Emotional Attachment Generates CASH

I speak and reference often about creating “Emotional Attachment” between your Team Members and process … but what is the actual definition and how can you create it within your organization?

First the clinical definition:

Emotional attachment refers to the feelings of closeness and affection that help sustain meaningful relationships over time. ... You can become emotionally attached to people even without romantic or sexual attraction. Simply feeling close to someone helps you bond and increases your sense of connection.

People and machines can be emotionally attached

Emotional Attachment within your workplace is completely a subliminal attribute or a sequence of attributes not clearly defined as a methodology by rather the important by-product that resides within a methodology. For example:

At our assembly plant, our leadership would constantly coach us to watch for the symptoms of a systemic issue that may not be immediately apparent or if you witness a symptom you could end up going down the wrong rabbit hole. We were advised that “Poor Quality” was typically the result of “Poor Performance” and that “Poor Performance” typically resulted and became visible through “Poor Attendance.”

If you really think about it there is a lot being packed into that analogy. If we decide to address Poor Quality, we will most likely introduce more stringent procedures, policies supported with enhanced jigs, fixtures and application of Poke-Yoke applications … but ultimately we are still at the mercy of our Team Member to be and remain engaged in the process.

Similar, to Poor Performance … we can add layers of supervision and add performance metrics for the incorrect reason … but ultimately the root cause resides with the initial selection process or the subsequent placement of our Team Member into the wrong seat on the bus … the downside is that as long as this negative behaviour is tolerated it sets a standard of acceptable culture or cancer within the organization.

Attendance however is digital and can be dealt with in a progressive manner which should be visible to all within the organization … but it is a critical indicator of how well you are creating emotional attachment.

How to improve Emotional Attachment?

Remember … it is subliminal … so it starts with your Team Member’s arrival. Does your employee entrance reflect the Brand Image you are attempting to portray to the world? Is your Break Area, professional and inviting?

The subliminal importance of 5S which cannot be quantified but still measured is when the Team Member arrives at the workstation. If it is unorganized, messy and unprofessional-looking mentally the Team Member degrades internally the importance of his contribu