Pilko & Associates | EHS Management System Implementation

EHS Management System Implementation

Getting past the “Dysfunction Junction”

Here’s a mega energy company that’s on the Nth version of an environmental, health and safety (EHS) management system—and not one of their systems has ever worked. Now the apple has been chewed so many times it’s disgusting. And when the next version of “Son of Management System” comes rolling out, employees will roll their eyes instead of engaging their brains. What went wrong? How do good system designs and thorough planning end up as road kill?

In this Grey Paper—the fourth “dipping” in our series about EHS management systems—we explore the “Dysfunction Junction” between design and successful long-term implementation. We talk about why the transition from design to implementation is so critical; we enumerate some of the pitfalls; and we explore successful ways to negotiate difficult terrain.

You’ve got a plan—what can go wrong?

You’ve put in all the hard work of designing an EHS management system—you’ve involved the senior executive team, brought in an experienced consultant, built a solid management framework, determined the key elements that drive your business, and developed the key work processes. You’ve chosen the implementation team carefully, trained them until they cry for mercy, and dispatched them to the field. You have your reporting structure in place. Now you can send the consultant home and relax, right?

Wrong. This is the most critical point in the success of the entire system. This is the Dysfunction Junction (Figure 1), the break between design and implementation—the Number One place where we see companies and systems fail.

Figure 1. The Dysfunction Junction—the primary place where companies fail.

At the point where you reach the Dysfunction Junction, the design team has checked off all the boxes and they’ve done their job. However, in a systems world, the real work has just begun. It will take another 3 to 5 years of heavy-duty corporate-wide effort to complete.

If you look closely at major energy, petrochemical and power companies, you’ll find only a few that have successfully implemented effective EHS management systems—ExxonMobil and Dow come to mind. Many others have little to show for years of work.

There are two key reasons why most companies with good intentions have been unable to get past the Dysfunction Junction—regardless of the quality of the design and development work—personnel discontinuities and a project mindset.

Personnel discontinuities—who’s got the ball?
One of the distinguishing features of the Dysfunction Junction is the critical change of personnel when implementation commences. Typically a new system is spearheaded by senior management, who pass the ball to a line or staff team to get the job done. Management approves the design and participates in the highest level of training—then they move on to other priorities.

The implementation ball drops into the laps of line managers who may not have been part of the design team, and who may know next to nothing about the system. They undergo system training in an attempt to bridge the gap, but such training often fails to change fundamental thinking processes. If you think about the number of “dippings” it takes for a savvy management team to truly understand management systems, it is not surprising that a single Blitzkrieg training session fails to impress regular line managers.

After this all-too-often brief training, managers are expected to bring the operations folks into the fold. Nevertheless, by now, the emphasis has been garbled or lost. What started as brilliant ideas about revolutionizing EHS management ends up as another level of mind-numbing bureaucracy.

To press in on this concept, recall the key point from our previous Grey Papers on this topic: An effective management system must follow the way the work is done:

Figure 2. An effective management system must follow the way the work is done—including personnel at all levels in the corporate hierarchy.

To prevent dropping the implementation ball, line management and operations personnel should be involved in the design phase of a management system as well as in implementation. Their input is important for finding out which ideas will work best, and you want to enlist their support from the outset. It’s much easier for them to support something they’ve helped design.

Management should retain a leading role throughout the implementation process and line management must continue to stay vitally involved.

Communications are critical. Most companies tend to downplay this, particularly at the earliest phases. But the ultimate goal of a management system is a change in the way work is done all across the organization! In order for the ground you are cultivating to bear fruit, it must be spaded well in advance—preferably with the help of a consultant who has been down the road, knows the terrain, and won’t be trapped by internal company politics. Ignoring communications until the “official” implementation phase is like trying to plant a garden in the desert.

These tie into the next reason for implementation failure: employees’ inability to switch from a project mindset to process thinking; a new way of framing the way they do their work.

