Continuing to Grow in Your Leadership Career

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Truly great leaders never stop developing their careers. There is always room to grow and adapt. Improving your skills in this area benefits both you and your team, and can potentially advance your company to the forefront of its industry.

How do top leaders manage their responsibilities and continue to advance their skills, management style, and careers? First, they assess their existing expertise to discover strengths and weaknesses. Then, they find the best approach to improve their needs.

Do You Have What It Takes to Be a Better Leader?

Your first step is to take ownership of your future career. It does not serve you to believe you are entitled to a promotion or advancement based on your current work history, particularly if you do not feel like you are moving forward. To be a better leader, you must be proactively improving your skills and ability to adapt to challenges that impact your work, team, or company.

Once you take the step to move forward and sharpen your leadership abilities, examine the qualities that make a leader successful to see how you measure up, especially when managing teams. These traits include: 

●       Showing your team that you care about their needs. It’s important to listen to your employees’ concerns to improve productivity and team communication.

●       Allow everyone to contribute by delegating tasks appropriately and share the credit equally. When mistakes are made, be willing to focus on finding a solution rather than assigning blame.

●       Guide your team clearly but avoid micromanaging them.

To improve in these areas, learn new ways of managing your team. Just remember that there is always room to grow even if you feel adept as a leader. Some ways you can achieve this include advancing your education, updating your leadership style, and becoming a more innovative leader.

Advancing Your Education

Successful leaders may think it’s a waste of time to advance their education, but there are degree options that can provide you an edge in your career. An executive MBA (EMBA) is an excellent choice for mid-career leaders who already have plenty of work experience under their belts. Some of the benefits it provides include:

●       Networking with other professionals can increase your business connections.

●       Refine and adapt your current skills to fit high-level business opportunities, such as moving from a regional leader to a global executive.

●       Growing confidence for jumping into entrepreneurship.

Investing in an MBA can be costly and time-consuming, but flexible options such as online and part-time programs can help you develop the skill set you need in a manageable framework. 

Updating Your Leadership Style

In 2020, the business world had to adapt on the fly as the pandemic forced many companies to radically alter their working standards. Successful leaders updated their management style for today’s business market. This is especially crucial if you’ve been in management for many years.

Here are some ways that you can update your leadership techniques for today’s marketplace.

Focus on Employee Development

It’s become critical for managers to put employees more top of mind by becoming more sensitive to their needs and concerns. And, just as you want to advance your career, your team members feel the same way. Fostering employee development is a critical way to foster employee engagement, loyalty, and productivity.

The modern business world is constantly changing and adapting. Help your team stay ahead of the curve by offering flexible learning options and development activities that help them grow too. Regular group learning is a good way to support employees and strengthen relationships.

Another way to build team rapport is with extracurricular team-building activities that build trust and loyalty. These can even include outdoor challenges or online problem solving. By focusing on employee development, you can have great confidence that your staff won’t seek that encouragement elsewhere.

Foster an Inclusive and Flexible Workplace

Today’s workers expect to operate in an inclusive environment to feel empowered and take ownership of their work. This may mean, for example, rethinking the workspace to take down barriers and creating an open floor plan. Better employee engagement and team building is a benefit of this type of redesign.

Diversity in business is also critical and can even improve company performance overall. This means including people of all races, genders, and ages when building a team. It also means ensuring that people with disabilities can be hired and accommodated.

Another option that has become more widely accepted since the pandemic is offering employees flexible work options. Allowing team members to work remotely has been shown to improve productivity. Experience in managing several remote teams is a key skill all leaders need to have in today’s marketplace.

Become an Innovative Leader

Employee development and inclusivity are just two aspects of creating an adaptive business culture with 21st-century leadership. An adaptive culture supports flexible options for employees, promotes transparency in leadership, provides an atmosphere of growth for team members, and supports business sustainability. Start by making these improvements in your teams.

Once you have gained some traction, share how your team improved with upper management. You may need to convince management to make these innovative changes. It’s best to have proof of success on hand when doing so but taking charge in these areas will make you stand out as a forward-thinking leader in your firm. 

