Lean Quote: Live a Meaningful Life

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.

"All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on."   — Henry Ellis, British psychologist (1859-1939)

We all want to lead a life with some sort of meaning. What that meaning is, however, is often left for each of us to decide and figure out on our own.

The key to taming this ebb and flow of what to hold and what to let go off is all about perspective. Too much letting go can leave you feeling empty and remote, while too much holding on can burden you, souring your very soul. For me, balance comes from knowing what I can and can’t control, appreciating what is truly sacred in my life, and letting the rest flow above, around and through me as I let it go.

The very act of releasing is powerful – it leads to healing, it helps recharge your energy and put things into perspective.

In-fact, most of the times these things happen naturally. When you become tired of holding on, you naturally have a tendency to let go. When you let go, all that energy that got drained from you while holding on starts to replenish. You start to feel renewed to the point where you get encouraged to take action again. In this way, letting go helps you gain clarity so you can pursue things that really matter.

Life is a balance between letting go and holding on. Life is about the journey, not the destination. Living a life of purpose gives both fulfillment and meaning to your journey. 

Maintaining Productivity and Company Culture in a Newly Remote Workplace

Remote work has long been heralded as one of the greatest perks that an employer can offer their staff. The ability to work from any location, avoid a commute, and maintain flexible hours can all be beneficial.

However, remote work also has its downsides. It can be particularly difficult to maintain communication, community, and productivity. Employees can atrophy if left on their own for too long, as well.

If your company has found itself joining in the unplanned, coronavirus-induced rush to a 100% remote workspace, you might be wondering how to preserve your company’s culture let alone maintain steady productivity. Fortunately, it’s quite possible to do both, even with a staff that has been scattered to the four winds.

Delegate and Empower

One of the first rules of maintaining an efficient remote workforce is enabling a culture of delegation and empowerment. This starts by clearly defining the responsibilities and expectations of each individual so that everyone knows what is expected of them. When employees understand what they’re supposed to do, it can shift responsibilities onto them in a healthy manner that encourages autonomy and individual effort.

Maintain Consistent Communication

The ability to communicate is clearly important for a remote workspace, but the benefits of consistent communication go beyond that. Properly staying in touch with your staff is one of the building blocks of successful group dynamics. It ensures that everyone is on the same page, encourages healthy and fluid collaboration, and can go a long way in maintaining your company culture, even in a virtual workspace.

Check-In, But Don’t Micromanage

Don’t be afraid to check in with your staff regularly. It’s wise to set a precedent with your employees of regular contact with the boss in order to ensure that you stay up to date on your employees’ workload, productivity, and any needs that may arise.

At the same time, it’s important to avoid using these “check-ins” to micromanage an employee’s work. Balancing consistent communication and employee autonomy are essential ingredients for a happy, productive remote workforce.

Make Productivity Recommendations

While you should try to avoid the need to single out an employee, making group productivity recommendations can certainly help to increase the output in a remote work situation. The key is to look for generic productivity recommendations that translate to a huge variety of work-from-home situations.

For instance, stand-up meetings are a great productivity measure that can encourage your employees to leave their desk chairs, get up off of the couch, or even climb out of bed for a few minutes. You can encourage everyone to stand up during a video chat meeting and then dismiss them to return to the comfort of their home offices.

Be Sensitive to Generational Differences

The modern office is juggling as many as five generations at a time as the Silent Generation, Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, Millennials, and Gen Zers all rub shoulders in the same space.

While a remote work scenario may put space between these coworkers, it’s still important for management to recognize the different cultures, habits, and expectations interacting in your virtual workspace. Adopting a sensitive attitude towards the cultural differences of your workforce, even from afar, is an excellent way to maintain a positive, healthy company culture.

Measure Success

While empowerment, delegation, and autonomy are all part of the remote work experience, that doesn’t mean you have to surrender productivity to the whims of your workforce.

One of the key elements to maintaining your staff’s forward momentum in a remote situation is to set up clear ways to measure success. Rather than insisting that your employees simply “clock in” and put in the man-hours, look for ways to quantify the results of their labor.

