Lean Leadership Lessons From The Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics

Like millions of others from around the globe I have been glued to the TV watching the winter Olympics from Sochi. Once again the eyes of the world are on its best and brightest athletes as they attempt to push the human body to new limits, and remind us that our best human qualities — determination, perseverance, innovation, sacrifice, and camaraderie – know no bounds.

As much as the Olympics represent the pinnacle of the sporting world, they are also the source of a number of inspiring stories that showcase both the human spirit and what we can accomplish when we strive to be our best.

To that end, I’d like to share some important lessons for leaders on how to guide their organization to succeed and thrive, regardless of the challenges that stand before them.

Lesson 1: Olympians know no goal is impossible with the right mindset. If you want to succeed, don’t lose sight of your goals. Stay unwaveringly motivated. Your focus determines your results. Focus on the right things.

Lesson 2: When Olympians suffer an inevitable setback, they don’t let themselves succumb to doubts. You can’t compete at the highest levels without inner-confidence. And when you do get a taste of success, don’t rest on your laurels. You have to pivot, hone in on the strengths that have carried you so far, and overcome adversity with perseverance.

Lesson 3: There’s no substitute for surrounding yourself with the best possible team. With the right players, there’s no limit to what you can accomplish. Don’t compromise on talent, and hold yourself to the lofty expectations people will place on you.

Lesson 4: Olympians break through excuses. Many businesses will face immense challenges on the road to success. They will also be presented with opportunities to overcome these challenges. Don’t squander your potential with self-imposed limitations. Don’t make excuses for why you cannot engage more fully. Capitalizing on your chances is a matter of being dedicated and sacrificing for the greater good of the business.

Lesson 5: Olympians never stop learning from mistakes. In business you need to measure everything so you can analyze how to be more effective, more productive, and more profitable in the future. What gets measured gets improved. You never settle for good. You always strive to be great. It’s an attitude of constant improvement.

Lesson 6: Olympians give 100% commitment to their goals. You have to give 100% commitment to what it is you want to achieve. Without a doubt those that are competing have committed themselves 100%. They don’t expect it to be easy and are ready and willing to do what it takes.

To achieve success businesses and leaders within them need to take a long term view. The reality is there is no shortcut to success. These lessons above show how we should approach our leadership and guiding the people we lead towards achieving our shared goals.

Leadership Lessons From Abraham Lincoln

Today is President's Day in the US. A federal holiday originally to recognize George Washington, our first President, is now popularly viewed as a day to celebrate all U.S. presidents past and present. In honor of this I want to share some leadership lessons from one of these great leaders.  

President Abraham Lincoln is considered by many to be a noble and great leader who shaped American history. However, he is not often looked to as an example of how to be an effective leader and business role model. But, there is actually a lot we can learn from one of our most well-known leaders.

Here are 10 leadership principles starting with P that Abe Lincoln exhibited that set an example for the type of leader that managers and executives should exemplify: 

1. Purpose – Answer the question “Why I am doing this?” Without purpose there is not direction. 
2. Probity – Demonstrate complete honesty if you want integrity. This is how leaders get people to follow them. 
3. People – This is the “Respect for People” element. Listen and show we care. The say Lincoln would go beyond just hearing your pain and actually absorb your pain for you. 
4. Preparation – Proper planning saves time. Never stop learning and improving. 
5. Persuasion – Show them how through doing. The use of stories to illustrate your point makes it more personal and memorable. 
6. Persistence – Never give up; keep going, especially when the road is not so clear. 
7. Process Thinking – Put a process in place. It is through this we can improve our current state. 
8. Problem Solving – PDCA, objectively study, build strong problem solving skills, and engage everyone everyday in the process.
9. Performance – Don’t focus on the results, focus on the process and the results will come. 
10. Possibilities – Take the impossible and make it possible. There is no limit to the possibilities if we open our mind.  

In my experience people don’t like to be told what to do. Lead them by asking the right questions. Challenge their thinking and develop them to constantly improve. Lean is a powerful way of thinking. I believe it is this thinking that can truly change the world. Lincoln was able to learn and grow amid great calamity. His story, like no other, demonstrates that leaders do not just make the moment; they meet it and, in the process, are changed by it. Like Abraham Lincoln be the role model for leadership in your organization by practicing these qualities.

Note: The source of the 10 leadership principles from Abe Lincoln comes from Jerry Bussell's book Anatomy of a Lean Leader. 

