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Monday, November 11, 2024

Four Valuable Life Lessons From Strong-Willed Veterans We All Need

Today is Veterans Day Observance. To a lot of us, it means no school, lots of doorbuster sales and, hopefully, a day off from work. The meaning of Veterans Day can be of little insight to those who have no family members or friends who have served time in the service. But, those who do may see the importance of today a little more clearly.

We have supported our loved ones through their times of self-sacrifice and loyalty, as well as the most demanding, dangerous, terrifying and noble times. Their acts of valor trickle into their civilian lives, and we dedicate this day to them.

In honor of the veterans, here are four valuable lessons only a strong-willed veteran can teach us civilians about life:

1. Learn from the past

“Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it,” said George Santayana, a philosopher. There are historical precedents for many of the battles that are fought in the military, and the same is true of medicine. If you study the past objectively and think about how it turned out, you will have a clearer vision of how you should proceed. Don’t repeat other people’s mistakes.

2. Make a plan, but don’t be tied to it

“Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable,” said General Dwight D. Eisenhower. You have to be prepared to accept that your plan might not work. But, the fact that you went to the trouble of developing the plan will prepare you to know where to pivot.

3. Anticipate problems

“Every battle is won before it is fought,” said Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu. If you spend all your energy telling yourself how great your work is, you will believe it. Instead, put your energy into finding the weaknesses and anticipate the problems. Then solve them before they happen. This means realizing your biases and resisting them.

4. Ask for help

Lastly, learn to ask for help when you need it, take care of the relationships that sustain you, and allow yourself the privilege of taking care of yourself when you can. Remember that you are human, even when the situation seems inhuman.

The best thing you can learn from a veteran is to appreciate where you are at this moment in life. You have the ability to determine where life takes you. Most of that freedom wouldn't be ours if it wasn't for the men and women who devote their lives to make America what it is. This day is for you; we salute you for your bravery, your perseverance and your passion for our country.

Happy Veterans Day!


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Friday, November 8, 2024

Lean Quote: Leaders Possess Specific Traits For Success

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.


"The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The leader adjusts the sails. —  John Maxwell


Successful leaders indeed differ from other people, and possess some common personality traits that make them capable of being effective in a leadership role. These core traits can predict leadership effectiveness, and organizations looking for a leader would do well to check for these characteristics in potential candidates.

Over the years, I have read and saved many lists that detail the characteristics of historically great leaders from business, sports, politics, the military and other areas. Looking back on all these lists, these 10 leadership qualities constantly crop up, in no particular order:

1. Integrity: People want leaders they can trust to act for the greater good and tell the truth. We want leaders who act according to their stated principles, are honest with us and keep their word.

2. Humility: As we shift away from command and control leadership, we gravitate toward leaders who are approachable and don’t hold themselves above others. When leaders show humility and vulnerability, others instinctively want to work with them to achieve their goals.

3: Empowering Others: Great leaders trust the people on their team and coach them to make important decisions without micromanagement. They don’t do everything themselves—instead, they set clear vision and values, and direct others to work according to those guiding principles.

4. Great Communication: Leaders must communicate well, both to move others to action and to ensure their directives are well-understood. It’s no surprise that we often celebrate leaders who deliver historic speeches or impactful quotes. Great leaders also give their teams the information they need to excel.

5. Forward-Thinking: A great leader sets a compelling vision for the future, attracting and convincing others to want to join their movement. These leaders are capable of sharing their vision with clarity and specificity, and they are passionate about the execution of those goals.

6. Empathy: We want our leaders to demonstrate empathy and an ability to relate to those they lead, especially in moments of crisis. A leader cannot effectively lead someone if they fail to understand their fundamental needs, and if they cannot connect others’ fulfillment to their own.

7. Competence: Leaders must be capable of doing the job at hand, and surround themselves with competent people. Competent leaders don’t know how to do everything, but are skilled at identifying people whose abilities complement their own, and bringing them into the fold. They also aren’t afraid to hire people who are smarter than they are.

