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This document, “The Transition to Empowered Problem-solving Teams at Motorola” by James D. Burge, describes Motorola’s shift towards empowering its workforce to achieve total customer satisfaction and improve business performance.Key points of the summary include:
- Core Philosophy: Motorola’s fundamental objective is total customer satisfaction, achieved through uncompromising integrity, constant respect for people, and a belief that diversity enhances problem-solving skills. They invest heavily in training and education for their 113,000+ employees worldwide.
- Organizational Transformation: Motorola recognized the need to move away from internal charts and short-term goals. They implemented a new management structure and pay-for-performance systems that delegate decision-making authority to empowered problem-solving teams, turning managers into leaders and employees into business managers.
- Empowered Workforce: Employees now take ownership of the business, anticipate and solve problems, and prepare for future needs. Pay systems reward performance based on demonstrated skill, flexibility, and individual contribution.
- Education and Communication: Motorola emphasizes understanding “why” in addition to “how” in their training, with many production operators becoming Skills Center Instructors. Regular briefing meetings share business successes, challenges, and competitive positions.
- Tangible Results: Empowered employees have achieved remarkable results, including making repair vs. buy decisions, reducing cycle time (e.g., cell phone production from 4.5 weeks to one hour), cutting production costs (one team saved $340,000 per year), increasing production by 5X in reorganized workspaces, and directly engaging with customers globally.
- Continuous Improvement: Motorola has saved over $3 billion in six years and doubled sales per employee, attributing this to their commitment to quality, cost, and service through an educated and empowered workforce. They aim for 10X defect reduction every two years and 10X cycle time reduction in five years.
