Let The RIF Rest In Peace By Using Lean

How lean thinking can offset bad management

Beginning in the latter half of the 20th century and continuing into the 21st century, we decided bad management was okay. Bad management happens anytime an organization fires a group of employees, known in the trade as a “reduction in force” or RIF. The employees RIFfed did not perform poorly or do anything else wrong. Management hired too many of them.

I am sure dozens of papers by management professors explain why a “reduction in force” is good, or at least not bad. But, having been the lawyer dealing with the challenges of these management decisions, I can only conclude that the authors of such papers do not know about lean (and probably have never been on the wrong side of a RIF).

How could something like the recession, which caused tremendous economic dislocation (I love that phrase, sort of a business-medical hybrid), be management’s fault? The economy goes sour and a healthy business gets caught in the headlights. Management reacts to save the business by conducting a RIF. That sounds like good, proactive management. Pffhht!

This topic is very relevant right now. Unemployment is low. Even areas historically reluctant to hire, such as law departments, have bulked up. Economists tell us we have been on a roll for a long time, so a dip is bound to come our way. Corporate America seems poised for another round of RIFs in the not-too-distant future.

Four Concepts Of Lean You Need To Know

I know what you are thinking — you have heard about lean. You think it simply means cost cutting. Driving down costs may help cushion an economic blow or a management decision that usually leads to a RIF, but how else could it help?

I want to introduce some concepts for you to pair with lean: flexibility, agility, differentiation, and respect for humanity. All four concepts apply at the full company level, but they also apply at the individual level. Companies that pay attention to lean’s benefits can eliminate RIFs. Individuals can make it more likely that aren’t the one being RIFfed.

Flexibility. Every person has the killer day. Go to the office thinking you will have completed what you need to do by noon, and at 6 pm you are just finishing up. You did not get more interruptions than you planned and you didn’t fritter away your time clickbait headlines (“How to turn $10 into $1 billion by learning to make soap!”). Your day was eaten by out of control projects and processes.

Lean helps you tame the beasts. By creating flexibility through waste reduction, lean helps you avoid the time eaters. Think of your day as packets of time (Elon Musk supposedly breaks his day into 5 minute segments.) Now mix and match those segments flexibly. When a time-eater comes your way, flex to something else.

Agility. You have read this and heard it time and time again — learn new skills. The world is changing, and the pace has quickened. Lean strips the things from what you do leaving you time for focus on the things that count. Learning skills is one of those things that count.

If you work a nine hour day can can barely accomplish what needs to be done, use lean to turn that into a seven hour day. What you choose to do with the two hours is up to you. Spend them with your family, watch TV, or learn new skills. Just remember, those new skills (especially if they are in demand) are your defense against the dark RIF arts.

Differentiation. If you have ever watched one of those movies with thousands of soldiers formed in columns and rows as far as the eye can see, you know the view from the executive suite. Try as they may, CEOs and their teams can’t help but see the employees who stretch before them as one, undifferentiated mass. Look closer, and in that army you will see one person who stands out. That person usually is the protagonist who goes on to do great things. You want to be the protagonist.

You must constantly strive to differentiate yourself, in a positive way. This may seem odd in a lean discussion. Everyone thinks lean means standardization, uniformity, and lack of variability. True enough — but only where those things impede value. True differentiation comes through in value, it comes through in what you do that makes you unique and someone who should be retained.

Lean doesn’t abhor creativity, it abhors non-value added creativity. Finding 50 ways to do a simple task adds no value. Finding one way that reduces waste to a minimum while leaving you free to create value is wonderful. Differentiate yourself by minimizing waste in execution and creating value through your problem solving.

Respect for Humanity. Let’s tackle the last, but clearly the most important, of the four concepts — respect for humanity. What type of respect for humanity does it show when a business conducts a RIF? What type of respect for yourself does it show when you put yourself in a position where you are likely to be the object of a RIF? The business is getting rid of people no longer key to its goals. The people who are leaving let themselves be put in that position. Lean asks both the business and the person to step up, to recognize that humanity needs to be at the top of our priority lists. You may not be able to control the business, but you can control you.

Let’s go back to law for moment. Every metric out there shows law departments and law firms are overstaffed. An important note: the overstaffing is based on the services they choose to provide and the business models they choose to use. If they had broken from the past and entered the 21st century, they would add greater value and perhaps have roles for all those people. As it stands, these organizations today could reduce staffing by 25% and produce higher quality services for less cost. I would argue they are not demonstrating any respect by hiring more and putting people in harm’s way.

I am not arguing that adopting lean comes with a guaranty. We know life comes without guaranties. But, it is a defense. If you have learned to be flexible, agile, differentiated and key — if you have respected yourself enough to stay out of RIFs way — you are in a much better position.

Everything points to challenging times ahead for employees. Businesses that show respect for their employees and employees who show respect for themselves will learn how to avoid RIFs. I do not see that respect showing through right now. Fortunately, in this area change is an easy and rewarding thing.

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About: Ken is a speaker and author on innovation, leadership, and on the future of people, process, and technology. On Medium, he is a “Top 50” author on innovation, leadership, and artificial intelligence. You can follow him on Twitter, connect with him on LinkedIn, and follow him on Facebook.