8. Accountable: Great leaders have a “the buck stops here,” mentality. History is filled with leaders who credit their teams for their successes and accept personal responsibility for the team’s failures. Poor leaders do the opposite, taking credit for their teams’ accomplishments and distancing themselves from accountability.

9. Gratitude: One of the core responsibilities of a leader is to consider the needs of the many. A mindset of gratitude pushes leaders to focus less on themselves and more on how they can value and strengthen others.

10. Self-Awareness: Leaders must be aware of their own strengths and limitations. They have to build a team that magnifies their strengths and limits their weaknesses. Leaders are also open to criticism and willing to do the sometimes-painful work required to improve.

There are many qualities that are essential to being a great leader. Some of them may come naturally to you, and others may not. But the more you can develop these qualities in your own skill set, the more successful you’ll be.

Leadership is a journey of continuous learning. It is an amazing experience that will take you on roads you’ve never traveled before.

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Wednesday, November 6, 2024

10 Bad Leadership Mistakes to Avoid

It isn’t always easy being a leader. You need to manage the different personalities on your team, make difficult choices, and confront issues head on before they grow into major problems. A good leader can spur a team on to greatness, while a bad leader can run it into the ground.

However, to become a successful leader, there are certain qualities you need, some of which must be developed over time.

Being a business leader requires a conscious effort to monitor your behavior and your leadership traits to ensure you haven't developed any bad leadership qualities.

When you're in a leadership role, you're there to provide an example for people to follow. And it can be all too easy to make mistakes.

For managers looking to improve, knowing how to avoid these bad leadership mistakes clearly gives you an advantage in business. If you are aware of the various pitfalls, you will be more likely to recognize these bad habits and adjust your leadership style accordingly.

Serving in leadership roles can be a heavy responsibility and mistakes can be easily made. Having served in various educational leadership roles over the past twenty years, I have made my fair share of mistakes. Learning to grow from these obstacles has helped me in becoming a better leader. It has helped me to serve others better and make considerable progress for organizations.

Here are ten bad leadership mistakes to avoid if you're working in a leadership role:

Lacking Vision
Leaders without vision will fail. Leaders who lack vision cannot inspire teams, motivate performance, or create sustainable value. Poor vision, tunnel vision, vision that is fickle, or a non-existent vision will cause leaders to fail. A leader’s job is to align the organization around a clear and achievable vision. This cannot occur when the blind lead the blind.

Resisting New Ideas
Poor leaders believe change is bad. They will often say, “that’s not the way things used to be done around here.” They cling to old ways and habits and often stand in the way of progress. They generally want to know how things will benefit them and don’t encourage regular feedback from coworkers.

Not “Walking the Talk”

This is one of the classic mistakes of leadership — not leading by example. Leaders who fail in this area expect results, but rarely take the time to help their fellow colleagues. They only delegate and never seem to come down from their high horse to roll up their sleeves and get things done. They generally defend their behavior by saying things like, “That’s not my job” or “I’ve done my time.”

My Way or The Highway
As a boss, there is a delicate balance between staying in command and allowing your employees to express their own creative ability. Although your employees may not always have the right solution, many times they will. When you are in charge you need to learn to guide your employees to discover the right decisions but let them make these decisions on their own. A leader who sets a tone of my way or the highway will create a toxic environment for employees. If employees stick around with this kind of leader they won’t be satisfied or happy in the long run.

Settling for Mediocre Performance
Poor leaders aim low and are complacent. They don’t respond well to high expectations, accept that their team members do the same and are not likely to rise to any occasion for that matter. They don’t challenge their team to realize their potential and their favorite word is “settle.”