For instance, setting up goals, objectives, and key performance indicators (KPIs) for both your team and individuals is an easy way to keep them accountable and productive without the need to micromanage them. This enables you to provide praise for a job well done and constructive feedback if they fail to meet the level of productivity expected, all of which can be based on cold, hard facts rather than emotion.

Always Be Adapting

Finally, remember to always be ready to adjust your remote work setup when necessary.

The ability to tailor expectations, shift processes, and adapt to you and your staff’s remote work needs are all important aspects to strong remote work leadership.

Remotely Cultivating Productivity and Company Culture

From empowering employees to maintaining communication, being sensitive to the needs of your staff, and establishing benchmarks for success, there are many ways to boost productivity in a remote workspace.

In addition, many of these efforts can serve to help cultivate your company culture, even when everyone is working remotely. Company culture has a critical impact on employee morale, and it should also be prioritized right along with other important metrics such as productivity and efficiency.

When focused on together, productivity and company culture can be easily and effectively maintained, even from within the confines of a remote work environment.

About the Author: Luke Smith is a writer and researcher turned blogger. Since finishing college he is trying his hand at being a freelance writer. He enjoys writing on a variety of topics but technology and business topics are his favorite. When he isn't writing you can find him traveling, hiking, or gaming.

Five Lean Games Every Company Can Benefit From

In recent years, several training simulation games have been developed by academic and industry experts to support the teaching and learning activities of Lean philosophy. Using simulation games to teach Lean philosophy is an effective tool to convey the concepts.

Games use multiple communication means and create engagement. More importantly, they help people to memorize concepts and allow for a more practical experience of lean than traditional teaching methods do. They give participants a chance to practice lean in a risk-free and fun environment, and work in all cultures and at all management levels.

Teaching lean thinking this way is a commonly recognized approach in our community. There are numerous lean games out there – free or requiring payment, physical or online. (Martin Boersema provides a 50-strong list of lean games and simulations here.)

Here are five lean games that every company can benefit from.

Numbers Game – 5S, Place for Everything and Everything in it’s Place

5S is a Lean Methodology using a 5 step approach to achieve and maintain a high level of workplace organization. The 5S Numbers Game is designed to illustrate how valuable 5S can be to your business. This is a no cost exercise that can be done in any setting for any level within your organization. In this exercise you will experience how a disorganized work place can negatively affect productivity and quality.

If you type the 5S numbers game into any search engine on the internet you will likely come up with a number of good hits. The folks at SuperTeams, a Lean Six Sigma training firm have put the 5S numbers game on their web site. They have included a simple facilitators guide to make it easy for anyone to start teach this exercise right away.

I found a nice online simulator you can test out at http://leantools.info/5sgame/.

Drawing a Pig - Standard Work

Standard Work is a foundation of Lean. This fun exercise was originally created by the Minnesota Office of Continuous Improvement as a great way to illustrate the value of Standard Work. Each participant is given a grid and written instructions, or the instructions can be read out to the group. The goal is for everyone to come up with the same drawing at the end based on the instructions. And it's a pig!!

This activity is simple, no cost, and great for everyone. I often use this activity as a teambuilding exercise to kick-off teaching elements of standard work. Paul Levy, former President and CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston put a simple explanation of this exercise on his blog. Round 1 starts with the audience drawing the side profile of a pig. In round 2 you give standard work instructions to the audience to draw the pig. The final round has the audience draws the pig with standard work instructions with visual template for comparison. Everyone will find it easier to draw the pig in the final round. You’ll also find that all the pigs in the audience look that same at the end.

Ball Game – Teamwork and Problem Solving

This is a simple exercise but it teaches a powerful Lean lesson of team work, direct involvement, and continuous improvement. It involves passing tennis balls within a group where the goal is to perform this action as quickly as possible.

Ralph Bernstein at the Lean Insider posted on the tennis ball exercise with several photos from an event.

Robert Forder loaded a detailed explanation of the exercise in power point on the lean in education forum at LEI.

The Tennis Ball Exercise is a simple, low cost exercise that can be used to teach any one no matter education, language, or culture. It will break the ice, help teams form, and get people involved while teaching the “we can” attitude that so necessary in continuous improvement.

