[NOTE: This post is not a response to any particular situation, in any institution. I am writing it now only because I translated the piece I cite below for this week's Toronto Torah, as part of a series of articles I have translated regarding the 19th century Machine Matzah controversy.]
I have heard voiced, over the years, an expectation that a Jewish communal institution will hire people who are in need of work, even if they are less qualified or even unqualified; communities never have enough resources to meet all needs, and this is seen as an efficient way to take care of two problems.
The fallout from this practice, though, can be terrible; staff, teachers and administrators all do important work, and if they are inefficient then the institution suffers, and the community suffers. As a most respected mentor of mine once commented regarding a certain school, "It's a yeshiva, not a cigar store." Operating a community institution comes with great responsibility for the welfare of hundreds or thousands of people, and it must be taken seriously, professionally.
That came to mind when I read the following passage from Rabbi Yosef Shaul Nathanson (Bittul Modaah, pg. 2; you can find the Hebrew here).
Preface: Beginning in ancient times, Jews distributed gifts to the needy at the time of the public reading of Megilat Esther, in order to fulfill the imperative recorded in the megilah and in order to aid the needy in their collection. Also, Jewish communities historically hired needy people to bake matzah, to provide them with respectable economic support. Here, Rabbi Nathanson responded to a rabbi who argued that using machines to bake matzah would damage the livelihood of the needy, and would violate the historic practice of aiding the needy with this employment.
He has noted that we do not read the megilah on Shabbat even when there is an obligation [to read on that date], because the eyes of the needy anticipate the reading of the megilah [and we could not distribute gifts to the needy at a megilah reading on Shabbat]. Similarly, we should halt use of this machine because of the eyes of the needy, for this work provides them with money to purchase wheat [for matzah]. This is one of the precious arguments found in his writings, as well as the writings of others. However, it is empty, easily blown away; it causes us to laugh.
On Purim we read the megilah, and the megilah's central purpose is to remind us to give gifts to the needy, and it would be inappropriate to read the megilah without fulfilling that which is recorded therein. And so they said (Megilah 4) that a community which reads megilah on an earlier day also moves up the gifts to the needy; see Ramban and Rav Zerachyah haLevi there.
Here, though, the essence is to bake matzah in order to fulfill the obligation of matzah. What does this have to do with the needy? If one had many family members [to bake matzah themselves], would he be prohibited from baking personally, without hiring paupers to help?
Further, in our great sins, bitterly poor people come to bake matzah, and those who stand there during the baking can testify to the stumbling blocks that occur in the preparation of matzah. The matzah is prepared by paupers and [non-Jewish] servants, who are frivolous, and every member of my city will testify to this. It has been two years since I was appointed Rabbi and head of the court here, and I enacted that trustworthy people be assigned to each matzah bakery. Despite this practice, we have found many stumbling blocks, including theft of many batches of dough, lying, and baking of their own chametz between sets of matzah. Further, when they work all day and all night their strength is weakened, and there is greater concern for problems. With this machine, though, strong Jews work, and they do their jobs well, and they bake far more in one day than other bakeries do, and their great speed is beyond estimation.
Chametz between runs? Stolen dough? Supporting our neediest members is a sacred obligation, but it cannot come about this way. And the same is true far beyond matzah baking.
Of course, that doesn't mean we don't help them. It just means we are obligated to find another way.
Showing posts with label Jewish community: Institutional Improvement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jewish community: Institutional Improvement. Show all posts
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
What we can learn from Toyota and Failure Analysis
[The Purim edition of Toronto Torah is available here!]
[Note: This is a quasi-rant, but it is meant to be productive. I hope that shul presidents and rabbis and others in charge of Jewish communal institutions will read it through.]
I cringe when shuls encounter a problem and the board says, “We’ll just have to be more careful next time.”
I see two ways to understand that language:
1. I didn’t take things seriously before, or
2. I don’t think that making practical changes to our process is worthwhile.
Neither of those explanations appeals to me:
1. If you didn’t take it seriously before, we have big trouble and I have no way to know how seriously you are going to handle it in the future.
2. And if you did take it seriously before, and something unanticipated happened anyway, then why risk something unanticipated happening again?
It’s like the Toyota recall – I want to know why next time will be different. If the answer is, “We’ll be more careful,” you’ll never see me in a Toyota again.
This is stunningly simple – and yet I’ve seen Jewish community organizations (like businesses and manufacturers) make this mistake repeatedly. Failures abound: Programs that attracted tiny crowds. Dinners with bad food. Members who are turned off. Event entertainment that was inappropriate. Davening that is not inspirational. Fundraisers who fell short of their goals. Budgets that are not kept. Speakers who couldn’t reach their audience. Boards that were dysfunctional. Funds that disappear. And so on.
And, each time, the answer of, “We’ll be more careful next time.”
We don’t like to analyze failure, because it costs us time and effort, and sometimes funds.
We don’t like to analyze failure, because we don’t want to admit that we have failed.
We don’t like to analyze failure, because we are afraid of the results.
This remarkable website quantifies the problem, noting: Alexander Dunn, director of Assetivity Properties Ltd., in a paper posted on the Maintenance World web site, quotes a study which showed, "…that, when trying to prevent unacceptable events from happening again, 10 percent of participants immediately sought to place blame, 26 percent immediately expressed an opinion of the causes and offered an opinion without investigating the problem, and only 20 percent of participants examined the problem in sufficient detail to be able to identify an effective solution."”
