Lean Quote: Listen, Listen, Listen

On Fridays I will post a Lean related Quote. Throughout our lifetimes many people touch our lives and leave us with words of wisdom. These can both be a source of new learning and also a point to pause and reflect upon lessons we have learned. Within Lean active learning is an important aspect on this journey because without learning we can not improve.

"My first message is: Listen, Listen, Listen to the people who do the work." — H. Ross Perot

Listening is an essential part of good communication. Effective communication is not a top-down, one-way exercise, but involves listening and demonstrating an inclination to act in response.

Many managers, however, are so wrapped up in our own ideas that they rarely take the time to listen to others. Their subordinates know this and, consequently, rarely share their ideas with them. But it doesn't have to be this way. And it doesn't necessarily require a lot of time. Some time, yes. But not as much as you might think.

Good listening means being willing to stop working computer, close a door, stop reading your email, or only answer emergency calls. Give the speaker your full attention, and let them know they are getting your full attention.

Go to the Gemba, where the actual work occurs. You can't genuinely listen if you aren't there. Go to where the action is happening and seek the facts. Lean implementation takes place on the floor, not in the office.

Do you do most of the talking? Be open to communication and ask your employees questions. People generally know the right answers if they have the opportunity to produce them. When an employee brings you a problem to solve, ask, "what do you think you should do to solve this problem?" Or, ask, "what action steps do you recommend?" Employees can demonstrate what they know and grow in the process.

Bottom line, the time it takes you to listen to the ideas of others is not only worth it - the success of your enterprise depends on it. Choose not to listen and you will end up frantically spending a lot more time down the road asking people for their ideas about how to save your business from imminent collapse. By that time, however, it will be too late. Your workforce will have already tuned you out.

 

10 Ways to Show Respect for People Through Empowerment

Respect for People is one of the most overlooked principles of Lean.  Demonstrating respect for people goes beyond just being nice to them. Showing respect in the workplace is all about the relationship we develop with other people and how we value them.

Respect for people means developing employees latent skills in both on the job and off the job training. It is easy to invest money in new technology, software, or equipment. It takes time, effort, and planning to invest in employee skills development.

Empowerment is at the center of respect for people. Empowerment means creating an environment where people are equipped and encouraged to make decisions in autonomous ways and to feel that they are in control of the outcomes for which they are responsible.

Here are 10 ways you can show Respect for People through empowerment:

1. Be clear in your communication.

When you express goals or explain projects, be sure the employees really understand what you are asking for. If the goals are unclear then the employees are not sure what they are being asked to do.

2. Eliminate barriers, restrictions and layers of protocol.

The more steps, individuals, policies and departments employees have to work through to get results, the more frustrating and disempowering things actually are. Use cross-training, multi-department teams and projects, and trainings to help break down the boundaries and barriers that may exist between employees and departments.

3. Allow employees to suggest better ways of getting their jobs done.

Ask for employee suggestions for other ways of getting the task or project accomplished. Listen and be willing to really hear the employees' comments. Employees hate to have no input and be told exactly how to perform their jobs, leaving no creativity.

4. Show you have trust in your employees.

Allow them to make mistakes as a form of learning. Show that it is really OK to make mistakes. Trust that people have the right intentions and will make the right decisions, even if they are different than your own. Let them know you really support their decisions.

5. Encourage and reward improvement and innovation.

Employees may be afraid to offer insight and new ways of doing things because the company culture doesn't support them. If you really want to empower employees, you'll need to create a company culture that encourages and rewards innovation. You may start by asking individuals to look for ways to improve efficiency, output, safety, etc. in the tasks they perform every day.

6. Listen. Listen. Listen.

Do you do most of the talking? Be open to communication and ask your employees questions. They can demonstrate what they know and grow in the process.

7. Share leadership's vision.

Help people feel they are a part of something bigger than themselves or their job by sharing your company's overall vision. Tell your employees the most important goals for your organization and let them know of the progress towards those goals.

8. Allow employees to actively participate in team and company goals.

Look for every opportunity to include employees at every level of the organization, in being active participants. Employees can't be involved with one-way directives.

9. Be a coach.

The best way to empower employees is not to manage them. Coach them to success. This is a process of developing their skills and providing them specific feedback to meet high standards. Employees want to be on the same team with their bosses. Be their coach and lead the team to success!

10. The key to empowerment is communication.

Give every employee equal and direct access to information. Many companies have developed a trickle-down style of communication that alienates those employees who may not be "in the loop." The more informed employees are and the more communication is open, honest, direct and complete, the more likely employees are to feel empowered and connected to the daily operations and overall goals of their company.

