Our objective is to leverage the collective knowledge, experience and motivation of the network to significantly improve the competitiveness and profitability of all our participating companies
Part 1 of 3: What gets in the way of creating new habits?
Meryl Runion writes about how to speak strong and lean – how to communicate in a way that is pull based, collaborative, efficient and customer-focused. The true value of her method is in the thinking behind the phrases. Lean and continuous improvement also involve creating a vision of perfection to strive toward. The SpeakStrong Method is based on universal principles of effective communication with practical applications and specific phrases for the challenges of today’s business world. It is lean-aligned and kata-based for continuous communication improvement.
And, once you crack the code and develop the magic ear and eye, communication excellence becomes simple, easy and natural. Learn more about Meryl, The SpeakStrong philosophy and her books at www.speakstrong.com
Stay tuned for Part 2 next week: The Kata mindset – Inclusion and the challenge of creating a different way of thinking
Everyone is a leader in some situations and, once the direction is clearly communicated, must manage a process towards a successful outcome or, if not successful, a process of learning and better understanding the problem at hand.
“Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.” -Stephen Covey
I have selected six of these qualities, those that I believe to be the most powerful from the list. I believe an effective leader:
Communicates philosophy & values.Sets organizational direction, embracing and sharing organizational value, defining the organization from the inside clearly expressing how the organization is viewed by the marketplace. Makes it clear who we are. The organization is not a product or a service but a value-based organization. An example: All decisions are made by testing their effect on our values. 1st- We communicate to our customers our beliefs (ex: our belief is to challenge the status quo of all our products and services, always using the scientific method to make improvements), 2nd- our products and services design reflects this culture of innovation, and 3rd- all our products and services are of the highest quality provided at a competitive cost. Excellent leaders always speak about values and beliefs first.
Explains the reasons for an activity. Motivation is difficult when you don’t know why something needs to be done/changed/improved. We all need an answer as to why we need to make this change, a compelling answer clearly, consistently and effectively communicated to all involved.
Has a strong sense of urgency. We thrive when leadership presents both urgency and patience. Urgency to improve a condition and patience with the PDCA process, the scientific process, one of discovery. It is clear to me that excellent leaders have your back. Don’t be afraid to make a mistake, just be certain you learn from it.
Is humble. Leaders with big egos often create a team of meek followers or silent objectors. The good ideas come from the boss, the little ones from someone below him or her.“The chief executive who knows his strengths and weaknesses as a leader is likely to be far more effective than the one who remains blind to them. He also is on the road to humility, that priceless attitude of openness to life that can help a manager absorb mistakes, failures, or personal shortcomings.” – John Adair……..and this leadership mindset creates loyal and passionate followers.
Makes hard work worth it. If there is a noble cause to follow, stated in leadership’s philosophy and values and we know why changes need to be made, hard work becomes rewarding and less difficult……the easier part of Dr. Shingo’s “easier, better, faster, cheaper” phrase.
Is courageous – “There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.” -Niccolo Machiavelli. Excellent leaders cannot be fearful of making mistakes. If the organization is not improving it is likely losing it’s competitive edge.
First we lead using the organizations shared values, then we keep focused on those values.
What do you think makes a good leader?
What do some leaders do to unintentionally diminish their organization?
The Scientific Application of Common Sense Podcast #2: (click the player above to listen)
Andrew Bishop – Managing Director at Green Leaf Plants shares a recent challenge: 2 acres of greenhouses with many varieties of plants, needing different care. Using an MRP based work-order system took massive effort and did not provide accurate and timely information. The solution: Use of team problem solving tools including the “5 whys” led to the creation of a visual control system which shortened planning time from days to minutes and reduced mistakes and rework! Nice!
GBMP is thrilled to launch The Lean Thinking Network community blog site. Along with our YouTube Channel and the Old Lean Dude blog, we hope to be able to provide participants with a plethora of places to access exceptional content on all things Lean & Continuous Improvement – plus several ways to network with a like-minded community of Lean practitioners. Don’t forget. In the interest of Continuous Improvement, please do not hesitate to let us know if you have any suggestions on how we can improve. (To subscribe to listen to them using I-Tunes, go to I-Tunes, select podcasts and then search for the “lean thinking network” and then subscribe.)
There are two types of podcasts we feature here: e2 podcasts and “sacs” podcasts.
1. e2 Podcasts are “twitter – like” – 5 minutes or less and easily digest. We call them “Dwight’s pwitters” focusing on the people side of continuous improvement.
2. “Sacs” (Scientific Application of Common Sense) Podcasts are short stories, told by continuous improvement practitioners, concerning complicated problems being solved by simple, effective and sustainable countermeasures.
Use the categories on the right to find what you’re looking for or just scroll down the home page to see what’s new. Interested in developing a regional network? We can help you keep everyone in the loop (See our PA Lean Network link.)
A medical device company needs to decrease the cost of a part in order to stay competitive.
Listen as Ron Pujalte (GBMP Lean Silver Certified Continuous Improvement Manager & Six Sigma Black Belt)explains how the use of a Cause & Effect Diagram Adding Cards plus 5 Why Analysis with team members from the shop floor enabled this manufacturer to not only reduce costs but to increase yield by 8%.