Project mindset to process thinking—a whole new ball game

The diagram below shows how companies typically tend to interpret the Plan, Do, Check, and Act model that underlies all management systems:

Figure 3. Companies tend to think of Plan, Do, Check, and Act as a linear process with a beginning and an end. Efforts tend to dwindle toward the end of the process.

Linear thinking and declining resources typically accompany management systems implementation efforts. The focus is on planning and doing, while checking and acting (implementation and continual improvement) are left to take care of themselves. Some companies never make it to the Check and Act steps because they get stuck in a Plan-Do-Plan-Do-Do-Do-OOPS-Redo-Redo-Redo cycle.

The truth is that Plan, Do, Check, and Act form a never-ending cycle, and every step is equally important.

Figure 4. Plan, Do, Check, and Act must be a continuing cycle.

The difficulty in keeping the cycle going is: The design and initial execution of a management system requires a project mindset, but successful implementation and continual improvement require process thinking.

Project thinking is how most of us are motivated at work—it’s a “check the box” mentality. Did you meet the design deadline? Yep, we got that. Did you train people at the right time? Yep, we did it. Has the system been implemented on schedule? It must be, because we did everything else.

No, the system hasn’t been implemented, regardless of how many gap assessments and improvement plans have been completed and filed and reviewed. Because real implementation—getting past the Dysfunction Junction—requires process thinking on the part of everyone using the system: What is the work to be done? How is the work to be done? Do I have the skills to do the work? What additional training can I get? Do I have the resources? Where can I get additional resources? Is there a better way to do this work?

In short, project thinking is checking off your to-do list. Process thinking is asking the right questions about the work process and taking advantage of the “ah-has!” that result—it’s more like a series of light-bulbs turning on than boxes being checked. The diagram below shows the role of project thinking and process thinking. A project mindset plays a key role in the design and build phase, but without process thinking to bridge the Dysfunction Junction, operationalization of the system grinds to a halt, and you end up with a thorny bureaucracy. Process thinking is the only way to cultivate the garden and reap the rewards of your efforts.

Figure 5. It is process thinking that bridges the Dysfunction Junction, facilitates operationalization of the system, and helps you reap the rewards of your efforts.

How can you defuse the Dysfunction Junction land mine and help implementation efforts fall on fertile soil? This is one of the key roles of your consultant. Someone who has traveled the territory can help you spade up the ground so that process thinking gathers momentum and results in a garden of new ideas.

Key components of process thinking
There are three key components of process thinking: resource commitment; training and culture change; and communications, documentation and records management.

Resource commitment
Senior management must commit to sufficient resources to operationalize the management system, including money, manpower, and appropriate levels of competency. It is easy to see the need for resources to design and build the system; the ongoing need for resources to operationalize the system is less obvious. If you expect to reap the benefits, you must be willing to commit resources for 3 to 5 years or more. Some of the companies we work with spend a lot on the design but get tight when it’s time to implement—and they end up with little from their investment. A real management system requires a culture change, and that takes years to achieve.

Training and culture change
You should not be surprised to find enormous resistance to change, regardless of the obvious benefits of the change. If training is a one-time event, it won’t make much of a dent, and you will be unlikely to achieve a successful implementation. Culture change takes years—and multiple dippings in the new way that you want your employees to think.

Communications, documentation and records management
If you wait until implementation day to start communicating what you are doing, you are way too late. You need to start early and hit it often—through company newsletters, contests, lunch-and-learn sessions, management briefings, and award and recognition events, etc.

You must also maintain system documentation (guidance and directions documents) during design, in implementation, and as part of continual improvement. Too often the design team finishes, documents, and leaves. A year later, documentation no longer matches the work processes, and the system dies. Good documentation should be an integral part of your communications program.

Records consist of evidence to prove that EHS activities have been completed and that the desired results have been achieved. You must have a system that keeps these documents current.