Respect for People is the most critical element for success in a Lean environment. If you are serious about the longevity of Lean in your organization you will need to focus on empowerment and encourage it.

Five Guidelines For Effectively Using Excellence Award Programs To Your Benefit

ASQ has introduced their new CEO, Bill Troy, who will continue to blog like Paul Borawski. In Bill’s first post he announced that ASQ has been awarded the Excellence level of achievement for the 2014 Wisconsin Forward Award. The Wisconsin Forward Award is essentially the state-level equivalent of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in the U.S. Bill has asked the ASQ’s influential voices about their experience with excellence award programs like these.

I think we can all agree that an excellence award for the sake of an award is not beneficial. However, many organizations around the world are turning to excellence award programs for more than just the recognition such programs offered. Companies realize that the awards also offer models and tools for implementing a quality strategy, benchmarking best practices, performing self-assessments and, ultimately, achieving improvements.

Many organizations are effectively using excellence award programs to advance their journey to attain quality leadership. Here are some guidelines for effectively using excellence award programs:

1. Do it to drive excellence, not to win the award.

Many organizations have gotten off track by making the award the ultimate goal. This can result in gaming the system to look better than you actually are. In the meantime, the organizations lose sight of their true purpose of providing value adding products and services to customers.

2. Use a long term focus.

Once and done is almost always a wasted effort. It is not enough to reach award winning levels of quality leadership. The real goal is to sustain quality leadership performance. Most excellence award winning organizations will self-assess and apply multiple times over several years. They recognize that achieving and sustaining quality leadership is a journey.

3. Use the feedback.

It is always amazing when an organization goes all the way through the process of compiling and submitting an application and then ignores the feedback they receive from the evaluation process. This is the gold nugget. This can be some of the best advice an organization will ever receive from a team of industry leading experts. Smart organizations use this feedback as a major component of strategic and business planning to identify areas of focus.

4. Focus on process.

The results will follow. Most quality award criteria seek information related to business processes and business results. The key to success is to understand how processes drive results and focus on improving the processes so better results can be attained.

5. Develop internal expertise.

The awards cycle will provide valuable feedback to the organization, but it can take a long time to get the information. Organizations which develop internal expertise can strengthen their own assessment processes. This enables the organization to get regular and timely information for improving processes and performance

Excellence awards are not indicators of previous or future performance. They are a one-time snap shot. If your organization is seeking quality improvement, then an excellence award can play a significant part in helping you along the journey. Excellence awards provide a great source for monitoring progress and identifying opportunities for improvement.

I’m part of the ASQ Influential Voices program. While I receive an honorarium from ASQ for my commitment, the thoughts and opinions expressed on my blog are my own.

Lean Quote: Information is a Key Ingredient for Empowerment

On Fridays I will post a Lean related Quote. Throughout our lifetimes many people touch our lives and leave us with words of wisdom. These can both be a source of new learning and also a point to pause and reflect upon lessons we have learned. Within Lean active learning is an important aspect on this journey because without learning we can not improve.

"Most managers are reluctant to let their people run with the ball. But you would be surprised how fast an informed and motivated guy can run." — Lee Iacocca

Information is a key ingredient for empowerment. Give every employee equal and direct access to information. Many companies have developed a trickle-down style of communication that alienates those employees who may not be "in the loop." The more informed employees are and the more communication is open, honest, direct and complete, the more likely employees are to feel empowered and connected to the daily operations and overall goals of their company.

Let them in on what is going on within the company as well as how their jobs contribute to the big picture. When you keep you employees informed they tend to feel a greater sense of worth. Keep communication hopeful and truthful – do not be afraid to share bad news, instead be more strategic about how you deliver it. Improve performance through transparency – By sharing numbers with employees, you can increase employees’ sense of ownership.

Communication is the glue that binds an organization together but do not assume that several announcements and a note on the notice board is sufficient to get the story out.

However, when employees feel connected to the company mission or feel their work is contributing to a goal that is greater than profits, they feel like their work has purpose. A sense of meaning is priceless and costs nothing for an employer to cultivate.

Knowledge is the lever that changes the rate of improvement in an organization. Keep learning to move forward faster.

 

Lean, It’s All About The Customer

At the center of a Lean culture and key to success is customer focus. Many companies do Lean for internal cost reasons rather than external and customer-focused reasons. The focus of Lean is on providing the customer with more value sooner. Without customer focus, Lean management techniques are difficult to employ.