Lean Quote: Successful Leaders Lead With the Heart, Not Just the Head.

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.

"Successful leaders lead with the heart, not just the head. They possess qualities like empathy, compassion and courage. They also have the ability to establish deep, long-term and genuine relationships where others trust them.." — BIll George

It has been said, “You can’t truly love another before you learn to love yourself.” Organizations are no different. If we don’t love and respect and admire the people we work with every day, we can’t collectively give our customers the love they deserve. Empathy is an inside-out job.

Empathy is the ability to put yourself in another’s shoes and walk a mile.  It’s the ability to imagine what it might be like to experience and relate to the thoughts, emotions, and experience of the other person. Empathy is more than simple sympathy, which is being able to understand and support others with compassion or sensitivity.

Some people naturally exude empathy and have an advantage over their peers who have difficulty expressing empathy. Most leaders fall in the middle and are sometimes or somewhat empathetic. Fortunately, empathy is not a fixed trait. It can be learned. If given enough time and support, leaders can develop and enhance their empathy skills through coaching, training, or developmental opportunities and initiatives.

Build a culture of empathy. Empathy is an essential component of caring about your customers, your employees, and your company, and its absence signals larger problems in organizational culture. Empathy can’t be plastered on like a fake smile, but it can be cultivated from within.

 

8 Principles of Quality Management

When it comes to the quality of products and services presented by a company, quality management is essential. Quality management is the process of managing and monitoring performance to ensure adherence to predetermined quality standards and goals.

A principle is a fundamental truth or law and therefore quality management principles are the fundamental truth or laws that form the basis of quality management. There are a number of principles used in quality management, all of which play a significant role in its success.

These principles have been identified to facilitate the achievement of quality objectives and form the foundation for effective quality management.

Principle 1 - Customer-Focused Organization : "Organizations depend on their customers and therefore should understand current and future customer needs, meet customer requirements and strive to exceed customer expectations".

Principle 2 - Leadership : "Leaders establish unity of purpose and direction of the organization. They should create and maintain the internal environment in which people can become fully involved in achieving the organization’s objectives."

Principle 3 - Involvement of People : "People at all levels are the essence of an organization and their full involvement enables their abilities to be used for the organization’s benefit".

Principle 4 - Process Approach : "A desired result is achieved more efficiently when related resources and activities are managed as a process."

Principle 5 - System Approach to Management : "Identifying, understanding and managing a system of interrelated processes for a given objective improves the organization’s effectiveness and efficiency."

Principle 6 - Continual Improvement : "Continual improvement should be a permanent objective of the organization."

Principle 7 - Factual Approach to Decision Making : "Effective decisions are based on the analysis of data and information."

Principle 8 - Mutually Beneficial Supplier Relationships : "An organization and its suppliers are interdependent, and a mutually beneficial relationship enhances the ability of both to create value."

The International Standard for Quality Management (ISO 9001:2008) adopts a number of management principles that can be used by top management to guide their organizations towards improved performance. These eight principles form the basis for the quality management system standard ISO 9001:2008. These principles are used by many companies as an improvement model. The more companies who begin implementing these principles, the more successes there will be across the board and the better quality and services will be.

Ten Lean Lessons That Building Legos Has Taught Me

My kids enjoy playing with Legos so it is no surprise that they got some new sets for Christmas.  The last few weeks have been fun filled with these little bricks building cars, houses, and other scenes.  As I look at this time together I can’t help but think there are a number of Lean lessons that you can take away from this experience.

1. Start With the End in Mind

LEGO provides a complete – and exciting – picture of the final product right there on the box. You fall in love with the end result before you even start.

2. Learn by Doing

You learn by trying yourself. It doesn’t take long with a Lego project to know if you are doing it right.

3. Power of Visuals

Lego kits come with high quality visual instructions labeled only with letters and numbers that make it easy for anyone to assembly them.  This speed up the build and cuts down on mistakes.

4. Kitting

Larger Lego set come with multiple bags. These kits organize the build in a specific sequence with the correct pieces at the time you need them. That “grouping” allowed them the ability to focus on the things they needed to do and not get overwhelmed. This makes the project manageable and adds rewards along the way.

5. One Piece Flow

You can't rush the build — and half the fun of getting a Lego set is building it! Large sets can be very overwhelming, too, and require patience. Just build one piece at a time.

