Standards are important because they provide a reference point against which to measure improvement.
Sadly, standards are often abused and misused by management. In most organisations they're about achieving uniformity. They're used as edicts to maintain control of people, preventing them from performing their jobs in the manner they see best, and are rightly perceived as restrictive and oppressive by those poor people. In such organisations, standardisation does suppress innovation and, because standards are set in stone from on high or centrally, they prevent continuous improvement from happening.
At Toyota, the people performing the work create their own standards, which they are free to change to realise improvement. People continuously inspect and adapt to improve. They are continuously learning and capturing their knowledge in their standards.
Let your future be lit with the knowledge of the past - Sakichi Toyoda
When a team employs a practice, everyone using it must agree on how it's to be performed. Shared investigation and consensus ensures it's currently the best-known way of doing something. If possible, make it visual so that everyone will be constantly aware of it. Train everyone in the practice. And monitor how it goes for effectiveness and potential improvements.
Management are inclined to light fires under people to get them to work and deliver. Whereas allowing people to continuously improve how they work lights fires within them, guiding their natural creativity toward adding real and lasting value that contributes to delivering more effectively. Continuous improvement is not as easy as it may sound. Short-termism, the rife fixation on the end of month, or the next deadline, is at odds with investing in something that will pay dividends in the long run. Don't accept this. Educate your organisation and sell the benefits of continuous improvement to them. It's a no brainer, really. But then I've completely ignored command-and-control culture, which is most definitely not about people.
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