Build the System – Support the People!

The Rider, the Elephant, and the Path: Why It Is the System and Not the People

Here’s the deal. I know we have talked about systems and systems thinking before, and I will candidly say I am not an expert at this. But I am really getting into it and learning to appreciate it. I have written before about how it is the system and not the people, and I need to say it again in a different way. This comes from some notes I took when I presented to an awesome group, and I am being one hundred percent sincere with you. It really is the systems.

Short answer: When people fail on a project, look at the system first. Every good change needs three things: people know what to do (direct the rider), they want to do it (motivate the elephant), and the circumstances let them do it (shape the path). On a jobsite that means a Takt plan, visual information, clean and safe conditions, good bathrooms and lunch areas, and the right contracts.

What the NTSB Found About Alaska Airlines Flight 261

Let me start with an example I have mentioned before. On January 31, 2000, an Alaska Airlines MD-83 bound for San Francisco plunged from the sky off the coast of California and crashed into the Pacific Ocean. All 88 people on board were killed. For two hours, the crew had struggled with a malfunctioning stabilizer.

Nearly three years after the accident, the NTSB determined that the probable cause was a loss of airplane pitch control. It resulted from the in-flight failure of the horizontal stabilizer trim system jackscrew assembly’s Acme nut threads, due to excessive wear resulting from insufficient lubrication of the jackscrew assembly by Alaska Airlines. The board also found contributing factors. These were the airline’s extended lubrication interval and the FAA’s approval of that extension, which increased the likelihood that a missed or inadequate lubrication would cause excessive wear. The extended end play check interval was cited too, since it allowed the wear to progress to failure without the opportunity for detection. The aircraft’s design was also cited as a factor, because there was no fail-safe mechanism to prevent the catastrophic effects of total Acme nut thread loss.

I want to make a point about this. The mechanics, the pilots, the flight attendants, and the air traffic controllers likely went into their work that day trying to do their best and wanting to do their best. They knew how to do their jobs, but they could not do their jobs because of the system. They did not have a system that took care of them. So like I have said before, we have to stop blaming people, we have to stop blaming people and start blaming the systems.

Direct the Rider, Motivate the Elephant, Shape the Path

What do people need to be successful in a system? Something I have told you before, from Chip and Dan Heath’s book Switch, is that every good change happens when somebody knows what to do, is motivated to do it, and has clear circumstances.

You can tell a pilot to fly a plane, and the pilot can want to fly it, but the intellect and the motivation will not do anything if the circumstances are not there. The rider steers a big elephant. The elephant can want to go in the right direction, but if there is a big boulder in the way, it is not going to happen. So let’s go through the three.

Motivation

On our project sites, imagine that a loved one in your family was constantly abused, accused, deceived, talked down to, and yelled at. Their pay was withheld. They were constantly blamed, pushed, and overworked. They had to use a bathroom without running water, ate lunch on the ground, and were forced into unsafe conditions. What would you do? You would have something to say.

I am looking at pictures here of nasty restrooms, nasty urinals, graffiti all over portable toilets, unclear access, dirty projects, no place to eat lunch, and people working on the ground. Then you have people in our industry who say things like the following.

• I have never seen a lazier workforce in my life.
• Workers are always bad, or sometimes just okay.
• It is not my schedule that is the problem, it is the trades that cannot meet their deadlines.
• Our workforce just does not care.

If that is how we think, we are in trouble. Our trades cannot succeed until you provide a schedule that flows, a Takt plan. They cannot succeed until you get a production system implemented on your project site. They cannot succeed until you provide nice bathrooms and eating areas, a clean, safe, and stable site, and huddles with workers and foremen in the Last Planner system, and until you, as the general contractor, stop tolerating bad behavior. It will never change until then. That is the motivation part of the system.

Knowledge

I recently gave a talk where I did an exercise, and you can try it yourself. I said, I want you to make a paper cup, and I read step by step folding instructions out loud. Fold this corner down, crease it, fold that corner up, leave it there, fold the front flap down, fold the back flap backwards, and open it out as your finished drinking cup.

