The Value of Transparency and Why You Should Embrace It

In Paul Borawski’s recent post on A View from the Q he asks if you are in favor of transparency and why.

Good leadership is all about communication, and the best leaders are completely transparent with their staff. I believe that with knowledge comes power and the more information we share the quicker with can improve.  Creating a culture of openness and free-flowing information can be a competitive advantage.  Here are five reasons you should embrace transparency:

1. People assume the worst when they don't hear from leaders. Silence from the executive office causes a lot of fear and resentment, which certainly doesn't contribute to a productive culture. Maybe the news is bad, but maybe it's not as bad as they are imagining. And even if it is, once they know the truth they can plan and act accordingly.

2. Transparency helps employees connect to the why. When employees are working in a vacuum, they can't see the financial "big picture," and decisions leaders make may seem ill-advised or unfair or simply inexplicable. Transparency connects them to the why—and that understanding propels them to act. You can ask people to change their work habits and established processes all day long. But if they don't know why they're being asked to change, they won't change—at least not for long.

3. Transparency allows for consistent messaging across the organization. When you commit to transparency, people don't have to get their (speculative, distorted) news through the company grapevine. They hear what's really going on, in a controlled and consistent way, from their managers. This, in turn, creates organizational consistency. When everyone is hearing the same messages from their leaders, everyone is motivated to respond in similar ways. And this consistency trickles down to the customers, who get the same basic experience regardless of who they're dealing with.

4. Transparency leads to faster, more efficient execution. When times are tough, execution is everything. And the ticket to good execution is good alignment: All sectors of an organization must understand exactly what's required so they act in a coordinated and collaborative fashion. Transparency is what facilitates that kind of alignment. It's all about a shared sense of urgency.

5. Transparency facilitates the best possible solutions. In transparent cultures, leaders encourage employees to solve problems themselves. And because those employees are the people closest to a problem, and because they must live with the outcome, they almost always design the most effective, efficient solution.  And, of course, they'll also have instant buy-in.

Be honest and open with your staff on matters that affect them and could ultimately put their mind at ease. It is important that you involve employees where you can with decision making to make them feel valued. As a manager, your aim is to have an open and honest working environment where your staff feels confident in coming to you with the truth about matters, whether they are big or small.

Let them in on what is going on within the company as well as how their jobs contribute to the big picture. When you keep you employees informed they tend to feel a greater sense of worth. Keep communication hopeful and truthful – do not be afraid to share bad news, instead be more strategic about how you deliver it. Improve performance through transparency – By sharing numbers with employees, you can increase employees’ sense of ownership.

As we have learned from Lean Thinking, this too cannot be a flavor of the month.  Being open and honest with your employees requires long term commitment if you want your organization to continuously improve.

I’m part of the ASQ Influential Voices program. While I receive an honorarium from ASQ for my commitment, the thoughts and opinions expressed on my blog are my own. 

Guest Post: Cat Got Your Confidence?

Today I am pleased to present a guest post by Tony Ferraro of Creative Safety Supply (one of our sponsors). Tony talks about confidence in the workplace and how you can help build confidence. This topic is critical in a continuous improvement culture.
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Many people just assume that confidence is a black and white topic, either you have confidence or you don’t. However, most people fail to realize that confidence is usually in the grey area, and is not simply one way or the other. A person who is confident doing one thing may feel like a complete fool attempting to do another. For instance, I may be confident and comfortable lacing up a pair of skates and playing a little street hockey; however, I am nothing but a clumsy nincompoop when it comes to baking in the kitchen. The fact is that everyone has things that they excel at easily and other things that take a little more time and dedication to truly master or experience success with. This concept plays out similarly in the business world.

