Lean Tip
#3346 – Make the Problem Relatable and Put Yourself in Their Shoes
It’s
critical to frame the problem in such a way that your colleagues and management
relate to and identify with the problem. Remember, you’re aiming for a reaction
like “Ack, you’re right! That is such a pain! You have a solution? Tell me!”
Your colleague might identify with the fact that the company has an issue
keeping track of project timelines and therefore they get tons of last-minute
requests.
Your
boss, on the other hand, might identify with the amount of company time and
money being lost due to poor project tracking and low productivity. Know your
audience, understand what matters to them, and speak to the problem and the
possible solution in a relatable way.
Lean Tip
#3347 – Actively Listen, Measure if Possible, and Then Listen Some More
Being
clear about the problem means actively listening to those around you. As you
explain the problem, do your colleagues have a different view? Do they have an
additional but related problem? Can the problem be measured through an employee
survey or analytics? It is vital to listen to your colleagues and to management
as you discuss the problem because you may very well uncover a new layer that
you had never originally considered which requires you to modify your solution.
Lean Tip
#3348 – Secure a Change Sponsor, Not Just a Change Cheerleader
If you
are the sole person inside your organization pushing for change – whether it be
a new tool, tech or process – it will fail. As the change management process
teaches, long-term and sustained change inside a company requires someone at
the top to “sponsor” the change, not just be its cheerleader.
A sponsor
is someone inside the company, usually a manager or executive, who helps
communicate, manage, and be accountable for the change. This person doesn’t
need to be the CEO or oversee all the tiny details, but they do need to enjoy a
high degree of social capital – meaning they are highly connected, valuable to
the organization, and tend to enable cooperation and collaboration between
teams. All organizations have these people. Find the person that everyone
listens to, the person who is highly credible and authentic, the person who is
willing to go the extra mile, and secure them as your sponsor.
Lean Tip
#3349 – Communicate Clearly Before, During and After
Communication
is key to the success of any change inside an organization. If your
organization is lucky enough to have a communications team – or better yet, an
internal communications team – engage them early and work with them often to
help strategically get messages out to employees within the organization.
There is
such a thing as over-communicating. No one will appreciate a daily update about
how your new tool is changing the lives of your team. Pick a communication
frequency that makes sense for the magnitude of the change you are trying to
implement and sustain.
Lean Tip
#3350 – Don’t Fall So in Love With Your Idea That You Forget About the Most Important
Thing – The Problem.
It’s
important to remember one thing: as much as you love your idea, your tool, or
your new solution – if you’ve followed the steps, and it’s clear your suggested
change is not working, it’s ok to abandon it and reassess. Don’t make the
mistake of continuing to figuratively beat people over the head with something
that isn’t working. Take the feedback, regroup, refocus on the original
problem, and try again.
Lean Tip
#3351 – Personalize Tasks.
Make sure
the tasks you assign to each person play to their strengths. When people are
set up for success, they are more motivated to achieve. Like trying to fit a
square peg into a round hole, nothing will get done if you have a big-picture
person working on detail-rich tasks. Be clear with each person about how their
work is vital to the outcome. Then set measurable goals and let them know how
they will be held accountable. If appropriate, let the individuals take part in
defining the work they will be undertaking.
Lean Tip
#3352 – Follow Up and Stay Connected With Employees
Stay
connected to ensure that everyone is clear about the mission that they are
working toward. Keep an open-door policy as much as possible. If that's not
feasible, consider making yourself available via email or during certain hours
of the day. It's important that employees let you know when challenges arise.
That's not to say you should listen to every gripe and complaint, but you can
let everyone know you are empathetic to their concerns and are willing to work
with them to find solutions. Further, encourage employees to bring a solution
with them when making you aware of a problem.
Lean Tip
#3353 – Nip Resistance in the Bud.
Be
aggressive in addressing instances where you see resistance. This is important
for two reasons. First, small problems have a nasty habit of ballooning into
bigger ones. Second, you don't want unhappy employees poisoning the minds of
other employees who have already bought in.
