Lean Tips Edition #141 (#2326-#2340)

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.

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

Lean Tip #2326 – Invest in Your Employees

Another way to inspire and motivate your employees is by investing in them. Offering things like tuition reimbursement, a mentoring program, one-on-one coaching, and job shadowing with people in higher positions sends a clear message: you care about their career and their future. Some companies, in fact, have periodic meetings with their employees to discuss their career paths and make sure they stay on track.

Aside from improving skills and increasing staff knowledge, this kind of investment in employee career pathing gives them a reason to stay with the company for the long haul rather than be on the lookout for a better offer.

Invest in your employees, and you’ll give them a reason to stick around. When your employees grow and improve, so does the company.

Lean Tip #2327 – Give Employees a Purpose

No matter what your job is, whether it’s packing orders at a distribution warehouse, or managing a Fortune 500 company at the executive level, we all want to know that our jobs matter. Show your employees why they matter to the company, and what the results of their work are, and they’ll feel rewarded and motivated to keep at it. Emphasizing the importance of employee contributions (and giving people credit for good work) bolsters a sense of confidence and achievement, which can motivate people to keep working hard.

Lean Tip #2328 – Show Your Trust

A surefire way to motivate and inspire your employees is to demonstrate that you have faith in their abilities to get the job done. You can do this by assigning them more responsibilities and giving them the chance to rise to the challenge. Doing so shows that you trust them, which has a way of motivating people to keep doing their best.

Micromanaging your employees and hovering over their shoulders at every step is counterproductive because it makes them nervous. If your employees are too afraid to try new things, they won’t be giving you their best. Give them greater autonomy and responsibility and they will rise to the occasion.

Lean Tip #2329 – Be Transparent

Every relationship, including work relationships, is built on trust. Defaulting to transparency is one of the best ways to encourage an atmosphere of trust amongst you and your team, and a team that trusts you will be more motivated and engaged with their work.

Transparency also helps ensure that everyone is working with the same information. That in itself can benefit the team.

Lean Tip #2330 – Cultivate a Fun Workplace

Managers should keep in mind that employees spend quite a lot of time at work, which means that the workplace can't be solemn and somber all the time. While productivity and performance are of utmost importance, people also need to work in a pleasant environment where they sometimes have fun. Look for ways to productively encourage laughter and enjoyment into your organization in ways that are appropriate. Encourage friendly chatter and banter, as well as create shared experiences such as potluck employee lunches, special occasion celebrations and more.

Lean Tip #2331 – Create Regular Thinking Time

Operations and manufacturing managers are time poor. They’re often so involved in the responsive day-to-day that very few create space in their diary to think. They often have KPIs for continuous improvement, but are limited in their capacity to point their curiosity in new and potentially impactful directions.

Make the habit: To allow yourself this ‘space’, book an hour of time a fortnight to read industry news, or analyse your shop floor data in a new way.

Consider different perspectives and possibilities and visualize how you’d do things differently. Then pick up these ideas in your next scheduled slot, and share the well-formed ones with your team or manager,  so they can be actioned or developed further.

Lean Tip #2332 – Connect to the Customer

The production cycle is a continuous loop with no end: meeting KPIs; solving production issues; managing staff; maintaining plant equipment. There’s rarely time for internal collaboration, let alone consulting with the customer.

Connecting with the customer will help you understand their pain points, desires, new focus areas, future plans, and company updates. This information can be used to improve production.

For example, if new traceability regulations are top-of-mind for your downstream customers you’ll be able to re-focus your efforts in quality checks, training for staff, or product and materials tracking technologies and even suggest new business initiatives. 

Make the habit: Attend industry forums, organize informal client lunches, and talk to customer-facing employees in your organization. Aim to do at least one of these per week. Understand customer pain points so you can prioritize improvement activities around these.

Lean Tip #2333 – Create Opportunities to Maximize Efforts

In any task, project or strategy, it’s possible to hit multiple outcomes with a deliberate approach. It's more time efficient and effective. Rather than just following the structure of a done-to-death process, look at it and ask, ‘what multiple objectives can we achieve if we tackle them together?’ 

For example, implementing a continuous improvement process like 5S might aim to achieve ‘less waste in production’, but if you deliberately aim to achieve ‘greater engagement with the team’ and ‘staff training and empowerment’ as outcomes you might go about it differently.