How is Failure Analysis done? The method I favor, at least for relatively uncomplex operations, is the Six Sigma DMAIC approach.
To excerpt from the website cited above:
Define and Measure the Problem - What does the company want to prevent from recurring? When and where did it occur? What is the significance of the problem?
Analyze Cause-and-Effect Relationships - Once the problem is defined, it is important to uncover the root causes of the problem and to understand how they interact with one another.
Implement and Control the Best Solutions - Identify solutions based on the results of the root cause analysis and perform a cost/benefit analysis. Solutions are specific actions that control root causes of the problem.
The key is that last point – solutions must control the root causes of the problem. Going back to that website yet again, here’s a great example:
As a simple example, picture a large block of very good Swiss cheese on a kitchen table a few feet away from an open screen door. The weather outside is warm. A man comes to the table for some wine and cheese and sees a mouse in the cheese.
Problem: There is a mouse in the cheese.
Solution: Throw out the cheese with the mouse and put a new block of cheese on the table.
As the site shows, that approach is foolish. So is the approach of “Be sure to close screen door,” and, “Put a note on door asking, 'Did you latch me?'” That amounts to, “Be more careful next time.”
A good solution recognizes that the root cause is the screen door being left open. The key is a solution that controls this factor – such as putting in a spring-latched screen door. This way, the door cannot be left open.
Example: If the entertainment at an event was inappropriate, saying, “We’ll be more careful next time” does not address the root cause. Dropping that form of entertainment, or educating the players about the propriety issues involved, or previewing the entertainment, is a more sound approach.
Failure is, as they say, an opportunity, a chance to learn how to do what we do better. Even if an event or project is, overall, a success, there are always small failures from which we can learn. Failure Analysis is not a dirty word; Failure Repetition is.
[Note: This is a quasi-rant, but it is meant to be productive. I hope that shul presidents and rabbis and others in charge of Jewish communal institutions will read it through.]
I cringe when shuls encounter a problem and the board says, “We’ll just have to be more careful next time.”
I see two ways to understand that language:
1. I didn’t take things seriously before, or
2. I don’t think that making practical changes to our process is worthwhile.
Neither of those explanations appeals to me:
1. If you didn’t take it seriously before, we have big trouble and I have no way to know how seriously you are going to handle it in the future.
2. And if you did take it seriously before, and something unanticipated happened anyway, then why risk something unanticipated happening again?
It’s like the Toyota recall – I want to know why next time will be different. If the answer is, “We’ll be more careful,” you’ll never see me in a Toyota again.
This is stunningly simple – and yet I’ve seen Jewish community organizations (like businesses and manufacturers) make this mistake repeatedly. Failures abound: Programs that attracted tiny crowds. Dinners with bad food. Members who are turned off. Event entertainment that was inappropriate. Davening that is not inspirational. Fundraisers who fell short of their goals. Budgets that are not kept. Speakers who couldn’t reach their audience. Boards that were dysfunctional. Funds that disappear. And so on.
And, each time, the answer of, “We’ll be more careful next time.”
We don’t like to analyze failure, because it costs us time and effort, and sometimes funds.
We don’t like to analyze failure, because we don’t want to admit that we have failed.
We don’t like to analyze failure, because we are afraid of the results.
This remarkable website quantifies the problem, noting: Alexander Dunn, director of Assetivity Properties Ltd., in a paper posted on the Maintenance World web site, quotes a study which showed, "…that, when trying to prevent unacceptable events from happening again, 10 percent of participants immediately sought to place blame, 26 percent immediately expressed an opinion of the causes and offered an opinion without investigating the problem, and only 20 percent of participants examined the problem in sufficient detail to be able to identify an effective solution."”
How is Failure Analysis done? The method I favor, at least for relatively uncomplex operations, is the Six Sigma DMAIC approach.
To excerpt from the website cited above:
Define and Measure the Problem - What does the company want to prevent from recurring? When and where did it occur? What is the significance of the problem?
Analyze Cause-and-Effect Relationships - Once the problem is defined, it is important to uncover the root causes of the problem and to understand how they interact with one another.
Implement and Control the Best Solutions - Identify solutions based on the results of the root cause analysis and perform a cost/benefit analysis. Solutions are specific actions that control root causes of the problem.
The key is that last point – solutions must control the root causes of the problem. Going back to that website yet again, here’s a great example:
As a simple example, picture a large block of very good Swiss cheese on a kitchen table a few feet away from an open screen door. The weather outside is warm. A man comes to the table for some wine and cheese and sees a mouse in the cheese.
Problem: There is a mouse in the cheese.
Solution: Throw out the cheese with the mouse and put a new block of cheese on the table.
As the site shows, that approach is foolish. So is the approach of “Be sure to close screen door,” and, “Put a note on door asking, 'Did you latch me?'” That amounts to, “Be more careful next time.”
A good solution recognizes that the root cause is the screen door being left open. The key is a solution that controls this factor – such as putting in a spring-latched screen door. This way, the door cannot be left open.
Example: If the entertainment at an event was inappropriate, saying, “We’ll be more careful next time” does not address the root cause. Dropping that form of entertainment, or educating the players about the propriety issues involved, or previewing the entertainment, is a more sound approach.
Failure is, as they say, an opportunity, a chance to learn how to do what we do better. Even if an event or project is, overall, a success, there are always small failures from which we can learn. Failure Analysis is not a dirty word; Failure Repetition is.
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