I’ve just finished watching the last in the Can Gerry Robinson FIx the NHS series. Riveting stuff. This is something the BBC does very well – producing high quality documentaries about the workings of our national institutions.
The line that made me smile most was where chief exec Brian James says: ‘It’s about empowering the people on the shop floor.’ I smiled because in this most rigid of organsations, we have a person who understands the value of the folk doing the work and who finally understood that command and control from this ‘thing’ we call management, is ineffective. Soviet economics and management have never worked yet that’s the way the NHS seems to be run.
The saddest moment was when Gerry Robinson realised that even if Rotherham hospital (the place he was attempting to help) runs efficiently and is able to improve theatre usage, it won’t necessarily be rewarded for its efforts. It then got me thinking about how routine work gets done inside professional firms.
In my day, jobs entered a queue, got allocated to the appropriate team, dished out from there and then worked upon. Wait times varied but it wasn’t unusual to see stuff lying around for 2-3 months. That was the norm. But it didn’t make sense. It ties up potential cashflow and does nothing for client relationships. In one office I managed, we adopted a pooling arrangement where stuff was dealt with on a FIFO basis and whomever was available got the next job. It made a huge difference. We slashed wait times in half, clients were a lot happier and staff felt they were getting a more varied diet of work. We used industrial techniques to smooth out the workflow. It worked. We did this in another office. At first, one of the partners resisted because he felt the need to control every aspect of the process. Once it became clear that everyone was going to benefit, resistance to change evaporated.
Change is hard, but very often, it is the people who are doing the work who know what needs to be done. Anything professionals can do to facilitate that process has got to be a good thing. It’s one of the reasons I believe every practice should look to ACCA and ACMA for management talent – it’s in their DNA in a way that it isn’t for most CAs.
Technorati Tags: ACCA, ACMA, management
