The Emotion™ Roadmap: A Proactive Change Management Tool

In Book Review, Lean Management
August 4, 2010
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In the last few months I have had the pleasure to get to know Shingo Prize Winning author Mark Hamel. As it turns out Mark and I share a number of things in common like living near each other, working for the same past employer, members of the same fraternity (and that of Jamie Flinchbaugh), and of course a passion for Lean and blogging. I have been reading Mark’s award wining book Kaizen Event Fieldbook. I will have a review of the book at a later date but wanted to share some thoughts on transformational leadership and the emotional scope of change.

Change is difficult and Kaizen events which are the necessary action of transforming an organization are no different. It is effective leadership which drives effective enterprises and effective transformation. Mark says Lean transformational leadership encompasses four areas:

Technical scope (the hard “what”)

Transformation leaders (the “who”)

Emotional scope (the soft “what”)

Transformational leadership model (the “how”)

Change management is most effective when the approach recognizes the feelings of those who will be impacted by the change.

“To be successful in implementing change in a company requires leaders who recognize the emotional impact significant change creates among organizational members and who understand how to minimize resistance to change.”

The role of emotions and how the Lean leader can react to problems are an important consideration for any change. Mark suggests the use of a proactive tool he created called the Emotion Roadmap™. This four branch model is applied by a set of questions based on four abilities:

	Abilities	Questions
Identify	Current feelings. What is the situation and what are the current feelings.	Who are the key people involved? How is each key person feeling?
Use	Ideal feelings. What feelings will most likely facilitate a successful outcome?	What feelings would be ideal for each key person?
Understand	Gaps. Are the current feelings the ones you want or is there a gap between them and the ideal feelings?	Why are people feeling the way they do? How can we create the feelings we want?
Manage	Gap Closure. Select a plan from the possible alternatives. Execute the plan and modify as necessary.	What are we able to do? What are we willing to do to change the current feelings?

Every group, organization, and situation is different. Leaders and followers in organizations naturally form emotional responses to proposed changes. However, the Emotion Roadmap as part of the transformational leadership can be used as a guide to maximize the opportunity for successful change. As you implement Lean and the necessary Kaizen or improvement events it is important to pay attention to the emotions involved.

If you enjoyed this compilation on the emotional side of Lean transformations then I would encourage you to consider reading Mark Hamel’s Shingo Prize Winning Book, Kaizen Event Fieldbook. It is a practical reference guide for lean leaders and implementers leading a transformation in any industry.