Micro-managing
Many first time bosses will make this mistake, part of being a boss is to learn to let go of the responsibilities of your employees. This doesn’t mean you don’t hold your employees accountable, it means to judge their results, not their actions. There are many ways a beaver can build a dam, there is no correct way to build it. If the damn washes downstream the beaver has failed, if the dam remains in tact and provides a shelter for the beaver and it’s family the beaver is successful, regardless of how they went about building it. A good manager understands this and wants their employees to be productive on their own. They will focus on the results the employee produces, not how they go about producing them. Micro-managers do just the opposite, they focus on what the employee is doing daily, always tracking their activity. Micro-managers will keep all their employees on speed dial and expect their calls be answered every time they call.  

Passing the Buck
Everyone is human, we all screw up at one time or another, however as a manager, you need to accept when your employees downfall is because of your doing. The best of leaders will have their employees back, they will not only take the heat when they have created a problem but will also help redirect conflict which the employee may have mistakenly created on their own. There will be times where an employee makes a deliberate mistake and appropriate corrective action is required but in most cases it’s just a simple mistake, one which could have been made by anyone.

Too Reactive
Leaders need to be proactive, not just reactive. If you find yourself spending all of your time trying to put out fires, then you aren't using your time effectively. Proactive leaders have an influence on the future and form the right alliances to advance their causes. Of course you should make sure your group is getting all the answers and resources they need, but don't ignore the future.

Lack of Clarity
This is one the largest and most leadership potential-killing communication failures that you can make. If employees lack a clear goal for what the organization is striving to achieve, this can lead to many negative consequences and overall chaos. When employees are not clear about the organization’s goals or what their leaders want, they become frustrated and their motivation nose dives. After all, if they don’t know what they are working for, why work at all? Employees don’t like to feel directionless. A lack of clarity can lead to mixed messages that will frustrate you, your employees and your organization.

Failing to Develop Others
Because selfish, failing leaders view others as a threat to their position, they are very reluctant to develop top performers into company leaders. On top of their other nine flaws, it makes it almost impossible for anyone to want to work under these managers. This behavior decreases productivity and makes for poor team morale, increasing turnover in the long run.

No leader wants to be regarded as a bad boss. To become a great leader takes time.

It's true that making a mistake can be a learning opportunity. But, taking the time to learn how to recognize and avoid common mistakes can help you become productive and successful, and highly respected by your team. Most leaders will make these mistakes along the way, but those who learn and grow will be a step ahead in their career.


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Monday, November 4, 2024

The 7 Most Common Leadership Traps To Avoid

If you create a high-performance team, you can exert tremendous leverage to create value. If not, you’ll face severe difficulties because no leader can hope to achieve ambitious goals on his or her own. Poor personnel choices will usually come back to haunt you. The right team makes or breaks an organization.

Strong teams improve productivity and make your company a good place to work. But a strong team doesn’t just fall into place. Finding the right people is essential, but it’s not enough. Begin by evaluating current team members to decide who will stay and who will have to go. Then create a plan for obtaining new people and moving the people you keep into the right positions without doing too much damage to short-term performance. But even this is not enough. You still must establish goals, incentives and performance measures that will propel your team in the desired direction.

Avoiding Common Traps

When it comes to building a winning team, many new leaders stumble. It's crucial to recognize and avoid common pitfalls that can hinder your success. Here are seven traps leaders should steer clear of to ensure their team remains effective and motivated.

● Keeping the existing team too long. Some leaders clean house too quickly, but it’s more common to keep people on board too long. Whether because of pride or because they shy away from tough personnel calls, many leaders end up with less-than-outstanding teams. This means they will have to either shoulder more of the load themselves or fall short of their goals.

● Not repairing the airplane. Unless you’re in a start-up, you don’t get to build a team from scratch: You inherit a team and have to mold it into what you need to achieve your A-team priorities. Molding a team is like repairing an airplane in midflight. You will not reach your destination if you ignore the necessary repairs.

● Not working organizational alignment and team restructuring issues in parallel. You can’t build your team before reaching clarity about changes in strategy, structure, systems and skills. Building your team prematurely could put the right people in the wrong jobs.

● Not holding onto the good people. Uncertainty about who will and will not be on the team can lead your best people to look for opportunities elsewhere.