You might create a goal, and delegate key staff to take ownership of the program, do some lean improvement training or take turns in reviewing its success. This would also increase the chances of program success through staff engagement.

Make the habit: Whenever you begin a new initiative, think about how you can use it to achieve more than one objective. Involve your team in strategy sessions for better collaboration and to gain support for new initiatives.

Lean Tip #2334 – Create Opportunities for Everyone to Contribute

Getting bogged down in urgent tasks can stop the important things like incremental improvements, from being addressed. That's where your staff can come in.

Many of the best ideas come from employees, and higher levels of staff involvement will get the greatest buy-in for change. What’s more, it can also boost company performance.

But how do their ideas get through?

Make the habit: Make it easy for improvement suggestions to be fed back into the system through an improvement suggestion program:

·        Use the intranet, a social forum or a suggestions box

·        Recognize all suggestions publicly via official written communication or at monthly catch ups

·        Verbally encourage ideas from all staff levels

·        Provide a framework: outline how improvement ideas should be tied to businesses goals

·        Publicly reward any actioned suggestions, provide rewards for the best idea

·        Ensure the business is actively assessing and implementing suggestions, to keep staff motivated to contribute

·        Showcase or demonstrate ideas that were successfully implemented and executed.

·        Importantly, make work a safe place to contribute by regularly encouraging suggestions, giving feedback and admitting your own mistakes.

Lean Tip #2335 – Empower Staff to be Innovators

Employee’s performance and enthusiasm for change will determine the company’s success. And, as the baby boomers start to retire, manufacturers face a key challenge in educating and developing the next generation of skilled workers in digital manufacturing.

Spend some time developing your production staff to offload some of the day-to-day burden and save the business time and money. Empowered staff are more proactive, make the right decisions independently, problem-solve and champion change programs.

Make the habit: Some actionable ways to empower employees are to allow paths to promotion, provide relevant training, facilitate peer-to-peer training, involve employees’ in decision-making and strategy, and design job roles for autonomy and play.

Lean Tip #2336 – Your Arrival at Work Sets the Tone for the Day

Picture Mr. Stressed-Out and Grumpy. He arrives at work with a frown on his face. His body language telegraphs overworked and unhappy. He moves slowly and treats the first person who approaches him abruptly. It takes only a few minutes for the entire workplace to get the word. Stay away from Mr. Stressed-Out and Grumpy if you know what's good for you this morning.

Your arrival and the first moments you spend with staff each day have an immeasurable impact on positive employee motivation and morale. Start the day right. Smile. Walk tall and confidently. Walk around your workplace and greet people. Share the goals and expectations for the day. Let the staff know that today is going to be a great day.

Lean Tip #2337 – Make Time for People for Employee Motivation

Spend time daily with each person you supervise. Managers might aim for an hour a week with each of their direct reports. Many studies indicate that a key employee work motivation factor is spending positive interaction time with the supervisor.

Schedule quarterly performance development meetings on a public calendar so people can see when they can expect some quality time and attention from you. You can make their year, not just their day.

Lean Tip #2338 – Focus on the Development of People for Employee Motivation

Most people want to learn and grow their skills at work. No matter their reason: a promotion, different work, a new position or a leadership role, employees appreciate your help. Talk about changes they want to make in their jobs to better serve their customers.

Encourage experimentation and taking a reasonable risk to develop employee skills. Get to know them personally. Ask what motivates them. Ask what career objectives they have and are aiming to achieve. Make a performance development plan with each person and make sure you help them carry out the plan. The quarterly performance development meeting is your opportunity to formalize plans for people. You can make their career.

Lean Tip #2339 – Share the Goals and the Context: Communicate for Employee Motivation

People expect you to know the goals and share the direction in which your workgroup is heading. The more you can tell them about why an event is happening, the better.

Prepare staff in advance if visitors or customers will come to your workplace. Hold regular meetings to share information, gain ideas for improvement, and train new policies. Hold focus groups to gather input before implementing policies that affect employees. Promote problem-solving and process improvement teams.