6. Mistake Proofing

When things don’t match or don’t line up, it’s obvious. Failure is not a loss. I was not afraid to make mistakes when I was building and every mistake I made was an opportunity to learn what not to do the next time.

7. Personal Accomplishment

There is always a sense of accomplishment that you feel the first time you get that new Lego kit assembled into whatever it is supposed to be and hold it up in front of the box, admiring how it looks exactly like the picture.

8. If You Can Dream It, You Can Do It

Dreams are the means to a desired end. With the Lego bricks in hand you can build whatever you want; there are no limits. You can do anything that you can dream of.

9. Keep it Simple

You build small, simple pieces that are easy to understand and then you assemble them in a variety of complex ways to accomplish a particular goal. When faced with a challenge that seems overwhelmingly complicated at first break it down until you can understand the pieces, then watch how they fit together - suddenly almost anything seems doable.

10. Patience.

Building with Lego bricks is a slow progression that takes patience, especially when you have a large number of loose blocks to sort through while you are building.

Time has taught me that you can learn valuable lessons from almost any experience. Legos are more than building blocks, they teach essential leadership skills. I believe that to be a successful Lean leader you need to focus on these lessons. I am happy to be spending quality time with my kids and learning such valuable lessons. And more importantly think of the lessons they are learning from this experience.

Lean Quote: If You're Not Making Mistakes, You're Not Improving

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.

"A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing." — George Bernard Shaw

Mistakes are unavoidable in life and leaders certainly make their share of them. Any time you look to break new ground or technologies or whatever it is you are leading, you open up many new avenues for mistakes and they are inevitable with change. You can’t have one without the other and so learning to use mistakes well is an important leadership trait.

Fear of failure is a genuinely scary thing for many people, and often the reason that individuals do not attempt the things they would like to accomplish. But the only true failure is failure to make the attempt. If you don't try, you gain nothing, and life is too short a thing to waste. Doing something is better than doing nothing.

If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not improving. Henry Ford said, “Failure is merely an opportunity to begin again knowledgeably.” Failure is an inevitable stepping-stone to great achievement.

But to have success, management must create an environment where it is safe to fail. Failure is an expected part of the process of finding solutions. If workers feel that they have to “hit one out of the park” every time they come up with an improvement idea, they will be reluctant to provide their ideas. In a Lean environment, failure and success should be met with the same level of enthusiasm and support.

 

7 Steps Successful Lean Leaders Take Support Improvement

Leadership commitment and support is critical for successful process improvement initiatives. Fortunately, it is not particularly complicated to make a difference. Here are seven steps that leaders can take to support Lean process improvement efforts.

1. Set Goals

Create a vision of the future state and determine where to focus your efforts. Lean is often surmised as doing the right things at the right time and cost. Set concrete goals with a time frame for when you want to achieve those goals.

2. Get Started

Successful leaders start immediately. They don’t drag their feet or put it off. They act on a goal right away, because they understand the power of momentum. They may not do the whole thing at once, but they do take a big step to get started. There is never a better time than now to get started.

3. Think Positive

This is the half-empty, half-full syndrome. Lean leader are optimists and believe the cup is always half full. They aren’t pie-in-the-sky types, but they see the positive side of an opportunity, and they believe in their ability to achieve their goals.

4. Take Action

Those who are successful take action, even on partial information. Too many people wait around until they think they have all the answers. But if you do that, you may wait forever. Lean leaders don’t proceed blindly, but they know that, once they have the critical details, they can make a decision and act accordingly.

5. Be Determined

Implementing Lean is no easy endeavor. There are so many variables that it is impossible to determine how things will proceed. You don’t know what will happen once you take the first step, so the only constants are the end vision and your determination to get there, even if the path doesn't unfold exactly as you envisioned.

6. Lead by Example

You must hold yourself accountable before you can hold anyone else. A leader implies followers are doing just that, following. If you want to be a leader, you must go to the source and see the actual condition from those that make it happen. It is from the Gemba that you have the best opportunity to coach improvement.

7. Learn From Your Mistakes

To be a good leader you have to take calculated risks and you will certainly make some mistakes along the way. Admit them. Learn from them. Don't repeat them! Mistakes are a necessary part of the learning process.

These are just some of the steps needed to be a successful leader in a Lean environment. Being a good leader may sound simple, but it is not easy. It requires tremendous strength of character. Almost all successful leaders will tell you that being extremely focused on the outcomes they wanted to create, trying many different approaches to achieving them, and staying the course all add up to success.