Continued growth in your leadership career is always possible. By advancing your education, updating your leadership style, and becoming more innovative in your approach, you can become a top leader in your field. Help your company reach new heights as you advance your expertise.  

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.

15 Guiding Principles of Lean

In order to gain a competitive edge, many companies have adopted lean manufacturing (or lean thinking) as a keystone for success in today’s global market. Lean manufacturing has enabled businesses to increase production, reduce costs, improve quality, and increase profits by following key principles:

Identify Value

The first principle of lean manufacturing pertains to defining value. It is important to understand what value is before anything else within the process. Value is what the customer is willing to pay for. It is important to discover the actual needs of the customers. At times, the consumer may be unable to properly articulate what exactly they want, which is common in areas of novel products or technology.

Continuous Flow

Efficient product flow requires items to move from production to shipping without interruption and can be achieved by strategically organizing the work floor. Every factor, from people and equipment to materials and shipping, must be taken into account to ensure products seamlessly move through the production process.

Create Pull

Inventory is one of the biggest wastes within a production facility. The overall goal of a pull-based system is to limit inventory and work in process (WIP) items while ensuring that the requisite materials and information are available for a smooth workflow. A pull-based system allows for Just-In-Time delivery and manufacturing where products are created at a time they are needed and in the quantities needed.

Level the Work

One of the foundational lean principles of lean manufacturing is levelized production. The basis of this principle is that the workload is the same (or level) every day. Most manufacturing companies are at the mercy of their customers for orders. Before producing product, they wait to get orders. This leads to increased delivery lead time which may not satisfy customer requirements.

Eliminate Waste

Waste in the value stream is any activity, which the customer is not willing to pay for since it adds no value to the product or service and often, is consuming resources. The waste can be broken into two categories: non-value added but necessary and non-value & unnecessary. The later is pure waste and should be eliminated while the former should be reduced as much as possible. Waste exists in all parts of the business – front office to the factory.

Kaizen Mindset

Kaizen, a philosophy of continuous improvement, can help businesses with this shift by creating a culture where workers seek perfection. Kaizen focuses on making small, incremental changes and requires every worker, from the corner office to the production floor, to help improve business practices. Over time, Kaizen will result in increased efficiency, lower costs, greater productivity, and better quality products.

Visualize Problems

Visual management aims to make the situation easily understood merely by looking at it. The goal is to get as much information as possible with as little observation or time as possible. Visual management is used to share information, work standards, build on those standards, highlight problems, stop problems occurring and prevent problems altogether. If visual management has been done well, everyone in your factory understands and knows how to fix an issue if something is wrong. Visual management complements well with the idea of going to the real place.

Stop and Fix

It’s so easy to just ignore problems when they pop up because they keep you from being productive. Truth be told, it’s easier in the long run to stop and fix the issue right away because you’ll be doing whatever is necessary to make sure the problem will NOT re-occur.

Use root cause analysis and the five-whys to figure out why a problem occurs, figure out what can be done to make sure the problem won’t come back, and make that fix. The more you attack problems and fix them, the more the organizational culture will begin to see the simplicity in doing so and the benefits realized by not having as many breakdowns or repeated repairs. This will build momentum toward a change in culture of not tolerating problems and continuous repairs.

Creativity Before Capital

Simply put, this principle demands that we think more about making our improvements by utilizing what is nearby without spending capital dollars. Dr. Shigeo Shingo preached to engineers not to become a "Catalog Engineer". Catalog Engineers spent all of their time looking for solutions in a catalog and buying a quick fix. He would say to throw out the catalog and go to gemba. Creativity before capital is the lost principle of lean in America.

Standardize Work

Standardized work is the name given in lean manufacturing for documenting the steps of a job task and the sequence in which those should be performed. You can think of standardized work as defining who does the task, when they do it, and how they do it.

The documentation of standardized work should be done in a collaborative process with people who actually do the job task as part of their job as well as others–including perhaps engineers and supervisors.

