failure are deficiencies in the systems and process rather than the employee. The role of management is to change the process rather than badgering individuals to do better”
— Edwards Deming · Out of the Crisis (1986)
TRY THIS WEEK
Three Steps to Start Building Trust
Remove one barrier this week. Is the barrier a computer? System access? Training? A permission setting? Pick one task that’s stuck on a manager’s desk and invest the few hours it takes to move it to the floor.
Building a Lean culture — or even a good working culture — is a long road. But every step on it is the same: give people the tools, the training, and the trust to do the work.
The Kanban card doesn’t belong on the manager’s desk. Neither does the decision.
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If this week’s issue raises something you’d like to talk through, I’d be glad to help.