Lean Tip #2340 – Say Thank You to Your Staff Regularly

Motivating staff doesn't have to be complicated, and isn't much harder than saying thank you to staff and encouraging your managers to do the same. Yes, a Mckinsey study showed that praise from the immediate manager was deemed to be the most effective staff motivator, (cited by 67% of respondents). So, start from the top by thanking and praising your direct reports and encouraging them to pay-it-forward by praising and thanking their subordinates regularly. Staff motivation should soar as a result.

Real Leaders: Chobani’s CEO Boosts Employee Happiness

In an appeal to corporate leaders worldwide, Chobani founder Hamdi Ulukaya calls for an end to the business playbook of the past — and shares his vision for a new, “anti-CEO playbook” that prioritizes people over profits. “This is the difference between profit and true wealth,” he says.

Given that there is no such thing as work-life balance, because work and life are inextricably intertwined, it makes sense that companies are starting to pay closer attention to their employees’ happiness and well-being. 

This means more than offering an array of snacks and drinks in the shared kitchen of a workspace — it means fostering happiness among a staff who feels truly seen and heard by a company’s leadership. This is something that Hamdi Ulukaya, the CEO of Chobani, understands well. “For me, the success of a company, the number one sign is the happiness of employees,” he explains in a recent TED video.

But how exactly does that happen? What can managers and employees at all levels do to boost the success and happiness of the staff and in turn, the company? Here are three ideas from Ulukaya:

Don’t lead from a distance

Arguably, one of the greatest benefits of social media is that it has acted in some ways as an equalizer — giving the average person access (at least in theory) to some of the most powerful people in the world. This includes CEOs of companies, who now are visible public figures. But according to Ulukaya, company heads shouldn’t lead from a distance: they should get in the trenches in order to truly understand their employees, and what helps them thrive.  

“Being shoulder-to-shoulder and seeing people, working with them, understanding their conditions, and understanding how they feel about the company, how they feel about the work, how the communities react to it is also very much tied to the success of the business,” he says

Invest in your employees

In a recent TED talk, Ulukaya, who is Kurdish and originally from Turkey, urged companies to adopt the “anti-CEO playbook,” starting with practicing gratitude, noting that “business should take care of their employees first.” And he’s not talking about lip-service, ceremonial gratitude in which a leader makes empty statements about being thankful for his or her employees — he’s referring to implementing actual policies that demonstrate the employee’s value. For example, in 2016, Chobani offered employees shares in the company, not only to make them official stakeholders (and shareholders), but also to ensure that they profit when the company does. 

“This notion of doing things by your employees — and making sure they have the conditions for themselves and for their families and for their communities — it’s not an expense. It’s an investment in your own company, in your own people, in your own dream. Every time you invest in your people, the return is 100 times greater than the expenses,” he said.

Include the community
Yes, fostering a sense of community among employees is a crucial part of happiness at work, but beyond doing that, Ulukaya also sees the importance of incorporating the local community. In his TED talk, he espouses a JFK-inspired relationship between corporations and communities, where successful corporations don’t ask communities what they can do for the company, but rather what the company can do for the community. Ulukaya says that businesses should approach struggling communities and ask about their needs and how they can help. For example, before opening a Chobani plant in Idaho, Ulukaya met with the local community, learned what would benefit them, and then created training and educational opportunities at the plant.

Lean Quote: Nobody Wants a Manager, But Everybody Wants a Leader.

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.

"You manage things; you lead people." — Admiral Grace Murray Hopper

While a leader can be a manager, not every manager is a leader. The distinction between being a manager and being a leader may seem small, but it means the world to the people who work for you.

A leader coach’s employees, depends on goodwill, generates enthusiasm, says “we”, fixes the breakdown, shows how it is done, develops people, gives credit, asks questions, and says “let’s go”.

A manager drives employees, depends on authority, inspires fear (the beatings will continue until morale improves…), says “I”, places blame for any breakdown, knows how it is done, uses people, takes credit, commands and says “go”.

The definition of leadership is “a process of social influence, which maximizes the efforts of others, towards the achievement of a goal.” That is why it is my belief that if you are a good leader for your organization, then you really don’t need to worry about being The Manager. You will gain more influence and have more positive impact on your organization if your team feels valued and respected and has an understanding of where you expect them to be headed.

