Radio Lean - Your Lean Implementation Information Station

I recently came across a good resource online for learning about Lean.  RadioLean is an internet broadcast website.  The mission of RadioLean is to promote operational excellence in all types and sizes of organizations by providing Lean content, education, resources, and networking opportunities for our listeners.

Mike Wall, started and hosts RadioLean is a Lean Practitioner, Educator, and Advisor with nearly 30 years practical experience throughout the public and private sectors. He began his Lean journey at The Boeing Company – Wichita Division where he served as Total Quality Manager, Lean Implementation Manger, Air Force One Production Manager, and 737/757 Product Line Manager.

Mike answers the question why RadioLean by wanting to draw more people and organizations across North America into the Lean fold.  He contends that even though Lean as been around for a couple decades in the US many leaders still don't see the value of or understand how full inculcation of Lean principles across their organization could help.  From my experience I think Mke is right which is why I started my blog sometime ago.

Currently, on RadioLean is an interview with Mark Graban, of Lean Blog and author of Lean Hospitals, on Lean Healthcare. In the vault there is a great an interview with Pascal Dennis the author of "The Remedy – Bringing Lean Thinking Out of the Factory to Transform the Entire Organization” and Getting the Right Things Done.  Also, on the vault you will find interviews with Dr. Jeffrey Liker, the author of  "The Toyota Way"; Ralph Keller, past president of AME; Bob Miller, executive director of Shingo Prize; and Jake Stiles, President of Stiles Associates and fellow AME Northeast Board of Director.  I particularly enjoyed the interview with Cliff Ransom, a Wall street guy, who talks about the early adoption of Lean in th 1990's.


This is a great way to spend your lunch time in the office learning from true practitioners.

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Keep The Rope Tight

Sustaining Lean in my mind requires constant gentle pressure. Something Paul Akers calls "keeping the rope tight." In this video Paul analyzes a failure to sustain an area at FastCap.  There is no blaming just more Kaizen.  Paul says there are 3 elements to sustaining a Lean culture he refers to as EIR:

Expectation - set clear expectations
Inspection - inspect the actual condition
Reinforcement - reinforce by showing people what can happen.

All organizations struggle with sustaining over time.  Hopefully, this example and Paul's advice will help you use those opportunities to keep learning.




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Dealing with Change

Photo: http://jumpthecurve.net

Change is difficult.  People commonly resist change for a variety of reasons.  Although you intend for the change to result in a positive outcome, change is often viewed as negative.  For your plan to be accepted, you must anticipate and overcome any negativity, anxiety and/or resistance.

First, it's important to remember the simple but effective formula:

           More = Less

More employee participation equals less resistance to the change.  You'll see this formula at work in each of the following suggestions: 

Suggestion 1: Empower employees to become part of the change.  There are several reasons people resist change, one of which is fear.  Many people play "Gee, what if" scenarios over and over when a new idea is proposed.  When you begin to implement your plan of action, it's essential that you invite those around you to identify how the change will influence them, benefit them, and improve their present situations.

Suggestion 2: Keep your employees informed.  Communicate as much as you know about what is happening as a result of the change.  One of the major reasons people resist change is fear of the unknown.  If you communicate with employees and keep them informed, you put this fear to rest.

Suggestion 3: Break the change down into digestible chunks.  If it makes it easier for employees, introduce the change gradually.  You can give employees encouragement and help them focus on small steps they can take to move toward the future.  Celebrate their small successes.

Suggestion 4: Answer the "What's in it for Me?" question.  This suggestion is similar to Suggestion 1.  Generally people will accept change when they see a personal benefit.  Employees who are involved in determining the benefits of change are less likely to resist it.  Assist employees in identifying what the change will do for them.

Suggestion 5: Give employees some control over change.  As employees begin to focus on the benefits of the desired change, provide them with the opportunity to control the steps to the change.  Participants in change workshops have revealed that having control reduces the anxiety and stress associated with the change implementation and increases their motivation to make the change.

Suggestion 6: Help employees assimilate the change.  Once employees begin to experience change, help them assimilate it by reinforcing the personal benefits they're gaining.

As employees begin to demonstrate a willingness to assimilate change into their daily routine, they develop a commitment to the change, a willingness to stick to the plan of action.  The change actually becomes integrated into the work environment, and employees begin to feel a sense of satisfaction in accomplishment.  They readily see the payoffs associated with the change.  They enjoy, and may even take credit for, their participation in the process.  Employees can view their efforts to bring about change with personal respect and pride. The change becomes a part of their routine, and any lingering concerns vanish.


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Lean Quote: Combating De-Motivation in the Workplace

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.

"There are no hopeless situations; there are only men who have grown hopeless about them." — Clare Boothe Luce

The choices you make everyday influence the motivational climate of your company. As a manager you want to create a motivated workplace. It is equally important to know what actions to avoid so you don't de-motivate. Managers and other organizational leaders often make the following crucial mistakes, which lead to low morale and workplace de-motivation:

• Criticizing in front of others
• Being dishonest
• Taking credit for others' work
• Being inaccessible
• Showing favoritism
• Delegating without giving authority, or delegating to the wrong person
• Communicating poorly or failing to communicate at all
• Failing to train employees for job responsibilities
• Exhibiting wishy-washy behavior
• Failing to emphasize teamwork
• Giving the impression that you're concerned only about your own well-being
• Displaying poor personal work habits such as disorganization and procrastination
• Tolerating poor performance
• Over supervising
• Imposing impossible workloads
• Focusing only on negatives 

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The Speed of Improvement

In an earlier post I talked about "The Lean Way to Tie Your Shoes" which illustrates the fastest method to tie your shoe. This post highlighted a number of lean lessons for everyone. A similar cleaver video also demonstrates a number of lean lessons. Before you look at the video let's examine those lessons:

1. Recognition of time as a valuable asset. We don't want to waste our time.
2. Making improvements in things we do everyday. Something Paul Akers calls "improvement in what bugs you."
3. Visual cues are important in demonstrations for accentuating your point.
4. Solutions don't need to be complicated nor require technology to be successful.
5. Sharing best practices with others helps them learn to solve their problems.