Confidence in the Workplace          

We’ve all seen it before, the boss who struts up and down the business walkways exacerbating his or her position and levels of confidence. This practice is often similar to that of a peacock showing off his feathers in order to let everyone else know how beautiful he is. However, many times when extreme levels of “control” or “arrogance” are displayed it is not truly confidence, but instead insecurity. Insecurity is often fairly easy to point out when you know the right signs and behaviors to look for. For instance, bosses who are insecure may insult others versus inspire them, seem stressed or way too busy to provide assistance, make unjustly excuses, and just simply reject others thoughts or ideas in fear of seeming inferior themselves. Arrogance is simply a cape of inauthentic confidence.

Tips to Help Build Confidence

It is time for a change. Many workplaces are moving towards the concept of lean. Going lean is all about eliminating waste and improving customer satisfaction and value. Well, if you are going to truly strive for a lean work environment, one of the first wastes that ought to go is arrogance which should be replaced with confidence. One important trait behind many successful businesses is confident leaders. You don’t have to be born confident, however, you can practice some tips to help build confidence. For example, instead of strutting around like an untouchable piece of artwork too important to be tampered with, a truly confident person is approachable and ready and willing to offer assistance when needed. Furthermore, another important component of building confidence is to accept your own strengths and weaknesses. Just as described earlier we are all good at different things. So if you aren’t the best at brainstorming ideas to help with the new configurations on an industrial production line, listen to the thoughts of others, support their ideas, and work together to create a successful plan. Don’t confuse the letters in who and how, it is not really about “who” came up with the best idea, it is more about “how” the idea is implemented and “how” it can be successful. Lastly, be kind and smile. My grandmother always used to say that her smile was her best accessory. A smile makes you approachable and tells others that you care and do feel emotions just as they do.

Confidence is achievable and attainable, but first you must be comfortable with yourself. There are many “fakes” out in world of business and it is often quite easy for customers to see right through them. Accept yourself and all your peaks and pitfalls and understand that nobody is truly perfect, there are only those who pretend to be.

About Author: Antonio Ferraro - On behalf of Creative Safety Supply based in Portland, OR (www.creativesafetysupply.com). I strive to provide helpful information to create safer and more efficient industrial work environments. My knowledge base focuses primarily on practices such as 5S, Six Sigma, Kaizen, and the Lean mindset. I believe in being proactive and that for positive change to happen, we must be willing to be transparent and actively seek out areas in need of improvement. An organized, safe, and well-planned work space leads to increased productivity, quality products and happier employees.

Lean Quote: Change is Inevitable

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.

"Change is the law of life and those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future." — John F. Kennedy

Change is inevitable. Adaptation to change is a necessary and critical component to survival. But mostly, change is a constant in business. And business seems to be where the adaptation to change -- or lack thereof -- seems to have some of the most significant impact.

In business, we must continually change, evolution is not an option. If we stand still in our businesses we go backwards. The day that we think we have our business model perfected is not the day to stop changing. The issue comes about when we try to make changes. With the evidence in existence related to the necessity of change in business, you would think every business would constantly be revising their model. But that is not the case.

Change is most often a difficult thing. The sooner we learn to embrace it and work within it, the easier it will be to begin the next challenge that comes along. We naturally gravitate toward the things that make us feel fulfilled, safe and happy. Therefore as we embrace change more often and see the good in it… the more we will gravitate toward it with enthusiasm!

If we accept change is inevitable, you will need a means to continually drive change throughout your business. You should have a change management process that involves every single employee in an organization. Change should be ongoing and employees should be a critical part of that process so there is not fear of change but a willingness to embrace it because it’s a part of the everyday process in the organization.

Change is necessary, resistance is futile. Prepare to be assimilated.

 

Daily Lean Tips Edition #49

For my Facebook fans you already know about this great feature. But for those of you that are not connected to A Lean Journey on Facebook or Twitter I post daily a feature I call Lean Tips.  It is meant to be advice, things I learned from experience, and some knowledge tidbits about Lean to help you along your journey.  Another great reason to like A Lean Journey on Facebook.

Click this link for A Lean Journey's Facebook Page Notes Feed.