Standardizing the work adds discipline to the culture, an element that is frequently neglected but essential for lean to take root. Standardized work is also a learning tool that supports audits, promotes problem solving, and involves team members in developing poka-yokes.

Built in Quality

Another key lean manufacturing principle is Quality Built In, or Jidoka. The idea behind this principle is that quality is built into the manufacturing process. Quality is built into the design of the part. Quality is built into the packaging. Throughout all areas of the product, from design to shipping, quality is built into the process.

Jidoka builds quality into the process through detection or prevention.  Each lean manufacturing process will be designed to highlight any abnormality so that the employee can stop the process.  Stopping the process so that the problem can be fixed is a key part of the Jidoka lean principle.

Develop People

In order to fully realize potential, you’ll have to add knowledge, skills, and experience. Don’t expect your people to do their best if you don’t equip them with the training they need to perform. And don’t expect your potential to spring forth in a final draft; it takes time to hone your skills and build your confidence. This could come from formal schooling, from the school of hard knocks, or from both. Either way, your education is the house your realized potential will live in.

Develop exceptional people and teams who follow your company's philosophy Empowerment happens when employees use the company tools to solve problems. Build cross functional teams to improve quality and productivity. Work hard to reinforce the company culture and assure it is followed over the course of years.

Respect for People

The most valuable resource to any company are the people who work for it. Without the people, businesses do not succeed. The respect for people principle is made up of Respect and Teamwork.  This approach allows the company to leverage and utilize the collective problem solving capability of the employees to drive improvement. Most people want to perform well in their jobs. The employees want to earn a decent living and have a sense of worth while working. They want to feel like they have contributed to the company goals, like their work and effort has meant something.

Go See For Yourself

Data can tell you a lot of the story, but it can’t tell you the whole story. Going to see the process or activity yourself lets you gain a better understanding of what’s truly happening, information that can transcend the data. Solve problems and improve processes by going to the source and personally observing and verifying data rather than theorizing on the basis of what other people or the computer screen tell you.

Seek Perfection

While seeking perfection may seem straightforward, it is often one of the most difficult principles to successfully apply in the workplace. Seeking perfection requires companies to continuously improve their practices and often requires a shift in the workplace culture. All employees should attempt to strive toward perfection while delivering products based on the customer needs.

These principles of lean manufacturing can help companies to operate more efficiently. Implementing lean concepts is beneficial for the bottom line since greater efficiency leads to better profitability. It also creates a positive customer experience which improves overall satisfaction and enhances your brand’s reputation.

Lean Quote: Creativity and Innovation Enhance Business Growth and Development

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.

"Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things."   —  Theodore Levitt

The companies that have done the best over the long haul are those who are the most creative and innovative. These organizations don’t copy what others do; instead, they may use innovative ideas from others as a spring board to come up with a unique application, product, or service for themselves. They tend to distance themselves from the competition rather than compete with them. If they see another company copying what they do, they create something new and better. In other words, they are able to leverage their creativity and their innovative capabilities to attain long-term success.

It’s easy to get confused between creativity and innovation. In many ways they rely on each other. Creativity and innovation are often seen as interchangeable. However, while there is overlap between them, they’re different. It’s important to understand and apply that difference in your innovation strategy.

Creativity is the act of conceiving something new, whether a variation on a theme or something wholly new. It’s about harnessing the power of the mind to conceive new ideas, products plans, thought experiments, tastes, sensations or art. Creativity can be a form of expression or a way of solving problems.

Innovation is the act of putting something into practice. It’s about changing a common or long-standing process by improving it. It’s only by having a status quo in existence, that you can develop it in order to innovate. So, while creativity and innovation share strong links, the processes are entirely different.

Innovation is about taking newly created ideas and developing them into something useful and practical. In many ways, innovation is the process of converting theory into action.

Creativity and innovation can be the pathways for your business to reach new heights of product value, process improvement, productivity, marketing success, and internal harmony.  The creative process can lead to novel ideas and concepts.