For any business the customer is the lifeblood. Every process and every action internal or external should ultimately result in the value addition to the customer and the customer’s delight. Therefore it is essential that the customer needs, wants and expectations are identified before you embark on a Lean implementation.

Since the customer is the only reason you have a job, if you are not willing to satisfy the customer…then you might as well go home; you are not needed. Remember that perception is reality with customer service. If your customers don’t see your organization as one that engages in customer-focused behavior, then you are not providing exceptional customer service. Treating your customers as valued individuals is often more important than price.

Focus on the customer means all systems and processes require continuous improvement. These businesses think about what they can do to make customers happy (as opposed to get the most money out of them, signup the most accounts, etc.) all the time and think about how they can make the customer experience better.

In a customer focused organization, Leadership, Processes and People are customer-aligned. This requires that:

• Every action is shaped by a relentless commitment to meeting and exceeding customer expectations regarding product and service quality.
• Customer touch points and supporting internal processes are constantly evaluated and improved to meet or exceed those expectations.
• Every employee understands what he/she must do in order to maintain and add value to every relationship with both the paying customer and those within the organization that rely on them for the work they do.

Customer focus and service excellence is everyone’s responsibility, not just those that have direct contact with them. Organizations that are recognized as exceptional providers of customer service are the ones that have incorporated these customer-focused behaviors into their daily operations.

Customer “satisfaction” does not simply happen; it is an effect. Quality is one important cause of the customer satisfaction effect, along with price, convenience, service, and a host of other variables. The more our daily actions and long term plans are driven by meeting customer expectations, and the more we evaluate our work based upon these expectations, the more we improve customer loyalty and advocacy. This relentless focus on the customer is the path to sustained growth and profitability.

Lean Quote: Learn By Doing

On Fridays I will post a Lean related Quote. Throughout our lifetimes many people touch our lives and leave us with words of wisdom. These can both be a source of new learning and also a point to pause and reflect upon lessons we have learned. Within Lean active learning is an important aspect on this journey because without learning we can not improve.

"What we have to learn to do, we learn by doing." — Louis Pasteur

One way to enhance learning is by doing. If you want to learn how to drive, you have to drive. Humans are natural learners. They learn from everything they do. When they watch television, they learn about the day's events. When they take a trip, they learn about how to get where they are going and what it is like to be there. This constant learning also takes place as one works.

Learning by doing, also known as experiential learning, happens when you use hands-on learning to engage in an ongoing cycle of action and reflection, deepening your understanding of concepts and mastering practical skills. As you take part in meaningful activities—instead of simply watching them—and then later evaluating what you have learned, learning is far more meaningful, memorable, and long-lasting. Leaders/coaches assist in this process by facilitating appropriate experiences through which you can learn, and by leading discussions that reflect on those experiences.

If you do something often enough, you get better at it -- simple and obvious. When people really care about what they are doing, they may even learn how to do their jobs better than anyone had hoped. They themselves wonder how to improve their own performance. They innovate.

Since mistakes are often quite jarring to someone who cares about what they are doing, people naturally work hard to avoid them. No one likes to fail. It is basic to human nature to try to do better and this means attempting to explain one's failures well enough so that they can be remedied. This self-correcting behavior can only take place when one has been made aware of one's mistakes and when one cares enough to improve. If an employee understands and believes that an error has been made, he will work hard to correct it, and will want to be trained to do better, if proper rewards are in place for a job well done.

Human beings can definitely learn by hearing, reading, watching, seeing, and analyzing…but when it comes to getting results you simply cannot learn better than to learn by DOING. The best way to learn about continuous improvement is to simply try to make things better and learn from our mistakes.

 

Daily Lean Tip Edition #63 (946-960)

For my Facebook fans you already know about this great feature. But for those of you that are not connected to A Lean Journey on Facebook or Twitter I post daily a feature I call Lean Tips.  It is meant to be advice, things I learned from experience, and some knowledge tidbits about Lean to help you along your journey.  Another great reason to like A Lean Journey on Facebook.

Click this link for A Lean Journey's Facebook Page Notes Feed.

Here is the next addition of tips from the Facebook page:

Lean Tip #946 – Lean Leaders Get the Facts

Lean leaders collect all the facts about the problem because they know that some problems are not as big as they seem. Fact-finding is an analytical, rather than an emotional task, so it is useful in other ways, too. When a follower comes to a leader with a problem, a good Lean leader will start asking questions and gather the facts, rather than engage in an emotional discussion.  Fact-finding is a process and you may have to dig deep to get to the real problem. Lean leaders are great at asking the right fact-finding questions. They’re also adept at listening to the answers and “hearing” any sub-text that could illuminate the situation.

