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Reaching Down The Leopard's Mouth
I wonder sometimes why companies don't implement the MAT as they should. Right now, I think it's more of a marketing problem than anything else. Part of my goal with this blog is to communicate to people what the MAT is all about and how it can really help them do their jobs better. But in some cases, I think people are just afraid of what the answers are. But if this man can reach into an attacking leopard's mouth and grab him by the tongue to kill him, you can certainly learn a little bit about what's working and what's not at your company.
The MAT surveys people at an organization and has them diagnose which processes are working and which aren't. It's a simple idea, but one that goes against the grain of the way things "are normally done"
Normally, outside experts come in to tell you what needs to be fixed. Or the director, VP, CIO, etc, decides what's broken and what isn't. The MAT asks a simple question: "Where is the input from the people who know best, the people actually doing the work?"
I haven't heard a good answer to this question, except for maybe "We can't trust those slobs. What do they know about doing their job?" To which I ask the simple question, "But how would an outside expert determine what needs fixing, pray tell, without asking those 'slobs'?"
If you want to keep the experts, keep them. Have them take the same assessment. If I were paying money for people who were supposed to be fixing my processes, I sure as heck would want to know where they agreed or disagreed with my people over what was broken, wouldn't you?
At some point people have to be trusted to be self-directing. They are anyway, whether you acknowledge that fact or not. Why not harness the value of all your workers to make important decisions instead of just a few?
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