What do you think? Is this video a good example of everyday Lean Thinking?


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Cultivating Empowered Employees

To "empower" means "to allow or enable."  Successful leaders conduct themselves in such a way that employees feel good about working with them.  How do they do this?  By enabling and allowing employees to succeed.  Empowered employees feel ownership for their work, a critical element  to creating a motivated workplace.  The ten steps that follow are necessary to cultivating empowered employees.

1. Delegate meaningful jobs, not just the "junk" stuff you don't want to do. Workers don't want to perform trivial tasks on a regular basis any more than you do. If the tasks are truly unimportant, maybe they should be deleted altogether. If they are necessary, consider setting up a rotating schedule so workers can take turns performing the task.

2. "Let go" once you delegate (supervisors have a tendency to oversupervise). If you delegate a task, make sure the person you give it to has the skills, the instructions, and the resources necessary to carry it out. If you don't have the confidence in the person's ability to do a satisfactory job, you shouldn't give the task to that person to begin with.

3. Show you trust your employees by accepting their ideas and suggestions. Seek out employees' ideas on a regular basis. Employees feel ownership of a process or a task when they've had input into it.

4. Whenever possible, provide opportunities for employees to work in self-managed or self-directed work teams. Allow these teams freedom to determine the best course of action for meeting agreed-upon goals and objectives. Employees will see firsthand the results of there decisions and feel the pride of group achievement.

5. Give credit where credit is due. A sure way to earn distrust from employees and squelch their enthusiasm is to take credit for their good ideas and performances.

6. Create opportunities to showcase your employees. "Billboard" employees to your own supervisors and to others in upper management as well as to those outside your department or division. Some managers erroneously think that if they give workers credit, upper management will question the manager's own performance. But managers who fall into the trap of competing with the employees they supervise usually stall their own careers.

7. Add interest and challenge to workers' day-to-day routines by implementing job rotation. Job rotation simply involves placing employees into jobs of equal value that they may have expressed an interest in or that you expect, based on their skill strengths, they may do well in. Some organizations encourage employees to initiate job rotation through a formal process, thereby increasing job skill levels as well as motivation.

8. Provide employees with responsibility and authority to successfully accomplish assignments. Today, progressive companies utilize the skills and talents of their employees by assigning them to cross-functional or self-directed work teams. Employees not only perform their own specific job functions by have a team identity as well. Team members are responsible and accountable to the team for achieving its goal, implementing processes, and sharing the recognition for its results.

9. Provide assistance to employees without taking away responsibility to complete the job. Clearly define your role and avoid the temptation to do the job yourself when employees find themselves in hot water. Let employees go it on their own and face those gut-wrenching challenges.

10. Find ways to foster employee self-esteem and self-confidence. Although important, managers and supervisors must do more than give praise and provide meaningful work. To empower employees, supervisors must continually build employee self-esteem.


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Lean Quote: Carrots and Sticks

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.

"We could probably win more often if we were willing to deploy seasoned personnel and equip them with sufficient carrots and sticks." — Thomas M. Fran

Motivation is a core factor for a successful business and there have been many studies around it, yet there is no definitive answer or a one size fits all solution to motivation and employee engagement. The several elements of motivation differ from person to person as well as circumstances.

A well known motivational concept is the “Carrot and Stick” approach. This analogy is about using rewards and penalties in order to obtain desired results. It refers to the old story that in order to get a donkey to move forward and pull the cart you would dangle a carrot in front of him or hit him with a stick from behind. The result is the same; the horse moves forward.

So the stick represents fear, which can be a good motivator when used sparingly at the right time. It may produce immediate results that derive from prompt compliance. It is only useful in the short term though, as over time increasing levels of punishment would be necessary to obtain the same results and this can backfire in the form of mutiny and sabotage.

The carrot is then an incentive, which can work very well as long as the individual finds the incentive appealing. In this case, the donkey would have to like carrots, be hungry and/or have a manageable and movable load in order for the carrot to work. This is very important as the incentive must be perceived to be attractive enough.

Reward and punishment are significant motivators only if the reward is large enough or the punishment sufficiently severe. For example, management holds out a carrot, offering a week’s paid vacation to the person who has the highest production numbers. Employees will work hard to reach that target (if the vacation is really what they want), but once the contest is over, they will revert back to their previous level of effort. Or, management wields a stick, threatening some kind of punishment if employees don’t do their jobs. In those cases, people will do just enough to “stay under the radar” and avoid getting into trouble. While some carrots and sticks may work in crisis situations or as a stop-gap remedy, what they mostly do is promote nearsighted thinking, mistrust, cynicism, and a diminished capacity to innovate and create.

Typically, organizations tend to base their motivational schemes on tangible good such as money, in the form of pay and bonuses. The problem with this, like the carrot, is that its attractiveness decreases over time. Sometimes, a simple word of praise from your boss can mean more than a small pay rise. If organizations could find the perfect balance been tangible and intangible rewards, carrots and sticks, this would be the answer to the motivation question. Managers must not overlook these motivators if they want to retain staff and more importantly, have them working to the best of their ability.

If you’re looking for ways to create an environment where people are driven to do their best work, you’ll need to think beyond carrots and sticks. It’s a bit trickier, perhaps a little messier, but if you want to create a thriving organization, you’ll need to consider motivation from the inside out.

What motivates you at work? How do you motivate others?

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