If you only heard those instructions read out loud, I would say about ten percent of you could make a paper cup you could actually drink from. I did this with a group of about 250 people the other day, and two people got the cup. Then I showed pictures on the screen of how to make the cup step by step, and every single person made the cup.

What is my point? You cannot give our trade partners a 76-page schedule with thousands of activities and simple descriptions, and then say it is their fault when they do not make it. When I asked the people who failed at the cup how they felt, they said they felt like a failure. And I said, but it is your fault, right? They said no, you did not give me proper instructions. And that is exactly correct.

We do not give our people enough visual information on our project sites to do anything. If you have a 76-page CPM schedule instead of a Takt plan on one page, that is what you are doing. You need visual systems.

• Visual quality systems.
• Visual layout systems.
• Visual schedules.
• Visual huddle boards.
• Visual quality checklists.

That is the only way we are going to make a change. If you want people to know what to do on your project, you need to use Takt planning, implement Last Planner, have huddles, create a visual environment, and engage the foreman.

Circumstances

We talked about motivation and knowledge. What circumstances do people need? They need the right contract. They need the right conditions inside their Takt plan. They need the right number of zones, the right zone configuration, and the right work packaging. They need the right schedule, the right meetings, the right huddles, the right systems, and the right quality control system. I could keep going, and that is why I have written about the Integrated Production Control System.

If you want the right circumstances, you must do the following.

• Build the team and win over the workforce.
• Orient and onboard people.
• Have Takt and a remarkable pre-construction process.
• Have Lean contracts and manage your procurement properly.
• Have prefabrication systems, great logistics systems, and quality standards.
• Have zero tolerance and roadblock removal.
• Have Takt control and steering.
• Have accountability systems like your daily correction method and contractor grading.

If you do not have these, you will not have the right system. It is going to be dirty and disgusting, your project is going to be late, morale is going to be bad, and everything is going to fail. What you should have is a project that is clean, safe, and organized, with a good lunch area, a good huddle system, good worker huddles, good bathrooms, everything up on wheels, clean and organized gang boxes, protection everywhere, and an environment where the entryway and all of the logistics serve the people.

What Great Leaders Do

Great leaders manage the project environment for people. They do not blame people. They are people-centric. They build the team, collaborate, and communicate. They teach, coach, and mentor, and they are agile, flexible, and adaptable. They do it all with respect for people. They have stable environments, they get everyone participating, and they focus on quality and continuous improvement.

You could put the very best person on earth on our projects with these bad circumstances, and they would not be able to figure it out and get it done, unless they could literally change the structure of the system and the environment. Under natural circumstances, the system would counteract every single aspect of productivity.

So it is the systems, not the people. Let me be clear. We will never change construction until we have the right contracts, the right scheduling systems, and the right project Lean systems in place. It is just a fact.

If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

So here is the challenge. Pick the person on your project you are most tempted to blame, and ask whether they know what to do, are motivated to do it, and have clear circumstances.

Bottom line: We have to stop blaming people and start blaming the systems.

On we go.

FAQ

What is the rider, elephant, and path idea?

Every good change happens when you direct the rider, motivate the elephant, and shape the path. That means people know what to do, are motivated to do it, and have clear circumstances. Intelligence and motivation will not help if the circumstances are not there.

What does the paper cup exercise show?

When Jason read folding instructions aloud to about 250 people, only two made the cup. When he showed pictures step by step, everyone did. It shows that people fail when instructions are not visual, which is why a 76-page schedule fails where a one page Takt plan can work.

What does the Alaska Airlines Flight 261 example illustrate?

According to the NTSB findings Jason read, the crash involved insufficient lubrication, extended maintenance intervals approved by the FAA, and a missing fail-safe in the design. His point is that people trying to do their best cannot succeed inside a system that does not support them.

What circumstances do people need on a construction project?

The right contract, Takt plan, zones, work packaging, schedule, meetings, huddles, and quality control system, supported by onboarding, logistics, zero tolerance, roadblock removal, and accountability systems.

People Also Read:

Total Participation & Visual Systems
We Don’t Blame People
It’s NOT Their Fault

Want your team trained on this? See our Last Planner System and Takt training.