Lean Tip #947 – Lean Leaders Don’t Just Know How to Solve Problems; They Know How to Find Them.

Great Lean leaders can detect smoke, rather than simply trying to fight raging fires. That’s the type of leader you should groom your employees to be. And it’s critical they have a good rapport with their team to encourage them to share bad news, red flags, or concerns with them quickly!

Lean Tip #948 – Lean Leaders Follow Through

Effective leaders don’t just implement the solution and turn away. They follow through with making sure necessary team members are also doing their part (if required). And they ask everyone involved how they think the “solution” is working out now that it’s actually being used.

Lean Tip #949 – Lean Leaders Research Knowledge For Answers

Leaders consider what research would be valuable to their problem-solving efforts (like searching the Internet, asking other people, reading books, etc.). Leaders do not think of themselves as all-knowing and understand that the first instinct for an answer is not necessarily the best. Sometimes when you are too knowledgeable about a subject, you can overlook something obvious.

Lean Tip #950 – Lean Leaders Focus on People and Vision Not Just Results

Managers who choose not to embody important leadership qualities suffer – as do their employees and their companies as a whole. Shortsighted managers tend to focus only results of processes and procedures, not people and vision, whereas leaders focus on the latter first.

Lean Tip #951 - Focus on the Solution – Not the Problem

You cannot find solutions if you focus on the problem. This is because when you focus on the problem you’re effectively feeding ‘negativity’. These emotions block potential solutions. I’m not saying you should ‘ignore the problem’ – instead try. It helps to first acknowledge the problem and then move your focus to a solution-oriented mindset where you keep fixed on what the ‘answer’ could be instead of lingering on ‘what went wrong’ and ‘who’s fault it is’.

Lean Tip #952 - Have an Open Mind

Try and entertain ‘ALL POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS’ – even if they seem ridiculous at first. It’s important you keep an open mind to boost creative thinking, which can trigger potential solutions. ‘No idea is a bad idea’. Whatever you do – do not ridicule yourself for coming up with ‘stupid solutions’ as it’s often the crazy ideas that trigger other more viable solutions.

Lean Tip #953 - Try Simplifying Your Problem

As human beings we have a tendency to make things more complicated than they need to be! Try simplifying your problem by generalizing it. Remove all the detail and go back to the basics. Try looking for a really easy, obvious solution – you might be surprised at the results! And we all know that it’s often the simple things that are the most productive.

Lean Tip #954 - Keep Calm and Solve On

When faced with a significant problem, it is important not to panic or rush into making quick decisions. Take some time to think about the problem and the options that are available to you. To do this, you might find it helpful to put your initial thoughts down on paper or chat through your thinking with a colleague.

Lean Tip #955 - Reflect and Evaluate After Problem Solving

Once your problem is finally solved, take some time to reflect on which aspects of your approach worked, and what you would do differently next time. You may be able to apply some of these approaches the next time a problem arises.

Lean Tip #956 - Create an Atmosphere of Trust.

Building a team is mostly predicated on trust. One of the best ways to instill trust in your team is to be open, honest and transparent. You need to show your team that you are confident. That way, your team will work harder for future goals.

Lean Tip #957 - Make Good on Your Promises.

If you keep breaking promises to your employees, there is a good chance that they will lose confidence in you and the business. So, you don’t want to keep making lofty promises that never come to fruition. When you make promises, you want to make good on them, so only make promises that you can keep – it is as simple as that.

Lean Tip #958 - Stimulate Your Employees’ Strengths.

Your team is multifaceted – mainly because the individual members have vastly different personalities and strengths. So, if you want to increase teamwork success, you want to make sure that you encourage individualism for the sake of motivation. The more motivated a team member feels, the more efficient and productive the hive will be.

Lean Tip #959 - Alleviate Conflicts Among Team Members.

Inner conflicts among team members can only be a hindrance to success. So, anytime conflict arises, you want to make sure that you take remediation efforts to quell it. However, it is also important to look at conflicts as an opportunity for your team members to learn from each other and from the conflict. The more tools your team members have to resolve conflicts, the stronger your team will be.

Lean Tip #960 - Bring Your Team Members in on the Hiring Process.

If you want continued success for your business, you may want to think of making the hiring process an inclusive and democratic process. When trying to build the most talented core team, your other employees may have incredibly wise words of wisdom when it comes to hiring someone new.