Lean Tip
#3354 – Be Transparent About the Process
Employees
often become stressed when they feel a sense of uncertainty around
organizational changes. One of the best ways to alleviate any anxiety or
feelings of uncertainty is to clearly lay out what employees can expect
throughout the change process. If you’re introducing a new initiative, share
the timeline and key milestones. If you’ve already introduced a new initiative
and it’s hit a snag, provide an update on the timeline so employees don’t feel
like they’re being left in the dark.
It’s also
helpful to try to explain what any new processes or work will look like from
the employee perspective. You’ve shared the “why” to help employees understand
the initiative from a high-level organizational perspective, now share what it
will look like in terms of the employees’ day-to-day work. Will employees need
to adjust any of their normal procedures or processes? Does the new initiative
take priority over existing projects? Be clear about how it will impact
employees.
Lean Tip
#3355 – Solicit Feedback
Meet with
your team, present your idea and ask for their input. Some may bring up points
you never thought of. There's no point in putting forward a proposal if you
discover disadvantages you hadn't considered. On the other hand, some
objections may boil down to "I don't want to learn a new system" or
"The old way's good enough." If we always thought like that, we'd
still be hiding from sabertooth tigers in dark caves.
Lean Tip
#3356 – Visual Management Board Belongs to the Team
As a
manager, you may have a burning desire to create our own vision of an
information center or visual management board in the middle of your factory or
workplace. It is important to resist the temptation. However, lean metrics and
visual management
A monthly
“cross” for quality or safety can replace complex metrics. The aim is to
highlight off target performance in order to prompt problem-solving
discussions.
the goal
of visual management boards is for front line teams to understand operational
performance and engage in improvement.
Therefore
your role as a manager is to coach your teams to understand their performance
and measure it themselves. This starts with a conversation about “what does a
good day look like”? Ask the team how they measure performance. They may have
simple indicators such as numbers of jobs completed or boxes packed, which make
sense to them.
Lean Tip
#3357 – The Board is Not Wallpaper, It’s About Conversation
If you
think just putting information on a Visual Management Board on the wall will
get people to engage, then you will be disappointed. I see many big immaculate
visual displays sprawling across entrance halls and walkways with literally
dozens of metrics displayed. Here is the bad news: no one looks at them. In
many cases, the job of printing the graphs and posting them is delegated to an
administrative staff member and not even the business leaders notice or read
the graphs.
We call
this type of visual management board “wallpaper” because that is the only
function they serve. The boards need to be the focus of structured daily
conversations about how the team is going, what are the barriers to improvement
and how these barriers can be overcome. Therefore visual management boards go
hand in hand with daily meetings.
Lean Tip
#3358 – Boards Need to be Accessible and Close to the Workplace
The
purpose of visual management boards is to be a reference point for discussions
around team performance. Therefore the boards need to be located near where the
teams work. That means in a safe location (not a forklift aisle) in the
workplace where noise is sufficiently low to allow a conversation and where the
board will not be obstructed by materials or machinery.
People
stand up during their daily meetings, so there needs to be sufficient space to
enable the team to meet in front of the board. Lighting also needs to be good
enough to read what is on the board.
Lean Tip
#3359 – Less is Most Certainly More With Visual Management
When
you’re designing and developing your visual management program it can be easy
to throw everything at it, but we would recommend taking a less is more approach.
Ensure that you’re only using your visual management boards to track measures
that drive results. Decide on an acceptable timeframe to read the status of
your key measures and constantly monitor and change your visual management to
ensure that it is within that timeframe.
Lean Tip
#3360 – Establish the Right Mindset and Get Your Team Ready for Change!
It’s
important that your business see’s problems as helpful to the organization.
Many companies see problems as something to be hidden away, that they’re a
source of embarrassment, or that it will only lead to blame. If you’re reading
this then you should be the one to take ownership of changing your businesses
culture to see every problem as an opportunity for improvement. Businesses that
are serious about continuous improvement must love their problems and see
visual management for what it is, a way of easily indicating where they need
help!
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