Here is the next addition of tips from the Facebook page:

Lean Tip #721 - Reduce information overload to get our message across

Employees can feel deluged by information and it can be a major source of workplace stress for them. In addition, an overload of information means staff may be unable to effectively identify and assimilate important information due to excessive background 'noise'. As new forms of communication have grown, internally communicated messages have to compete with more and more traffic; if there is no appeal, internal communications will simply not be read.

Lean Tip #722 - Find ways to 'listen' and gather feedback 

Listening is an essential part of good communication. Effective communication is not a top-down, one-way exercise, but involves listening and demonstrating an inclination to act in response. 'Listening' can be a real challenge for many leaders. Employee suggestion schemes can encourage ideas but are not always that effective. Other ways to listen include: attending local team meetings, formalized feedback sessions, open forums and of course direct dialogue with employees.

Lean Tip #723 -   Maintain levels of capability and knowledge 

A good knowledge and understanding of products, services and key business processes is essential to developing effective, satisfied staff and delivering good customer service. The next time you roll out a training program, remember, in 30 days people typically forget 80% of what they have learnt if it is not reinforced... Any easy way to reinforce training and measure and raise capability is to use standard work.

Lean Tip #724 - Engage employees by involving them 

Involvement is an important aspect of engagement and commitment to an organization. Find ways to involve employees and allow them to influence some aspects of the business operations. Ensure a process exists for submitting ideas and suggestions, allow employees to solve problems in their own area, as well as contribute to projects and initiatives being run by the wider organization.

Lean Tip #725 - Communicate respectfully to be heard.

Poor communication wastes time, delays decisions, and damages morale. Core values such as respectful communication and integrity cost nothing. Smarter managers empower their employees to work together with respectful communication and leadership approaches that enable them to leverage scarce resources and to do more with less.

Lean Tip #726 - Boost Confidence in Your Team by Focusing on Strengths,

Self-confidence is always a winning quality. Its value is never more evident when welcoming change at the workplace. Focus on individual and team strengths, not weaknesses. There is little that boosts self-confidence more than a sincere “Atta, Boy!” Use individual and team strengths to help staff accept change and implement necessary procedures with a smile, instead of a frown.

Lean Tip #727 – A Good Work-Life Balance Aids in Acceptance to Change.

Most people that have a sense of balance in their lives, between the personal and professional, adapt well to change. It seems that those employees that have other interests, beyond the workplace, deal with change much better than those who are “married” to their jobs. Encourage your staff to have other, meaningful life experiences. Support your employees' getting a real life, hobby, pastime or other interests. Convince them that you understand and encourage a strong work-life balance. Your staff will appreciate your concern and position on this subject. Whether or not they verbalize their need for balance (or even consciously understand that it exists), your staff will appreciate your interest in their total—not just workplace—well-being.

Lean Tip #728 - Show Respect for People’s Natural Creativity.

Employees who are naturally curious tend to embrace change as a new adventure in gaining knowledge, fueling their inherent creativity. Nurturing an employee’s “inner genius” generates and fuels creativity. All staff members have creativity and innovation. Bringing it out can be challenging. Mandating it is impossible. However, publicly displaying your knowledge of and respect for your staff’s individual and collective creativity can make workplace change a highly successful event.

Lean Tip #729 - Take Time to Sharpen Your Collaborative Skills.

There are those who prefer working individually, often alone. Others, however, like collaborating with a team to achieve solutions. These people also often thrive on change. You cannot mandate a collaborative staff. You can, however, influence a team mentality and active sense of collaboration, by showing the value of collaborating to achieve a goal. Design a collaborative environment that rewards employees for helping reach objectives necessary to implement changes.

Lean Tip #730 – People Can Cope With Change Much Easier When You Lighten The Mood.

Inject a sense of humor and levity. People can cope with change much easier when you lighten the mood. You minimize the inevitable stresses and pressures of change, while offering your staff a safe, comfortable “landing spot.” Those who are adaptable, as most creatures become through evolution, deal well with changes. They resist becoming overwhelmed or discouraged. These people simply “go with the flow.” Few techniques exist to better lighten up a dower or stressful situation than some appropriate humor and a spirit of fun.