Letters – 1 Piece Flow

Reducing the batch size in manufacturing is a desirable goal: it improves the speed of response to the customer, while improving the ratio of value-added to non value-added work.

In the book LeanThinking, James Womack and Daniel Jones recount a story of stuffing newsletters into envelopes with the assistance of one of the author’s two young children. Every envelope had to be addressed, stamped, filled with a letter, and sealed. The daughters, age six and nine, knew how they should go about completing the project: “Daddy, first you should fold all of the newsletters. Then you should attach the seal. Then you should put on the stamps.” Their father wanted to do it the counter-intuitive way: complete each envelope one at a time. They told him “that wouldn’t be efficient!” So he and his daughters each took half the envelopes and competed to see who would finish first.

The father won the race, and not just because he is an adult.

Red Bead Game

In 1982, Dr. Deming created a teaching tool that he used in his seminars around the world to teach his famous 14 Obligations of Management. Dr. Deming called this training tool, The RED BEAD Experiment or Red bead Game.

When you play the game, each player uses a special metal paddle to draw small red and white colored beads from a large bowl. Each draw of the paddle gets 50 beads. Some are white and some are red. The white beads symbolize the good things that we experience each day as we do our work and the red beads symbolize the problems or bad things that we experience. As each player draws their paddle full of 50 beads each player receives a different mix of red and white beads.

The red bead experiment is deceptively simple because it provides a powerful message that is difficult for many to grasp. In summary, the misconception that workers can be meaningfully ranked is based on two faulty assumptions. The first assumption is that each worker can control his or her performance. Deming estimated that 94 percent of the variation in any system is attributable to the system, not to the people working in the system. The second assumption is that any system variation will be equally distributed across workers. Deming taught that there is no basis for this assumption in real life experiences. The source of the confusion comes from statistical (probability) theory where random numbers are used to obtain samples from a known population. When random numbers are used in an experiment, there is only one source of variation, so the randomness tends to be equally distributed. However, in real life experiences, there are many identifiable causes of variation, as well as a great many others that are unknown.

Mark Graban uses this game to illustrate process variation and learning what the data tells you in his book Measures of Success and associated workshops.

There are several resources online where you can purchase a Red Bead Kit.

Indeed, as lean coaches, we must always look for new ways to improve the learning experience, and I have personally found that using games and simulations works quite well.

Note: Ron Pereira at the Gemba Academy has put together a number of videos with these exercises.

5S NUMBERS GAME | |5S Workplace Productivity 

Watch This One Piece Flow vs. Mass Production Envelope Stuffing Lean Thinking Simulation

Lean Tennis Ball Simulation with Practical Problem Solving & Quick Changeover

Lean Quote: The First Job of Any Leader is to Inspire Trust

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.

"Earn trust, earn trust, earn trust. Then you can worry about the rest."   — Seth Godin

The very first job of a leader is to inspire trust. Trust is the single most essential element to our ability to deliver extraordinary results in an enduring way. Trust leads to high-performance because it enables an organization to work as it should; it’s the first defense against dysfunction and the first step towards delivering better outcomes.

When trust is low, in a company or in a relationship, it places a hidden "tax" on every transaction: every communication, every interaction, every strategy, every decision is taxed, bringing speed down and sending costs up. My experience is that significant distrust doubles the cost of doing business and triples the time it takes to get things done.

Trust is confidence born of two dimensions: character and competence. Character includes your integrity, motive, and intent with people. Competence includes your capabilities, skills, results, and track record. Both dimensions are vital.

The job of a leader is to go first, to extend trust first. Not a blind trust without expectations and accountability, but rather a "smart trust" with clear expectations and strong accountability built into the process. The best leaders always lead out with a decided propensity to trust, as opposed to a propensity not to trust.

The best leaders recognize that trust impacts us 24/7, 365 days a year. It undergirds and affects the quality of every relationship, every communication, every work project, every business venture, every effort in which we are engaged. It changes the quality of every present moment and alters the trajectory and outcome of every future moment of our lives—both personally and professionally. I am convinced that in every situation, nothing is as fast as the speed of trust.

