Why Traditional Suggestion Boxes Don’t Work

8
3

I saw this in a workplace, posted by a union. But, you know, as a Lean practitioner, I couldn't agree with this cartoon more.

For one, in the Lean approach, real kaizen (continuous improvement) happens without suggestion boxes. Boxes cause delays in getting suggestions discussed and acted on. Boxes interfere with communication, since they tend to accumulate anonymous complaints. And finally, employee suggestions certainly shouldn't lead to job losses. That's not keeping with the “respect for people” pillar of the Toyota Production System.

Subscribe via RSS | Lean Blog Main Page | Podcast | Twitter @MarkGraban

Please check out my main blog page at www.leanblog.org

The RSS feed content you are reading is copyrighted by the author, Mark Graban.

, , , on the author's copyright.


What do you think? Please scroll down (or click) to post a comment. Or please share the post with your thoughts on LinkedIn – and follow me or connect with me there.

Did you like this post? Make sure you don't miss a post or podcast — Subscribe to get notified about posts via email daily or weekly.


Check out my latest book, The Mistakes That Make Us: Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation:

Get New Posts Sent To You

Select list(s):
Previous articleNUMMI Employee Says Plant Hides Defects
Next articleUpdated: How Often Must the Same Mistake Be Repeated?
Mark Graban
Mark Graban is an internationally-recognized consultant, author, and professional speaker, and podcaster with experience in healthcare, manufacturing, and startups. Mark's new book is The Mistakes That Make Us: Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation. He is also the author of Measures of Success: React Less, Lead Better, Improve More, the Shingo Award-winning books Lean Hospitals and Healthcare Kaizen, and the anthology Practicing Lean. Mark is also a Senior Advisor to the technology company KaiNexus.

3 COMMENTS

  1. The Suggestion Box, in itself, isn’t all that bad. In fact, Toyota uses them.

    Here’s the big difference: The number of “Problem Solvers” versus “Problem Finders” are significantly different at Toyota than at other companies that have suggestion boxes. In fact, a metric that is tracked and reported on is (# of suggestions implemented divided # of suggestions submitted per month).

    Plus, for high-impact suggestions that, Toyota provides financial or monetary rewards.

  2. Pete – you make some good points. It’s not that the box itself is bad, but in how it’s used. I’ve seen suggestion boxes that were locked and management had literally lost the key. The problem was the lack of attention to employee concerns, the box itself wasn’t the root cause of the problem.

    I’ve just seen suggestions managed so much more effectively without the box — having employees bring suggestions to you verbally is much better for discussion and implementation. It leads to faster resolution and you can work together in the context of “how do I make this into something we can implement?” instead of a management process that approves or rejects suggestions without dialog with the employee.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.