Lean Tips Edition #172 (#2791-#2805)

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 #2791 – Reward Innovations and Efficiency to Increase Productivity 

It’s assumed that you hire individuals who have the talent and drive to get the job done to your satisfaction. Let employees know they have your trust and support by giving them the latitude to introduce new methods and seek solutions to boost efficiency, rewarding those who demonstrate true innovation. By encouraging and compensating workers who show independent initiative, you cultivate an environment where workers see a correlation between their own success and that of the company.

Lean Tip #2792 – Supply Professional Development Opportunities

Keep your office up-to-date on the latest technologies and techniques by providing expert group-training sessions. Make outside courses and education opportunities available on a voluntary basis, going as far as to offer reimbursement for course work that enhances employees’ ability to do their jobs. You’ll not only be keeping your staff on the cutting edge while developing talent, but also supporting those with the drive and desire to get ahead.

Lean Tip #2793 – Spotlight Excellence Amongst Your Team

As much as you strive to sets high expectations of productivity, you also need to let individuals know when they have done a great job. Take time at monthly meetings or annual events to spotlight and reward staff members who have demonstrated excellence, going beyond individual awards to recognized entire groups when they have met and exceeded goals. Never underestimate the power of positive reinforcement, where a simple pat on the back or thank you for all the hard work can go a long way toward building relationships and developing loyal, dedicated employees.

Lean Tip #2794 – Make Your Employees Part of the Bigger Picture

Informing the team is key to running a successful business. In order to have great communication and trust, it’s great to talk about the company’s future and goals for the upcoming months or years. This will make them feel valued and demonstrate to them that their hard work is going towards something great for the company.

Lean Tip #2795 – Make Respect a Priority

There’s a difference between respecting employees only for the work they do and respecting them as individuals … and you can bet your employees can tell the difference. Productive employees are employees who feel respected for the people they are.

It’s a simple but very effective strategy to not only increase employee productivity in the workplace but cultivate employees who won’t think twice about going above and beyond for you. 

Encourage employees to express their opinions in meetings. Don’t talk over them or cut them off. Praise good ideas.

Lean Tip #2796 – Trust Employees to Make Decisions

When important information is accessible, everyone will understand the goals of the company and feel empowered to make better decisions independently. Make sure that high-level priorities are communicated to all team members so everyone understands what they’re working toward.

Lean Tip #2797 – Ask Questions For Transparency

Asking questions demonstrates a sense of humility and transparency because you recognize your need to improve and learn. Asking questions is also a great way of encouraging others to explain what they don't know. This environment creates a learning experience where people share their knowledge with others. Transparency in asking questions reveals any additional training that employees need and the difference in employee knowledge. 

Lean Tip #2798 – Make Face-to-Face Interactions a Priority.

Technology has most definitely broken down the barriers of communication. Thanks to email, Teams, or Skype, you can check-in on how your team members are doing, get everyone on the page, or get to know each better. And, while that’s awesome, nothing beats face-to-face communication. 

Walk around the office and strike up conversations with your staff when they’re not focused on their work. Have lunch with them. And schedule one-on-one meetings with them. Not only does this build up your rapport with your employees, but it also allows you to discuss sensitive issues or exchange ideas in a safe and private environment.

Lean Tip #2799 – Encourage Ownership.

When assigning or delegating responsibilities, you can motivate your team by granting them autonomy. For example, instead of micromanaging your team, let them work however they prefer. If possible, allow for flexible schedules and the opportunity to work wherever they like. It’s a simple way to show that you trust them. And it also lessens your workload.

The key is to ask them what they need to get the job done. It’s then up to you to get them this information and resources and coach them from the sidelines.

Lean Tip #2800 – Act on Feedback.

Speaking of feedback, you need to do more than solicit it. You also need to act on it. The reason? It shows that you’ve listened to your employees. And, even better, it lets them know that you’re actively taking measures to improve processes, systems, or even your leadership style.