Avoiding pitfalls
Here are some things you can begin doing before implementation to make a successful transition beyond the Dysfunction Junction:

Ensure cross-functional involvement throughout design, development, and implementation. This is key.
Remember that implementation is all the steps, not just Plan and Do. Be willing to expend the same resources on gap assessments and continual improvement as you expend on planning and development, because doing less is false economy. Keep your consultant involved.
Promote a process mentality instead of a project mentality. Help people understand that the new system will never be “finished” because there will always be better ways to do things, or better things to do. Expend the resources and do the necessary communications to keep this idea alive.
Maintain constant leadership. Continuity and strong support from senior management is crucially important. Too often we see the champions of the EHS management system being drawn elsewhere once implementation is underway (“On to the next project!”), and then the system fails because the driving force is missing. One way to protect from unexpected leadership changes is to make sure that the ground is spaded from the outset and that everyone at every level of the corporation is continually “dipped” in the system. In a system that really works, for example, leadership can change and the system rocks along, because the new leaders are as immersed in the process as the ones who left.
Maintain a flexible, effective organizational structure throughout implementation. Once your system is established and working well, it can survive changes in management, because people will retain a process outlook. A project-oriented “check-the-box” management system won’t ever survive organizational changes, because when you change the structure, you change the boxes.
Employ systems measures to track your progress, not outcome measures such as injuries, spills and violations. How well is the training going? How well is the system being operationalized? How well have the processes been embedded into the organization? Ask questions that will tell you if you are doing the right things to get the system in place.
Remember that systems implementation is not about training—it is about helping employees to perform the way you want them to and helping them work systematically. Implementation is not a one-time event—it is continual improvement, a way of thinking, and a way of life.

Signposts of success
You know you’ve arrived at a working management system when your line organization and employees at every level are thinking in systematic ways: i.e., how are they going to plan their work? How are they going to carry it out and check it? How will they know it’s been done correctly? How are they going to assure proper skills and resources? Are there ways to improve the job the next time around?

Ultimately, the management framework, the key work processes, and the rest of the deliverables from the system design phase remain as guidance documents—but they are not the heart of the system. The heart of the system is a corporate culture that values process thinking, and delivers the necessary work systematically.

Cultivating the garden
Keeping your consultant around throughout the implementation phase may be the smartest investment you make. Here’s why:

The system design phase focuses on “what to do”—the “how to do it” is generally left up to each business unit. In the implementations we’ve seen where the company went ahead on their own without expert assistance, the Dysfunction Junction made it nearly impossible to translate “whats” into “hows.” This happens because the implementing business units get into “do-loop” whirlpools without recognizing that they’re in one—and then they don’t know how to get out.

There is an old saying that if you want different results, you have to do something different—but you would be amazed by the number of people who think they can get different results by doing the same thing harder. An outside expert with a clear eye can recognize this instantly and get things back on track.

If all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. The folks in the business units have been doing their jobs, their way, for years. They have a box full of hammers. Now you send them some carriage bolts and screws to work with, and they’re going to pull out a very big hammer.

Your consultant should recognize these signs and make sure people have access to the right tools and that they know how to use them. In most cases, internal staff members are not equipped to do this, because they are in the same boat trying to cross the river between project and process.

No plan is perfect. Every military commander goes into battle with a plan, and every good military commander knows the plan will change. With your consultant at your side—someone who has a map of all the terrain, not just the path in the plan—you’ll never be lost. The consultant has gotten through the jungle before and can do it again, by whatever route is necessary.
A consultant can make sure you don’t lose credibility. The example at the beginning of this Grey Paper describes a real situation, and it’s one you can’t afford. Rolling out a new management system is a high-visibility endeavor. Can you really stand the potential impact of failure? Think of your consultant as the most valuable insurance you can buy.

In conclusion
There are no cookbooks for management systems, not even the one you so painstakingly constructed during your design effort. The Dysfunction Junction is always there, a landmine waiting to sabotage your best efforts. It takes continuing work, and wisdom, to reach your goals.

The goals are worth it: A process mentality that finds creative solutions to problems; An EHS management system that can serve as a model for your entire organization; Enhanced operations, improved EHS performance, fewer “oops” incidents, lower costs, and better relationships with communities and other stakeholders. All of these can ultimately result in an improved competitive position. It’s a garden that bears great fruit.