As we work to continuously improve our leadership, we are inspired by the thought leadership of others who also revere building trust as a critical mission.

Lean Tips Edition #154 (#2521 - 2535)

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 #2521 – Schedule Regular Team Brainstorms For Ideas.

Build ongoing brainstorm sessions into the weekly or monthly meeting rhythm. This creates a culture of open engagement and ensures your team that their ideas are valued. For all ideas selected, follow up with incentives. Even a small gift card, a lunch out with you or access to company products and services goes a long way to show appreciation and fuel future innovation.

Lean Tip #2522 – Build the Right Environment For Ideas.

As a leader, your role is to knock down walls and develop an environment that evokes creative thinking from your team. The team needs to feel that their voice is appreciated and that they have room to do cool things. Let them test their ideas, see what works and what could be improved, and make sure they know that they have to opportunity to do so.

Lean Tip #2523 – Be Transparent With Overall Business Goals.

The more teams know about changing goals and new opportunities for the business, the more involved they will feel in its success. Creative ideas stem naturally from the desire to participate in the company's growth and awareness of the right direction. The resulting successful marketing campaigns compound the benefits on a morale level and reinforce employee loyalty.

Lean Tip #2524 – Ask the Team What They Want to Learn.

One of the best ways to engage your team is by asking what they'd like to learn. Develop a project that encourages them to dive deep into what you are already doing, research competitors in the space and present strategy ideas. This project will help them to structure feedback and learn more from the experience than just sharing a few early ideas.

Lean Tip #2525 – Encourage Mistakes.

One of the best ways to encourage creative ideas is by making it really clear that mistakes are not just tolerated but encouraged. Understanding that not all creative ideas are going to be wins creates a comfortable environment to brainstorm ideas and walk through new concepts. Mistakes are part of every creative process, and making room for them allows for innovative thinking.

Lean Tip #2526 – Offer Positive Reinforcement For Idea.

Sometimes the best way to encourage a team member is to not discourage them. If a team member suggests an idea that obviously will not work or is even irrelevant, don't put them down, especially in front of others. If they have a great idea in the future, they may hesitate or refuse to share for fear of being mocked. Foster an environment where there are no bad ideas.

Lean Tip #2527 – Share Your Idea.

People who are shy about sharing their ideas usually feel their ideas are not great and they may look bad in front of their colleagues. Assert that no ideas are dumb and that you welcome all ideas. Let your team submit ideas via email or one on one. Discuss submitted ideas anonymously in team meetings so everyone can hear about them and let people choose the idea that they like the best.

Lean Tip #2528 – Challenge the Way You Work

Encourage employees to keep looking anew at the way they approach their work. Ask people what works well and what doesn't. Allocate time for thinking about different approaches. Appeal for original ways to solve particular problems. Keep your door open to anyone with new ideas. Encourage people to work together and share ideas. Individuals within the team can feed off each other – exploring, testing and refining new approaches.

Lean Tip #2529 – Reward Creativity

Respond enthusiastically to all ideas. Never make someone offering an idea, however hopeless, feel foolish. Give even the most apparently outlandish of ideas a chance to be aired. Motivate individuals or teams who come up with winning ideas by actively recognizing creativity, for example through an awards scheme.

Lean Tip #2530 – Act on Ideas

Creativity is only worthwhile if it results in action. Provide the time and resources to develop and implement those ideas that are worth acting upon.

Following through on good ideas is a powerful way of encouraging staff to keep being creative, coming up with more new ideas to improve the business.

Lean Tip # 2531 – Improve Listening By Recognizing That Employees May Know What They're Doing

The single biggest problem I've seen among executives, managers, and entrepreneurs is the assumption that no one "beneath them" could have anything valuable to say. There are those who will succeed in the face of such arrogance, but any such stories you might have heard are likely outweighed by the legions of others who come to nothing. No one accomplishes much of anything without a lot of help, and to dismiss the experience and insights of others because they're not in charge of the business is smug and stupid.