● Starting team-building before the core team is in place. It’s tempting to launch team-building activities right away. New leaders with a consensus-building style often are eager to begin collaborating with their direct reports, but some group members may be leaving.

● Making implementation-dependent decisions too early. When implementing your plans requires buy-in from your team, you should postpone making decisions until the core members are in place. It can be very difficult to implement decisions that commit new people to courses of action they had no part in defining.

● Trying to do it all yourself. Keep in mind that the process of restructuring a team is fraught with emotional, legal and company policy complications. Find out who can best advise you and help you chart a strategy. The support of a good HR person is indispensable to any effort to restructure a team.

By avoiding these common traps, founders can foster a positive, productive team environment that supports sustainable growth and success. Implementing these strategies will help ensure that your team remains motivated, innovative, and aligned with the company’s vision.

Without a great team, you’ll face severe difficulties because no leader can achieve ambitious goals on his or her own.


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Friday, November 1, 2024

Lean Quote: How You Make Them Feel Is Most Meaningful

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.


"People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.  —  Maya Angelou


What matters most in your daily interactions isn’t so much the specific actions you take or the words you say that people remember most, but how someone was made to feel: listened to or ignored, included or left out, amused or exhausted, or big instead of small. This is the essence of it.

What’s more, the feelings you elicit in others last—or linger—surprisingly long. That’s just how we’re wired. So you should keep in mind the long-term implications of how you made them feel because, this way, you won’t be constantly playing from behind.

Lasting first impressions: There are many ways you can genuinely make someone else feel good about themselves, thus making a lasting impression. For example: being prepared, asking questions about them and theirs, remembering and using names, giving genuine compliments, being generous in conversation, and avoiding reflexive pessimism, etc.

But first impressions can go differently.

Lingering first impressions: With first impressions, there are many unambiguous ways you could leave a bad taste in someone’s mouth, perhaps by forgetting names constantly, interrupting too often mid sentences, or glancing frequently at the phone. But if you’re making these mistakes, a quote isn’t the antidote.

Because bad first impressions can take a while to undo, these lingering negative thoughts and feelings can act as a anchor, potentially holding you back in social, business, or work opportunities.

Make Lasting Impressions: Good first impressions are uplifting, congenial, and they’re enjoyable to be a part of. You’ll be remembered. You’ll be more approachable. You’ll be invited to parties. Your future will be better.

Nonetheless, how you made them feel is a helpful framework for you to think through the nuance of what’s really going on during your daily interactions (which also help shape the future).

You get what you give, and you get more when you give more, so how will you make someone feel?


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Wednesday, October 30, 2024

Lean Roundup #185 – October 2024



A selection of highlighted blog posts from Lean bloggers from the month of October 2024.  You can also view the previous monthly Lean Roundups here.  

 

Leadership Failure: How Refusing to Be Wrong Hurts Teams and Innovation – Mark Graban explains true leadership isn't about projecting infallibility–it's about fostering a culture where mistakes are seen as opportunities for learning and growth.

 

How to Promote Continuous Improvement in The Workplace – Maggie Millard shares 7 actions that will help you create the culture you need to be successful for your organization involving continuous improvement.

 

TPS and Agile – Pascal Dennis explains why Agile and the Toyota Production System (TPS) are entirely simpatico.

 

 3 Practices to Become a Skillful Facilitator – Katie Anderson shares three tips to follow if you want to create impactful experiences that inspire change and drive results.

 

Creating Future Leaders: Essential Tools for Youth Organization and Growth – Alen Ganic shares five key lessons he learned helping youth address struggles so they can unlock their potential and set them on a path to success.

 

What are Good KPIs? – Christopher Roser digs deeper on what KPIs are good, and how you can go wrong with (too many?) KPIs.

 

On the Quality of KPIs – Christopher Roser looks at the quality of key performance indicators (KPIs) as it impacts management’s decision-making and subsequent actions.

