We have reduced the number of paper forms from more than 1,000 to a company-wide total of 60 forms. Companies talk about rewarding initiative and keeping workers focused on business. An acquaintance of mine had an uncle who spent 25 years at an auto plant in Flint, Mich., tacking chrome strips and other finish parts onto automobiles. In the new organization, the worker is no longer a cog in the machine but is an intelligent part of the overall process. Having people focus on whole processes allows them to tackle more interesting, challenging work.
Teams are tight, autonomous units.
Each team has a specific function, such as building engines or doors, and each team member is trained to do approximately 30 different jobs in that area, so that people don't get stale from doing repetitive tasks. Through a Web interface, the worker can retrieve data from a database, automatically load the data into a spreadsheet and pivot through the data to analyze it by part and type of problem. Give your workers more sophisticated jobs along with better tools, and you'll discover that your employees will become more responsible and bring more intelligence to their work. In the digital age, you need to make knowledge workers out of every employee possible. When I read their book, Reengineering the Corporation, three of their ideas really stood out for me.