Even better, get your employees in on the decision-making process. Discussion about decisions is a great way to empower employees and keep them engaged. You will make better business decisions if you listen to additional information form your team before making your final determination.

Lean Tip #2801 – Understand that Leadership is a Privilege. 

Too many bad bosses look on employee problems as an unwelcome intrusion on their time. They unconsciously wonder why the employee can’t “fix” the problem on their own. Instead, treat each such interaction as an opportunity to forge a deeper connection with that employee and revisit the values you want them to hold to and display.

Lean Tip #2802 – Recognize that Your Employees are Human.

They are individual human beings who are driven by fundamental human urges. They also want to be happy and free from suffering. While you have to ensure that organizational goals are met, do so in the context of each person’s personal learning and growth.  It’s your challenge to foster this — it’s also where you should be spending a good chunk of your time.

Lean Tip #2803 – Promote Creativity. 

Procedures have their place in a bureaucracy but they also keep stultify creative impulses. Examine policies that have become entrenched and ask what would happen if you abolished them. Encourage your employees to suggest what should be eliminated and what should be modified. If this is a sincere effort, energy will flow and engagement will rise.

Lean Tip #2804 – Stop Selling to Your Employees, Show Them How Their Contributions Matter 

Stop selling your employees about why they need to perform better.  Explain why their contributions help solve problems and contribute to the company’s advancement.  Employees are more inclined to step up their game when they know their work can add-value to the healthier whole.

For example, I would always show my team the outcome of their collected efforts.   We would go to the manufacturing plant and watch a new product on the production line or to the stores to see new label designs  on the shelves.   Inspire performance by connecting the dots of your employees’ efforts.

It’s not only about what you are trying to sell, but also what the team is able to solve along the way.

Lean Tip #2805 – It’s About Learning, Not Lecturing

Employees are tired of being told what to do.   They are eager to learn and remain relevant.   But they find it difficult to be inspired by leaders who only inflict fear.    In today’s fast-paced world, people don’t have time for lectures; they want continuous coaching and leaders that are paying attention.  Eager to grow, they want objective feedback.

Simplify the process.  Don’t exhaust your employees through complexity and buzz-words.    People seek direction that is too the point.  Remember, most people have mastered the art of execution.  Let your employee do their jobs well by providing the right tools and support to make them better at carrying out their roles & responsibilities.  Be a great teacher, but quickly shift into facilitator mode.   People are inspired when given the opportunity to learn how to do new things. Stop lecturing and start teaching.

Remembering the Ultimate Sacrifice

National Memorial Day in the USA is celebrated on the last Monday in May.

All men and women, who gave their lives while serving in the United States Armed Forces, are commemorated on this day. National Memorial Day is formally known as Decoration Day, the day that commemorated the Union and Confederate soldiers, who died during the American Civil War. Later the day extended to honor all American soldiers, who died while in the military service.

Traditionally, the flag of the USA is raised briskly to the top of the flagstaff, then it is lowered to the half-staff position. This position is chosen in remembrance of those people, who died for their country. At noon the flag is raised to full-staff as the symbol that the memory of dead soldiers is being raised by the living. Their sacrifice was not in vain, that is why we rise up in their honor and continue fighting for liberty and justice.

I’d would like say thank you to those men and women who paid the ultimate price. We will always remember the sacrifices of our nation’s heroes. We are deeply grateful.

In remembering the fallen, we also honor their loved ones: spouses, fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, friends. There really aren’t proper words, but we do live in gratitude each and every day for the precious gift that they have given to us.

“Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy forget in time that men have died to win them.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt

Lean Quote: Standard Work Enables and Facilitates Improvement

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.

"Today’s standardization…is the necessary foundation on which tomorrow’s improvements will be based.  If you think “standardization” as the best you know today, but which is to be improved tomorrow – you get somewhere.  But if you think of standards as confining, then progress stops."   —  Henry Ford in 1926

Standard work is a written description of how a process should be done. It guides consistent execution. At its best, it documents a current “best practice” and ensures that it is implemented throughout a company. At a minimum, it provides a baseline from which a better approach can be developed.