Great leaders don’t subscribe to a “Do-It-For-You” methodology of talent management, rather they lead, mentor, coach and develop team members by getting them to buy-into a “Do-It-Yourself” work ethic. Great leaders view each interaction, question or even conflict as a coaching opportunity. Don’t answer questions or solve problems just because you can, rather teach your employees how to do it for themselves. If you make it a habit of solving problems for people, you simply teach them to come to you for solutions at the first sign of a challenge.

Nobody wants a manager, but everybody wants a leader.

7 Benefits of Kaizen

Kaizen is a Lean manufacturing tool that improves quality, productivity, safety, and workplace culture. Kaizen focuses on applying small, daily changes that result in major improvements over time. Although improvements under Kaizen are small and incremental, the process brings about dramatic results over time.

Beyond the obvious benefit of improving processes, holding a Kaizen event can foster problem-solving, collaboration, and communication skills and allow employees to demonstrate leadership. Engaging team members to identify problems and suggest improvements in their work areas encourages a sense of ownership over their work, which can improve overall motivation, morale, and productivity. Finally, holding a Kaizen event is one way to reinforce a robust culture of continuous improvement within your organization, after all, the best way to sustain the principles that you want to guide your company is to put them into practice.

If you are considering implementing Kaizen methodologies, you are undoubtedly curious about what the Kaizen benefits may be. The following are some of the most significant benefits that you will see using Kaizen in your facility:

Kaizen simplifies the job. By having employees, management, and other important stakeholders constantly suggesting improvements, it simplifies everyone’s jobs – improvements should streamline all processes.

Kaizen changes things up. Do you like doing the same old same old every day? If not, Kaizen is a great way to keep you on your toes and remove the boring tasks from the radar.

Kaizen keeps things from being a total pain in your rear. If something’s not working, why continue to do it? Instead, it is far better to suggest improvements to solve problems before costly defects occur. Kaizen keeps your work from becoming a huge burden.

Kaizen improves job safety records. By constantly improving processes, you will be abreast of important new safety standards, the latest in advances in equipment and technology, and the safest way to do things.

Kaizen improves everyone’s productivity. If you eliminate wasteful tasks, then you save time. For example, is it necessary to create a report of reports every month? Are there less wasteful ways to do things? Is everyone making the best use of their time? Look into the answers to these questions to meet this Kaizen process goal.

Kaizen improves the quality of your products. By following the Kaizen process steps, you can improve product quality. It is important to have quality products because this will increase your customer base, and ultimately, it will increase your bottom line.

Kaizen saves you money and it saves you valuable time. By having high quality products, few accidents, few burdons, and highly productive employees, you will save time. When you save time, you save money. It’s a win-win situation, all around.

As you can see, there are many great Kaizen benefits that you will enjoy when implementing Kaizen in your facility. One of the biggest perks of Kaizen, however, is that the benefits never really end. Kaizen by its very nature is an ongoing strategy that is always looking for ways to improve your facility.

The initial benefits that are implemented will lead to further improvement opportunities down the road. When done properly, Kaizen just keeps going through the cycle of identifying improvement opportunities, coming up with solutions to those opportunities, implementing the solutions and finally testing them. If the solutions are positive, the cycle starts over with new improvement opportunities. This will continue forever, leading to an optimized facility that is never satisfied with the status quo.

Lean Quote: Be a Visionary Leader

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 leader is one who sees more than others see, who sees farther than others see, and who sees before others see." — Leroy Eimes

Effective leaders are known for being “visionaries”. They are comfortable exploring the unknown, thinking of what the future will become rather than being content with things they see now or be troubled about things in the past.

Visionary leaders are the builders of a new dawn, working with imagination, insight, and boldness. They present a challenge that calls forth the best in people and brings them together around a shared sense of purpose. They work with the power of intentionality and alignment with a higher purpose. Their eyes are on the horizon, not just on the near at hand.

The best visionary leaders move energy to a higher level by offering a clear vision of what is possible. They inspire people to be better than they already are and help them identify with what Lincoln called “the angels of their better nature.”  This was the power of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech. The creative power of lighted, inspired words can sound a certain inner note that people recognize and respond to.  This then creates dramatic social change.

Visionary leaders have a knack for inspiring others to action in order to create a better future and solve problems in new ways. Their leadership style creates excitement, positive momentum and longevity in an organization. People enjoy working for visionary leaders who truly want them to reach their full potential and find meaning in their work.

