Do you accept the data that shows most organizations are NOT highly effective in their improvement endeavors? If yes, then company leaders, department leaders, team leaders and political leaders must bear some responsibility for this result.
Why might this conundrum exist?In terms of the discipline required, it is hard work to do this well. And perhaps our assumptions and beliefs hinder our ability to crisply see the actual reality of a situation. Even when your intentions are good, those mistaken beliefs/assumptions can influence the questions you ask and what your eyes see.
We need to learn how to set our misguided beliefs/assumptions aside. Many of the improvement tools are underutilized. They are powerful so improvement happens when we use them, but much more can often be done.
If you want to make more of a difference, learn how to make it happen. Champions in any sport practice to win consistently. So it wouldn’t it make sense that if you wish to be a champion, to be highly effective at what you do, then you must learn how to get better and better at improving your skills and capabilities?
The most effective leaders I know realize they are never perfect; they have more to learn and cannot win without a team of people surrounding them also committed to learning, how to get better, and operate at a championship level of performance.
In Learn to See the Invisible we lay out four foundational elements leaders can practice to improve both the way they use improvement tools (LSW, Gemba Walks, Huddle meetings, etc.) and the way they lead.
Please let me know if you would like to explore the possibility of my presenting at your conference or perhaps running a one-day workshop:
a. Learn to See the Invisible – Learn to See the Invisible” outlines how professional leaders, just like professional athletes, can lay out a practice plan to get better, at getting better, in their leadership role. The idea is to accelerate a person's learning curve to become a more effective leader. Rather than taking 10 years to learn something through personal experience, can we accelerate the process and make learning less painful in a much shorter period of time...say 3 years or 6 months? Listen to a 60 minute presentation on this topic
b. GembaHow to Keep Your Gemba Walks Fresh? – What is the Gemba and why would a busy person want to take time to go there? How can you keep your walks meaningful?
c. “I Matter” - People are willing to become much more passionate about the work they do if they are treated with respect and given an opportunity to blossom – if the organizational leaders let them know ‘they matter.’
Go See, Ask Why, and Show Respect is a way to more actively engage people in performance improvement activities. Even if you currently do Gemba Walks in all likelihood you fall short of what the best companies do. This ‘how to guide’ provides leaders a basic menu of options on ways to do a more effective Walk. The guide describes three key reasons for doing a Gemba Walk:
1. Clarify Purpose: Gemba Walks provide a wonderful opportunity to learn if people inside the organization have a deep understanding of ‘why’ they are doing their work activities.
2. Process Understanding: Leaders can see, with their own eyes, how effectively work activities between departments and between work-groups are aligned with what the organization is trying accomplish.
3. Engaging People: The walks provide an opportunity for leaders discover barriers that inhibit people’s ability to do great work.
This book received the Shingo Award for Research and Publication in 2016. The reviewing team judging its merit said, “How to Do a Gemba Walk should be required reading for all leaders and managers, regardless of industry, who want to effectively practice gemba walks to transform their organization. All leadership teams can learn from this book that is overflowing with practical information that can be immediately put to use.
The guide describes questions to ask for different types of walks (including Office Walks) and outlines an approach for leaders seeking to better understand the facts, to make better decisions, and to build consensus to achieve important goals. Examples are drawn from organizations with outstanding improvement practices: Toyota, Autoliv, OC Tanner, Cogent Power and the author’s experiences as Chairman of the Association of Manufacturing Excellence’s Awards Council.
How can you be an effective leader and not want to do this?
Realizar un Gemba Walk (paseo por la empresa) para ir a ver, preguntar qué y por qué y mostrar respeto es una forma clave de involucrar más activamente a las personas en las actividades de mejora del rendimiento. Un Gemba Walk respetuoso y efectivo genera confianza y sienta las bases para una gran transformación. Es increíble lo que se puede aprender durante un paseo. ¿Cómo se puede ser un líder eficaz y no querer hacer esto? Esta guía práctica, que proporciona a los líderes un menú básico de las distintas formas de realizar paseos más eficaces, describe tres razones clave para hacer un Gemba Walk:
1. Aclarar el propósito (saber si la gente dentro de la organización tiene una profunda comprensión de por qué está haciendo sus actividades de trabajo).
2. Comprensión del proceso (los líderes pueden ver cómo las actividades de trabajo entre los departamentos y entre los grupos de trabajo están alineadas con lo que la organización está tratando de lograr).
3.Comprometer a la gente (los paseos ofrecen a los líderes la oportunidad de descubrir las barreras que inhiben la capacidad de las personas para realizar un gran trabajo).
La guía describe las preguntas que deben formularse en los distintos tipos de paseos y esboza un enfoque para los líderes que buscan comprender mejor los hechos, tomar mejores decisiones y crear consenso para alcanzar objetivos importantes. Los ejemplos se extraen de organizaciones con prácticas de mejora sobresalientes, como son Toyota, Autoliv, OC Tanner y Cogent Power, y de las experiencias del autor como Presidente del Consejo de Premios de la Asociación de Excelencia en Manufactura.
This book separates itself from other improvement books by looking at why most companies fail to meet their expectations when they rollout a major improvement initiative. Most organziations do an average job of improving. They aren’t completely dysfunctional, nor are they elegant in the way they go about improvement. They do it in a similar way to everyone else. This book identifies five critical ingredients required for successful improvement:
1. A meaningful business value proposition and strategy that drives key improvement actions
2. An engaging environment where people can do their best work
3. A focus on meaningful metrics while avoiding irrelevant details
4. Process improvement efforts that maximize cross-functional process performance and foster deeper process understanding, innovation, and execution of best work practices
5. An executive mindset that focuses on customer value, people development, process performance, and business improvement outcomes, not solely on savings
The authors consider a variety of situations at Independence Enterprise, a fictional company, based on their own very real experiences. They elaborate on the principles that should come into play, look at what Independence Enterprise is doing right and wrong, and suggest deployment actions to help you apply the principles to your own organization.
Take Six Sigma to the next level, this book goes beyond simply explaining Six Sigma basics to interested managers--these are hard-core working tools of statistical methods, quantitative and intense, aimed at mathematically sophisticated Six Sigma practitioners unwilling to settle for anything less than peak performance in manufacturing and services. Written by four instructors from the world-renowned Motorola University, this handbook provides the tools Six Sigma Black Belts and Master Black Belts need to deal with the most intractable business problems. The authors show how to integrate research and development, manufacturing, human resources, finance, marketing, quality, and customer service with corporate vision, mission, and key strategies.
1. Tools for estimating quality project cost on a project by project basis
2. A complete guide to understanding and writing financial reports
3. Methodologies for leading multiple projects
4. Problem-solving tools like Design for Six Sigma and TRIZ
