Manufacturing management strategies: What if a high performing skilled worker moves up?

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Here is the good news. Your company has an opportunity for a high performer to advance into a different position. The bad news is there is little to no bench behind the high performer. When that person moves into the new position, you have a gaping hole.

This is a real issue many companies face. Ideally, you’ve thought about this happening before and have taken proactive action. If you haven’t, you’ll probably respond in a hurried, suboptimal way. It is not fair to deny the high performer the advancement opportunity—so what do you do?

How Did This Situation Occur?

High performers are such a blessing to your organization. They’re your “go-to” people. If you need ideas for an improved process flow, objective analysis of a bottleneck, performance of weekly 5S audits, and many other “lean things,” high performers can be counted on to get the job done.

Perhaps your company has committed to taking the lean journey. Someone has to take responsibility for the lean strategy, educate the staff, develop the metrics, mediate differences of opinions, or be the objective arbiter of all things lean. Who do you call? Not the Ghostbusters. You call on your lean high performers.

Relying on high performers can be an issue for companies of any size, but it is particularly challenging for small or medium-sized organizations with scarce resources and many people who wear more than one hat. Someone rises to the lean challenge. They have a get-it-done mindset, thirst for knowledge, and a streak of creativity. The rest of the organization gets used to letting this person do all the “lean stuff.” It just makes everybody else’s jobs easier. Unfortunately, this can lead to lazy and complacent behaviors by people who really should be actively involved.

Actions to Take When the Bench is Weak

What do you do when the bench is weak? You might try to rationalize reasons for keeping the high performer in the current job. It’s just too disruptive to move that person along to the new position. That might work in the short run, but sooner or later the high performer will act. If they cannot advance in this company, they will advance in another company.

You might tell high performers that they will move to the new position after a defined time, once you can find and train replacements, people who likely would undergo some intense lean skills development. They would need to immerse themselves in current projects and undergo significant coaching. Company leaders will need to support these high-performer replacements, just as they will be expected to support company leaders.

Another approach is to go cold turkey. Let the high performer go to the new position whether or not you are ready to backfill. The approach can be risky, though, especially if you haven’t identified a replacement. Maybe you have the new person identified, but you have to recognize the domino effect of pulling that person from their current job. All of this can take time, which can lead to negative consequences.

The risks with the cold-turkey approach can put your lean journey momentum in jeopardy. That project that was going so well, thanks in large part to the high performer’s persuasive and lean technical skills, may fall flat. No one is able or willing to provide project leadership during the transition. Perhaps you find a key supervisor who’s really starting to “get it,” but they are pulled back to the status quo by the big rubber band—you know, the pressure to conform with the way things are. The rubber band pulls the supervisor back to the “don’t rock the boat” crowd.

None of these approaches are particularly good, of course. But if you find yourself with a high performer who wants to move up or move on, you have no choice but to move forward with a transition strategy, however imperfect it may be. You can see why thinking about backfilling the high performer should be done before the situation ever reaches a crisis level.

How to Prevent a Crisis

The best option is to anticipate the advancement situation and do the appropriate succession planning. If you have been successful in advancing your lean journey, then you should have invested in skills development for at least a critical mass of employees. With their baseline education and training and some hands-on experience, you have a way forward.

One way forward involves taking a hard look at who would replace your lean high performer. A replacement might be a tactical-level person directly supporting the front-line operations or a senior person guiding the lean strategy. If someone continually works closely with the high performer, then you may have a prime candidate. If, on the other hand, no one is working with the high performer (that is, there is no bench), then you must consider whether to develop someone already in-house or hire someone new from outside. Either alternative is feasible, provided the succession planning is proactive.

Another action is to grow your in-house talent such that the high performer’s movement is only a speed bump rather than a major pothole. You can invest in the lean development of those who are next in line and the logical candidates to backfill the high performer. Develop the deep skills in the technical aspects of lean as well as the softer skills of change management. With this intentional development, you have someone who can contribute side by side with the high performer and step in if the high performer moves on. Such an investment has no downside.

An additional action is to broadly develop lean skills and capabilities within the organization so that you are not dependent on one person to support and lead. If skills are spread broadly so that production supervisors, engineers, and key employees are routinely performing analysis and leading improvement projects, the entire operation depends less on the high performer. If the bulk of the leadership team is visibly leading using lean philosophies and deploying lean expectations into their respective functions, then they will not be waiting for the “lean person” to do it for them.

These actions begin to frame up what you might do to avoid the disruption of a high performer’s advancement. Given your company’s situation, resources, and strategic direction, you might have other actions, but the net result is that you are prepared for whatever happens.

Be Fair to the High Performer

The high performer has delivered for you over the years. People in your company see the value this person has provided. If you have bought into the key principles of respect for people and act with humility, then you appreciate that it would be unfair to get in the way of the high performer’s advancement path.

If the high performer is moving into a direct operations position, a more senior job, or a critical support role, then you have a doubly good outcome. The person is now in a position to effect change and operate in a lean way as a normal course of the job. This is a great way to leverage and broaden capabilities across the organization. Plus, you have an opportunity to freshen up the lean deployment approach with the person who is doing the backfilling.

It is leadership’s responsibility to recognize the great contributions of the high performer and to think three steps ahead to anticipate advancements. After all, who is a better candidate for bigger and better things than the person who has had the impact of the lean sensei (or whatever you call that person)? If you do get in the way of the high performer’s advancement, you should not be surprised if another company recognizes this person’s talent and capabilities and recruits the person out from under your nose. Act proactively and avoid the gaping hole!