The role of Middle Management a first examination



Creating sustainability in the contiouous impovement pratice has been an enormuos challenge within organisations. Different factors contribute to the sustainability as there are the level of process management, the adequate use of continuous improvement tools, middle management and the attitude and behavior of the organizations towards imbedding continuous improvement. The sustainability of the continuous improvement practice can be defined as: “the extent to which continuous improvement (a) is sustained over time and (b) sustained by the efforts of employees and managers and (C) has become part of the way of working within the organization.

 

Organizations have to take the continuous improvement practice out of the project atmosphere, don’t see continuous improvement as something that is temporarily and is used for a quick fix. Creating the sustainability means creating a new way of working and imbedding this in your daily routines. If an organization does not succeed in this the sustainability will be poor an eventualy an organisation will fall back in old ways of working. The entire organization has to have clear what the long term perspective is and what the contribution is of continuous improvement. Also the organization needs to fill in the constrains for achieving continuous improvement. Such as clear overview of managers responsibilities and accountabilities; reward structure, adjustment of function profile.

 

This framework exposes the pitfall that is often the cause of not being able to realize process improvements and adopting a culture of Continuous improvement. Optimized Processes do not automatically lead to a change in attitude and behavior although this is often assumed. But focus on continuous improvement and the role of middle management is a requirement to realize the necessary changes in attitude and behavior that provide sustainability