Lean Tip #2532 – Make Listening a Priority

Listening must be considered as an important skill and must be listed on the top of your priority list. Listening and acknowledging has been an important skill which is mandatory for a leader. When employers and leaders have the mindset that they have all the answers, then they do not listen at all. Hence, it is important to have the intention to listen.

Lean Tip #2533 – Show Employees That You Care

When you listen to their issues and solve it, they believe that you care for them as an employer. When they know you care, then they work harder and aim higher than expected results.

Employees love to work under leaders who care for them, they do not want to be looked as tools or resources utilized for the success of the organization. Employees always want to have a good relationship where employers listen to their concerns at times of professional hardships.

Lean Tip #2534 – Be Mindful of Surroundings

It is a fact that great leaders are always mindful of their surroundings. Along with both verbal and non-verbal communication, they also know to listen in an active manner. They use facial expressions, nods, and body language in order to show that they are responding. Executive presence is an asset that is required for leaders and managers so that they listen effectively.

Lean Tip #2535 – Get Rid of Distractions

It is a fact that people get annoyed when they speak and the listeners don’t listen. In that manner, you should not do the same when someone converses. It would be good to switch off mobiles, turn off tablets or laptop and invest some energy in the one who is speaking on the other side.

When your employee speaks to you and you’re busy with your iPhone or Tab, then it is surely a negative impression for the ones who work for you. Avoiding such distractions when you speak to your employees can be one best way that can be followed to listen to employees.

The Five Types of People to Surround Yourself with for Success

Success is made up of hard work, commitment and passion but perhaps one of the most crucial factors to take into account is who we choose to surround ourselves with. As the old adage goes, 'you are who you hang out with' and the people we invite into our world on a daily basis can impact the way we think, feel and act.

 There are five types of people that you must surround yourself with if you want to successful:

The Inspired
The inspired people are those who create the urge or ability for you to do something within your life. These are the people who create a feeling of awe within you and create a state of mind that is empowering as opposed to disempowering.

The inspired are those who spark a curiosity within your heart and mind and cause you to search for inspiration elsewhere as well. They breed n environment of inspiration which leads to high quality results in life.

The Passionate
The passionate people are those who express their intensity through the medium of life. They immerse themselves in what they become deeply engaged in and find themselves in flow.

These are the people who, like the inspired individuals, infect you with their ability to become passionate. They cause you to reflect on your own levels of passion and guide you curiously to a place where you can be just as passionate as them.

Their passion is obvious and spills out of them. They have that glitter in their eye and love in their heart.

The Motivated
The motivated people are those who get things done. They very rarely struggle with accomplishing tasks because they have a strong vision and why for their life.

The reason why the motivated people are so critical in your life is because they show you how to become a person who is intrinsically motivated as opposed to extrinsically motivated. In other words, they show you how to cultivate motivation from within as opposed to having your motivation being dictated by the environment.

These people work hard on their journey and set the example for how hard you must work on your own craft and life. They show you how to set a schedule, focus on the important things, knock out one task after another, so on and so forth.

The Grateful
The grateful people are those who live within the present moment and express their full gratitude for what they have and the circumstance that they find themselves in.

These individuals allow you to fully relax in their presence and carry with them a calm energy that becomes infectious. You are attracted to these people because of how present and attentive they are.

These people allow you to see the positives as opposed to the negatives. They look at the glass fully and drink deeply from it. They take the time to look at the trees, flowers, breathe in the air, and experience all of the sensory inputs that are available to them in the immediate environment. They are great practitioners of mindfulness.

The Open Minded
The open minded people are those who expose you to new ideas, people, places, experiences, so on and so forth. They expose a whole new world to you and your perspective becomes wiser as a result.

These are the people who will give you that nudge to break free of your comfort zone into things that you previously deemed uncomfortable. They essentially expand your comfort zone for you through the process of just being around them.

The fastest way in order for you to accelerate your success is simply choosing the right people to hang around with. By spending time with these types of people, you begin to pick up on their ways of thinking, actions, habits, so on and so forth. This will give you a new perspective and will start the process of momentum for you to do the very same thing within your own character.