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I've been writing about "dumb" questions. While compiling the list of 45 reader questions I got thinking, why would someone not ask a question? Engaged people, in whatever they are doing, tend to be curious. Does it follow that people not asking questions, dumb or not-so-dumb, are just not engaged?

Have you voted on the Top 42 Not-So-Dumb Project Questions? Please do so now.

Get everyone involved in satisfying the needs of the customer

On further reflection I remembered a very short article in Industry Week (IW) by Ralph Keller. Ralph is the President of the Association for Manufacturing Excellence (AME). He has a monthly column he calls Continuous Improvement. In December 2008 he wrote Engaging the Hearts and Minds of Your Employees. Ralph makes a very familiar case:

Failure to win over the hearts and minds of all of your people will result in less-than-desired results, and will not achieve the sustainable continuous improvement efforts that conditions today demand in order for companies to succeed.

He describes a few of the successful approaches.

MBWA

Captain Michael Abrashoff, author of It's Your Ship, uses MBWA (managing by walking around). Ralph reports that Abrashoff kept up MBWA even after he won over all the crew.

Safety

Office furniture maker Herman Miller puts the safety of all workers at the forefront. They have a formal process for measuring the strenuousness of every job on a scale of 0 – 10 with 0 being not strenuous. They don't stop working on a job 'til it is a 0. They tell everyone, customers included, their own people come first.

Get everyone involved in satisfying the needs of the customer

Herman Miller seeks to involve everyone in their continuous improvement efforts. This contrasts sharply with the usual tools-based approach.

Ralph concludes this way,

Leadership matters, and it's the leaders who demonstrate every day that they respect, value and care about everyone in the organization who are able to achieve sustainable results in their continuous improvement efforts.

Anything less than a systemic approach just can't succeed

When Jon Katzenbach was just a little famous (now 5-time author and regular contributor to HBR) he wrote about the same topic in Peak Performance: Aligning the Hearts and Minds of Your Employees. Jon offers a more systemic approach. He says five balanced paths are required: mission, values and pride; process and metrics; entrepreneurial spirit; individual achievement; and recognition and celebration. Frankly, it seems overwhelming to me. However, maybe anything less just can't succeed. That would certainly explain why companies routinely fail to engage their employees and no one seems to ask the not-so-dumb questions.