Cultivate your characteristics of being a visionary leader. It will help you to become an excellent leader and it will also inspire your team to work towards success.

10 Steps For Executing a Successful Kaizen

An essential element in Lean thinking is Kaizen.  Kaizen is the Japanese word for continuous improvement or change for the better. It’s a tool to make work easier, safer, and more productive by studying a process, identifying waste, and applying small incremental improvements that ensure the highest quality. As no process can ever be declared perfect, there is always room for improvement.  Kaizen involves building on gains by continuing experimentation and innovation.

1. Find Problem. First look at your business and find an opportunity for improvement. Start by analyzing the productivity of each department within the company. Look for departments that struggle with missed deadlines, inferior quality or production bottlenecks. Once you decide on a department, try to find specific processes where small improvements can add the most value. Start out with something small that can be changed easily.

2. Find a Sponsor. Executive leaders aren’t always directly involved in the Kaizen event, but they should be enthusiastic supporters who understand the process and objectives. Their support is important because it makes it more likely that employees will fully engage. Leaders are often involved in removing roadblocks and providing necessary resources for the event.

3. Pick a Leader. Appoint a team leader to manage the Kaizen event. You should ensure that your team leader is positive about creating change and is fully aware of the business case for making improvements, a team leader that is unconvinced or feels threatened can restrict the improvements being made.

4. Select Your Team. Typically, team members should comprise of people that work within the area in which the event takes place plus various people from other support areas such as maintenance, administration, sales, etc. It may also be worth adding a few people from the next area in which a kaizen event is planned so that they have some experience for the next event.

5. Create a Charter. Clearly define goals and expectations of the Kaizen event. The main focus of the event should be an area or process in which it has been determined that an inefficiency is reducing value to the customer. The focus can be narrowed by analyzing KPIs, root causes, and other Lean metrics. Keep in mind that the end goal is to promote continuous improvement and reduce waste.

6. Perform Training. If your team has had lots of practice with Kaizen events, pre-event training might not be necessary. Otherwise, it is essential to take the time to provide guidance on what to expect during a Kaizen event and which improvement tools will be used. The team should be training on your improvement management technology and know how it will be used before, during, and after the event to support the effort and capture the knowledge generated. Everyone should be clear about their role and know how their performance will be measured.

7. Understand the Situation. Start by analyzing the productivity of each department within the company. Look for departments that struggle with missed deadlines, inferior quality or production bottlenecks. Once you decide on a department, try to find specific processes where small improvements can add the most value.

8. Implement Solutions. Now that you have figured out the problem it is time to analyze it. Try to figure out what different options you have available to solve this problem. Once you have figured out what solutions are available, decide which one is going to be the best for your particular situation. Then start putting your solution into action.

9. Check Your Improvement. Once the event is complete and the desired improvements are in place, it is essential to make a follow-up plan to measure results and ensure the improvement is sustained. Make sure that you monitor the progress of the improvements being implemented and review whether the implementations are truly improvements. You may find that additional adjustments to new processes are necessary or that some of the changes have not been fully applied

10. Repeat. Kaizen doesn’t stop when you’ve successfully completed your Kaizen event. You should see this Kaizen event as just in an ongoing series of efforts and improvements. The true spirit of Kaizen is in “continuous improvement” and “slow and gradual change”.

Kaizen keeps you reaching, stretching to outdo yesterday. The continuous improvements may come bit by bit. But, enough of these small, incremental gains will eventually add up to a significant, valuable competitive advantage. Also, if every employee constantly keeps an eye out for improvements, major innovations are likely to occur. Higher levels sometimes lose perception of what’s going on in the “trenches” because they aren’t in them every day. Good companies realize that and encourage feedback from staff. The spirit of Kaizen can trigger dramatic breakthroughs, whether it be redesigning a simple form or developing new company protocols.

10 Ways to Be a Successful Change Leader

This month's ASQ's Influential Voices topic is about change leadership. In today’s current climate transformation is a common term and transformative efforts are a regular occurrence. Although these efforts are common, according to Harvard Business Review two-thirds of large-scale transformation efforts fail. Research has proven that effective leadership is crucial for a change initiative to be successful. 