The definition of standard work is “the most effective combination of manpower, materials and machinery”. Standard work is the method, and thereby you have the four Ms of manufacturing (manpower, material, machinery, methods). Standard Work is only “the most effective” until the standard is improved.

Standards to a company are like scales and sheet music to a musician. Our team members help develop and maintain standards, which are not static. Standards change as we get better, just as a good band will incorporate chord and melodic variations if they sound good. Thus, standards do not constrain creativity – they enable it, by providing a basis for comparison, and by providing stability, so we have the time and energy to improve. 

Standardized work comprises:

• Content
• Sequence
• Timing
• Expected outcome

It should also contain tests, or red flags, which tell you when there’s a problem. That way, you won’t ship junk. The tests could be physical, such as a torque check on a bolt, or it could be administrative, like a blacked-out template that fits over a standard form and highlights the critical information.

Standard work enables and facilitates:

• Avoidance of errors, assuring that lessons learned are utilized and not forgotten
• Team learning and training
• Improvements to make the work more effective
• Reduction in variability
• Creation of meaningful job descriptions
• Greater innovation by reducing the mental and physical overhead of repetitive or standardized work

Standard work does not preclude flexibility. You can still do a lot of different jobs, and be able to address new problems. Standard work just takes the things you do repeatedly and makes them routine, so you don’t waste time thinking about them.

Standards are an essential requirement for any company seeking to continuously improve. All continuous improvement methods leverage learning to get better results from their business efforts. Standards provide the baseline references that are necessary for learning. A standard operating procedure supplies a stable platform for collecting performance measurements. The standard and its profile of performance yields the information people need to uncover improvement opportunities, make and measure improvements, and extract learning.

Lean Roundup #144 – May 2021

A selection of highlighted blog posts from Lean bloggers from the month of May 2021.  You can also view the previous monthly Lean Roundups here.

How to Solve Hard Problems with Kaizen Events – Jon Miller discusses how kaizen events help people and organizations solve some of the harder problems.

What is a Healthy Company? – Dan Markovitz shares characteristics of a healthy organization which goes beyond a healthy balance sheet.

Why Do ‘Smart’ People Struggle with Strategy? – Pascal Dennis explains in strategy there is no right answer there is only a right process.

Healthy Organizational Cultures Focus on Humanity and Connection (Not Your Whole Self) – Johanna Rothman describes healthy organizations as those who’s cultures focus on humanity and connections instead of divisiveness.

The Future of Work, and the Workplace, Post-Covid – Jamie Flinchbaugh analyzes some of the changes in a post-pandemic world positive and negative.

Rethinking the Need for Lean – Bob Emiliani discusses how Lean can be the answer for human rights and environmental issues.

Lessons from Twelve Years in Pursuit of Zero – Jon Miller talks about the stunning feat where the U.S. domestic airline industry achieved twelve years without a fatal crash and the lessons applicable to zero accident cultures.

On Learning, Listening, and Wisdom – Kevin Meyer talks about how lean leaders wisdom comes from listening to the knowledge then challenging to find new pathways where other knowledge – and perhaps tools – can be applied.

Is “Red & Green” Really Lean? Process Behavior Charts are Better – Mark Graban explains there is a better way to identify issues using process behavior charts instead of red/green color-coding metrics.

Understand Before You Execute – Jim Morgan share the benefits of understanding this principle of lean product and process development.

Visual Replenishment Delivers for Zingerman’s - Karen Gaudet & Jonathan Katz talk about Zingerman's Mail Order lean journey.

Can You Assess Your Way to Lean? – Jeffrey Liker explains trying to assess your way to lean mechanistically generally fails in achieving high-performing lean systems.

Multiply the Improvers in Your Organization Every Day - Andrew Quibell shares ways you can multiply the number of improvers in your business.

Ask Art: Why Switch from Batch to Lean? – Art Byrne discusses the benefits of moving from traditional batch processes to lean flow improvements.