(If you can’t see the media link, please click on the post title to go to the website where you can listen to the podcast.)
Empowerment and Accountability: Opposites or equals? Certainly when not handled appropriately, these important “people-related” concepts can make the “soft side” of continuous improvement into the “hard-side”. In this podcast we will explore both Empowerment and Accountability from the Lean perspective.
Empowerment
Why empower?
Because management cannot see everything; they need help and lots of it.
Because even if management could see everything, they would not have enough time to fix everything on their own.
Because we are wasting valuable experience and intelligence if we don’t leverage the knowledge and creativity of our most important resource, our people.
Empowerment is defined as the process of enabling or authorizing an individual to think, behave, take action, and control work and decision-making in autonomous ways. It is the state of feeling self-empowered to take control of one’s own destiny.
In his wonderful book “Managing to Learn” John Shook speaks of his epiphany when his boss told him “Never tell your staff exactly what to do. Whenever you do that, you take responsibility away from them.” Empowerment’s aim is reassigning responsibility while growing the skills of our work allies, with the objective of achieving an “Everybody Everyday” type improvement environment.
So why is it that more of our people are not empowered to do things that, frankly, they can do much better than we can?
Sometimes Supervisors and Managers feel threatened by the thought of surrendering authority. I frequently have heard “if I give away my authority (power), I will have nothing left.” You could add to that “and I won’t be needed”. Just because you think “command and control” is not the best systems, it does not mean you have a new management system to replace it.
Some who have dabbled in empowerment have not had much luck actually empowering people; I really mean luck because very often there is no associated process or system to empower. Without a process or system, some people and circumstances may work out great, but, sadly, most people and circumstances are not so lucky. Allowing empowerment to exist without a process or system that includes expected outcomes and the coaching required to achieve those outcomes, can create an atmosphere of entitlement that can ruin our culture.
Accountability
To successfully empower someone, we must also assign accountability. Empowerment with no associated expectations, or no scoreboard, is confusing and ineffective. As a culture we are used to and generally like to keep score, it is normal.
But assigning accountability to someone is often not so simple. This circumstance requires immense doses of both courage (for both the empowerer and the empoweree) and commitment from leadership. In addition, without trust and follow-through this can become nearly impossible.
For our purposes I define Accountability as– answerable for outcomes. But within the lean context it is important to support this definition through the three principals of kaizen:
A defined process with results
A systems focus
And a non-blaming, non-judgmental atmosphere.
A primary function of lean leaders and managers is to recognize how to effectively blend lean principles together with the softer sides of lean. When we do this we set the stage for success by teaching, coaching and developing people in a way that allows them to take charge of their work and become comfortable being held accountable. This is the way to create the talented allies necessary for a long continuous improvement journey.
Empowerment and Accountability, in our context, are not at all opposites. Together, this pair of equally important concepts, coupled with the necessary training and coaching, is critical to the success of any continuous improvement program and shows a great deal of respect for our valuable employees. To create an environment where Empowerment can be consistently successful, we must always connect it to accountability with high expectations, in a fair and supportive manner.
Making improvements in our business is a struggle for most of us. We work hard and spend untold hours making improvements happen, and then, more importantly, sustaining those improvements, but why can’t improvements happen naturally? Why is the current state of “normal” so difficult to change? Why can’t we have more help? Why don’t more of our people get interested in solving problems and making improvements? Why can’t everyone be making and sustaining improvements every day? Why not, Everybody – Everyday?
Who is on board? Now a question for you: Last month, how many improvement ideas did you receive from the people who actually do the work? How many of those ideas were implemented? If your answer was none, one would be better, if it was one, five would be better and so on. More ideas, more improvements.
Alan Robinson, co-author of “Ideas are Free” says that 80% of implemented ideas come from the people doing the work, and 20% from supervisors, managers and executives. Do you think it is worth some effort to increase implementable ideas from 1 to 5?
What are some things that get in the way? If you have very few or no ideas from the people doing the work, do you know what is holding them back?
Perhaps the issue is cultural, or there is not a favorable environment for continuous improvement in your business.
Sometimes we just think that nobody cares? My experience tells me this is not true, everybody cares. We often have not done a thorough enough job creating a safe environment for ideas to push creative problem solving and continuous improvement in our business. Everyone needs to believe their ideas and thinking are valuable to the business. We need everyone, understanding and wanting to use the “scientific method” plan-do-check-act all the time.
Respect When people are trained in kaizen, the three principles of kaizen are rarely mentioned. They are: process and results; systems focus; and non-blaming, non-judgmental.
We all talk of Toyota’s focus on Safety first, Quality second, Delivery third and Cost forth, but in this context isn’t Safety about respecting both the physical and the emotional human? We want no one to be in a circumstance where they can be physically injured, yet rarely do we discuss “emotional injury or emotional safety” When we blame, exclude or simply don’t listen or pay attention to someone we often eliminate those valuable people and potential ideas from our continuous improvement process. If we are, in fact, searching for allies to join our continuous improvement lifestyle, then emotional safety for all involved is critical to our success.
Exclusion is a sure fire way to create an enemy. When not included humans often feel resentment which turns into resistance to whatever the “included” group is trying to accomplish.
I came across this quote recently: I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