 

Keeping Classroom Technologies Functioning: Application of lean principles improves computer-repair operations - By and George Taninecz share the strategies that helped Trafera streamline workflows, enhance team collaboration, and improve efficiency of their repair operations.

 

From Agile Fatigue to Experimentation: Finding a Better Way in Development - James Morgan explores the limitations of agile and how Lean Product and Process Development can close its gaps.

 

Lean Failure Explained: When Command-and-Control Leadership Sabotages Success – Mark Graban explains how Lean will fail if leadership maintains a rigid, top-down approach that disregards the voices of the employees who do the actual work.


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Monday, October 28, 2024

How to Improve Team Collaboration at Work


For an organization to run smoothly and meet its goals, it is important to foster a work environment that supports collaboration amongst colleagues. Unfortunately for most organizations, team cooperation does not occur naturally. You must make an effort and take steps to help build and sustain a cooperative work environment.

Team cooperation in the workplace can mean many things. It involves the level at which employees participate in decision-making, how management and employees work together to resolve problems, and how all levels of the organization work together to achieve common goals.

If you know collaboration is important but your team still hasn’t quite mastered it, don’t worry — here are some ways to improve those skills.

1. Teamwork must become part of your workplace culture

For coworkers to successfully collaborate, the leadership within the organization must work to make collaboration one of the key values of the enterprise. Employees must see that the leadership within the firm works together as a team to accomplish goals. Also, the company’s leadership must award teams publicly when they are successful at working together to achieve their objectives.

To truly improve cooperation skills, leaders must provide an environment where employees are not afraid to share their ideas. Leaders must create a culture with positive team dynamics where the exchange of ideas is encouraged and rewarded. Teamwork and collaboration must be a central theme of the corporate culture to improve team cooperation.

2. Provide teams with the resources they need to work collaboratively

To make improvements with communication, the organization must provide the necessary resources to the teams. This includes comfortable workspaces where the teams can work together. If the teams are spread out amongst different locations, then the organization must provide the resources that allow the teams to work together remotely, such as video conferencing.

3. Be an example

Being the leader of a team requires setting an example of collaboration because team members often react to the environment that managers create. You can use your role as manager or team leader to exhibit being open to new suggestions. You may also support team members who are debuting a new skill or contributing a new idea, which helps expand the team's skill set.

4. Clarifying roles and setting expectations

Organizations will find when all employees are on the same page, team collaboration will quickly become a seamless and natural process. Making sure each employee understands – not only his or her role, but also the roles of the people around them will help everyone understand the big picture and how they fit into the larger puzzle.

It is also imperative that the leadership sets clear expectations for teams so that as employees work together, everyone is clear on which goal or objective needs to be reached.

5. Encourage openness and feedback

In order for your team to collaborate together successfully, they need to feel comfortable in sharing their thoughts, opinions, ideas, concerns, and feedback.

It’s important to foster an environment that encourages openness and feedback. Encourage constructive criticism, share successes and failures with your team, and let them know there’s no such thing as a stupid question! When people feel safe enough to speak openly, teams can work together more successfully.

6. Resolve team conflict quickly

No team will ever be perfect, and it is crucial for organizations to recognize this and have a system in place to handle any conflicts that arise. The system should allow any employee to share their concerns without repercussions. Also, employees should be allowed to have input on any solution to implemented by the organization.

Employees who know there is a system in place and are comfortable knowing the dispute will be handled fairly will be able to work with other team members in a healthy and collaborative manner.

7. Celebrate and reward successful teamwork

How you measure your team’s success will signal what kind of company you are. If you reward effective teamwork and successful collaboration, you communicate the values underpinning your business.

When you design your employee appraisal metrics, focus on team collaboration and individual successes. Make it clear that your employees’ team efforts will be noted, and collaborative achievements rewarded.

The teamwork and collaboration examples above are vital for a productive, efficient, and engaged workforce — but they’ll only work if your team knows how to collaborate. Luckily, it is possible to learn these skills and improve them over time so anyone can become a more collaborative worker.


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