Building a continuous improvement (CI) culture is not an easy task. A CI culture starts with managers who understand and believe the implications of the systems view and know the necessity of serving customers in order to succeed. The result of that understanding is a culture where a positive internal environment and the creation of delighted customers go together. It is a culture that naturally emphasizes continuous improvement of processes, one that results in a healthy workplace, satisfied customers, and a growing, profitable company.

The best leaders understand the present is nothing more than a platform for the envisioning of, and positioning for, the future. If you want to lead more effectively, shorten the distance between the future and present. Inspiring innovation and leading change call for more than process– they require the adoption of a cultural mindset.

Implementing CI thinking is a cultural change that requires leadership…because in the end it’s all about people. Here are 10 ways you can lead the culture change in your organization:

1. Challenge People to Think

If you are not thinking, you’re not learning new things. If you’re not learning, you’re not growing – and over time becoming irrelevant in your work. The most successful leaders understand their colleagues’ mindsets, capabilities and areas for improvement. They use this knowledge/insight to challenge their teams to think and stretch them to reach for more.

2. Lead by Example

Leading by example sounds easy, but few leaders are consistent with this one. Successful leaders practice what they preach and are mindful of their actions. They know everyone is watching them and therefore are incredibly intuitive about detecting those who are observing their every move, waiting to detect a performance shortfall.

3. Take Lots of Leaps of Faith

Making a change requires a leap of faith. Taking that leap of faith is risky, and people will only take active steps toward the unknown if they genuinely believe – and perhaps more importantly, feel – that the risks of standing still are greater than those of moving forward in a new direction.  Making a change takes lots of leaps of faith.

4. Create an Environment Where it is Ok to Fail

Failure should be encouraged! That’s right. If you don’t try, you can’t grow; and if growth is what you seek, failing is inevitable. There must be encouragement to try and it’s ok if you try and it doesn’t work. An environment where you can’t fail creates fear.

5. Eliminate Concrete Heads

“Concrete Heads” is the Japanese term for someone who does not accept that the organization must be focused on the elimination of waste. People feel threatened by the changes brought about by lean. As waste and bureaucracy are eliminated, some will find that little of what they have been doing is adding value. The anxiety they feel is normal and expected. To counteract this, it is critical that people are shown how the concept of work needs to change.

6. Be a Great Teacher

Successful leaders take the time to mentor their colleagues and make the investment to sponsor those who have proven they are able and eager to advance. They never stop teaching because they are so self-motivated to learn themselves.

7. Show Respect to Everyone

Everyone desires respect. Everyone. Regardless of your position or power, ensure you show everyone respect. Everyone wants to be treated fairly.

8. Motivate Your Followers

Transformational leaders provide inspirational motivation to encourage their followers to get into action. Of course, being inspirational isn't always easy. Some ideas for leadership inspiration include being genuinely passionate about ideas or goals, helping followers feel included in the process and offering recognition, praise and rewards for people's accomplishments.

9. Develop a True Team Environment

Create an environment where working as a team is valued and encouraged; where individuals work together to solve problems and help move the organization forward. Individuals who will challenge each other and support each other make teams more successful.

10. Encourage People to Make Contributions

Let the members of your team know that you welcome their ideas. Leaders who encourage involvement from group members has shown to lead to greater commitment, more creative problem-solving and improved productivity.

Constant change is a business reality and organizations must continually adapt to their environments to stay competitive or risk losing relevance and becoming obsolete. For each change, leaders must define it, create a vision of the post-change world, and mobilize their teams to make it.

Fundamentally, a change of culture occurs when people start behaving differently as a result of a change in the climate of the organization. There are many different models of how an organizational culture is shaped by the prevailing climate and how it can be assessed.

Leaders who protect the status quo through control must surrender to change in order to secure the future for their organization. Don’t be the leader who rewards herd mentality, and me too thinking. Don’t be the leader who encourages people not to fail or not to take risks. Be the leader who both models and gives permission to do the exact opposite of the aforementioned – be a leader who leads.

The culture of an organization is learnt over time. It can be taught to new employees through formal training programs but is more generally absorbed through stories, myths, rituals, and shared behaviors within teams. Organizational culture will impact positively or negatively on everything you try to do whether you want it to or not.