Lean Tip #731 – Leaders Empower Employees to Move Forward 

Empowering leaders think about how they can help their coworkers move up and grow. They think about ways they can guide people in developing new skills. They delegate important tasks, explain the expectations, and coach them to win. Empowering leaders never blame themselves or others for failure. Rather, they empower people to try new things without being worried about failure, take bigger steps without competing with others, and climb up the ladder in their field without worrying about someone pulling them off the ladder.

By empowering others to do more than they think they can do, you fill the gaps and guarantee success.

Lean Tip #732 – Leaders Encourage Leadership

The ultimate task of an exemplary leader is to develop more exemplary leaders. Therefore, the right plan for employee development aims toward developing future leaders who can influence many in positive ways. Encouraging people to take leadership roles, lead by example, and raise their leadership lid should be on the top of the list of employee development for any organization that wants to reach to the peak of success in the 21st century.

Lean Tip #733 - Effective Leaders Discover People’s Potential and Talents

All people have more energy and ability within them than they could ever imagine. Your job, as a leader, is to discover this truth for the benefit of your organization as well as yourself. When you discover someone’s potential, you can help her develop her potential and become more productive and skillful. There is no service better than helping others to soar to excellence and become better human beings.

Lean Tip #734 - Organizations Suffer Without Development Plans.

Unfortunately, many organizations do not plan properly for the development of their people and teams. People development without proper planning in place normally results in internal and external conflict, which leads to confusion, low productivity, less motivation, and therefore loss in various ways. When the right plan for development is designed based on the employees’ needs, desires, and potential the expected positive outcome will be achieved.

Lean Tip #735 - Challenge Your Employees To Move Out Of Their Comfort Zone.

You can’t move forward if you don’t grow and you can’t grow if you never leave your comfort zone. When possible, give your employees challenging assignments. Help them prepare by providing them a safe environment to learn from the mistakes that they are bound to make.

Guest Post: Five Deadly Sins of Project Management and Their Remedies

Today I am pleased to introduce a guest post by Aileen Galsim, who works for Comss, who offer Lean software for Lean Businesses.  She writes about project management mistakes and how to avoid them to be successful.

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If your business has just been awarded a project that you’ve worked hard to obtain, congratulations! It’s a great feeling to be selected over your competitors, and it can be a big step forward for your business.

But don’t go celebrating just yet. Before you can call this project a success, you actually have to complete it. And to do that, you need to make sure you avoid major mistakes that can cause a would-be successful project to become a failure. Here are five deadly sins of project management, and the remedies that will allow you to avoid them:

1.  Poor Planning (Or Lack Thereof)

Quite simply, this is the biggest and most avoidable of all the deadly property management mistakes. It’s the biggest because if you do not plan adequately, the project has almost no chance of succeeding at the highest level. And in a lot of ways it’s the most avoidable because, well, you often have the opportunity to plan ahead without having to deal with the minute-by-minute issues that a project might throw at you when you are in the midst of it. The best way to deal with this mistake is to not make it. Plan ahead… then plan some more. You obviously need to be adaptable to issues that come up during the project, but if you don’t a have both a template to adapt from and an overall strategy, you will be lost.

2.  Unrealistic Timelines

Whether you are bidding on a project for a new customer or trying to keep a current client happy, it is often tempting to provide the shortest timeline imaginable. However, committing to timelines that you cannot keep will do your company a lot more harm than good in the long run. Will saying you can complete a project in a shorter timeline than your competitors get you new work? Maybe. But once you fail to meet the deadline on your first project, it will be significantly harder to get the next one. A solution to this is to spend time getting to know the process before committing to a timeframe  You can also use project management software to come up with a realistic estimate.

3.  Micromanagement

As the boss, you can sometimes feel like if you don’t do something, it won’t be done right. But in reality, this attitude is counterproductive. Spend more time working on the overall direction of the business as opposed to babysitting each project yourself. That’s not to say that you shouldn't establish appropriate ways to assess the project at different stages, but in general your focus should be on the big picture.

4.  Using the Wrong Project Manager

This goes hand-in-hand with number three. Since you are not going to micromanage the project, you’d better make sure you assign a project manager with the appropriate skillset to make the right management decisions on a day-to-day basis.  Having a project manager you trust will allow you to focus on other things, and will ensure that the project continues to move forward efficiently and effectively.

5.  Over-extending Your Business

This is a major sin that many businesses realize but ignore. Over-extension can apply both to taking on too many projects at once, and to committing to a project that is too big for your current abilities. As a business owner, it is often very difficult to turn down work because you don’t think you can handle it. But just like with offering a timeline that’s too optimistic, if you are unrealistic about your business’s capabilities, the costs will far outweigh the benefits.

About Author: 

Aileen Galsim is a business blogger from Comss. Comss is a software company with a difference – their products are designed by business people to be used by business people. They offer Lean software applications for construction, distribution, retail and project-driven businesses.

Lean Quote: The Vital Few and Trivial Many, Doing More by Doing Less

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 Vital Few and the Trivial Many." — J.M. Juran

Quality guru J.M. Juran referred to Pareto's principle as "The Vital Few and the Trivial Many". If you are running a company the 80/20 rule has powerful implications for every area of your business.

Pareto's postulate says 20% of your effort will generate 80% of your results. There is also a corollary: 20% of your results absorb 80% or your resources or efforts.

Pareto's Principle, the 80/20 Rule, should serve as a daily reminder to focus 80 percent of your time and energy on the 20 percent of you work that is really important. Don't just "work smart", work smart on the right things.

From your long list, identify the top three to four and focus all your energy on those. When one is complete, pull another up to the top, but hold no more than four at a time. You will find that you get more done (and at a higher quality) by working on only four priorities at a time than you did when you tried to juggle ten or twelve.

The most effective leaders are those who can cut through the clutter to focus on what is most important. Anyone is a leader who can help others simplify and focus so that more of what matters is what gets done!

Production: You may find that 80% of your products or services are created by 20% of your people, 80% of your problems are fixed by 20% of your people, team, and, 80% of your problems probably come from 20% of people. All a different 20%! Wouldn't it be helpful to know which 20% is doing what?

Quality: 80% of your defects are found in 20% of your product units. Also, 80% of the defects come from 20% of the defect types. Spend lots of energy figuring out how to prevent those 20% and you've made huge gains in quality.

Of its many applications, its strongest interpretation suggests that 20 percent of actions accounts for 80 percent of results. Dr. Juran also identified, on the flip side, that 20 percent of defects accounts for 80 percent of problems.

 

Talking Lean (Episode #1, 6-14-2013)

Welcome to Episode 1 of “Talking Lean” with Jeff Hajek (Gotta Go Lean Blog) and Tim McMahon. This show is intended to be a buffet of Lean bites. Jeff and I both have a variety of features that we regularly post on our websites. Unfortunately, great content such as this can get lost in a sea of Lean noise.

This podcast is intended to cut through the clutter and give you a manageable chunk of some of our favorite recent content. If you want to dive deeper into anything that we talk about click the links at the bottom of this page.

As this is the maiden voyage of this feature, we would certainly appreciate your comments and feedback. You can either posted at the bottom of this page or email me at Tim@ALeanJourney.com.

To play the MP3 simply click the link below. If you would rather download it, right-click the link and follow the directions in your browsers pop-up window.

Enjoy the show.

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PODCAST: Talking Lean Episode #1 (6-14-2013)

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Links from the Show

• Quote of the Week (Using PDCA to Develop People)
• Run Charts (+ 9-Page PDF and Video)
• 10 Signs of a Non-Lean Manager Who Disengages the Workforce
• PDCA: Predict-Do-Check-Act?
• Lean Tips
• Lean Strategy: Leaders Abandon Lean When the Road Gets Bumpy