Lean Quote: The Importance of Good Deeds

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.

"To be doing good deeds is man's most glorious task."   —  Sophocles

It is important to always show kindness to others and be grateful to the ones who showed us compassion. The story “A Glass of Milk” is a great way to teach this important life lesson that we can enjoy.

In a small town, there lived a poor boy who grew up selling newspapers house to house. He used to make enough money to finance his educational expenses.

He was travelling from home to home, like every day, delivering newspapers even when he felt sick and hungry. He felt he couldn't continue much longer. He was so famished that he proceeded to go to one of the houses and ask for food.

When he knocked at the door, he was surprised to see a lovely young lady answer it. He asked the girl for a drink of water after much deliberation. The young lady saw the boy's predicament and offered him a jug of milk.

The boy gulped the milk and thanked the kind-hearted girl with a surprised expression.

"What do I pay you for this milk?" the boy inquired.

"I'm not looking for any compensation for all of this," the girl said softly. The kid greeted the girl again and again from the bottom of his heart and walked away.

Several years had gone by. The young girl was a grown woman. Tragically, the young woman was identified with a very rare form of neurological disorder. She was hospitalised at the best hospital as her health became more critical by the day.

Kevin, a well-known doctor, was available in that hospital. The physicians at the hospital had asked him in specifically to check her. Despite his exceptional expertise, Dr Kevin found the girl's ailment to be extremely difficult to cure.

He was, nevertheless, able to treat her sickness after much perseverance and hard work. The girl was finally cured of the condition after diligent therapy and observation.

All of the doctors complimented him on his dedication. The girl, on the other hand, was concerned about the hospital bill cost.

Her family had just a small sum of money in the bank, which was insufficient to cover the cost of therapy and treatment. Once the girl eventually received the hospital bill, she was taken aback. She accepted the bill with trembling hands.

She was shocked to discover that the bill had been struck out and cancelled and that behind the bill was a message written by Dr Kevin. The letter read, "Bill paid years ago with a glass of milk!"

This story teaches us the importance of good deeds. The story is a perfect example that one good deed leads to another. It was because the young girl from years ago helped a little boy that she received kindness when she needed it the most. The story also teaches us the important lesson on gratefulness. Since the little boy felt gratitude towards the girl he remembered her all through the years and worked hard to become a diligent doctor.

What Does Having an Open Door Policy at Work Mean?

The modern corporate world requires management to be aware of what's happening with their teams at all times. They need to know of employee issues that could impact productivity and operations.

Employees have some expectations as well. They want to work under leaders who are willing and eager to resolve any issues they may have.

An open-door policy is a solution in both cases. It helps managers understand their teams and allows employees to be heard. It is a communication policy that encourages transparency, trust, openness, communication, feedback, and discussion among its managers and employees. It establishes an environment of trust and mutual respect between the employer and employee.

Employees or team members at your company need the liberty to walk up to their senior managers whenever they feel needed. It encourages employees at all levels in the hierarchy to take their workplace concerns, suggestions, or questions to their team leaders or managers. It further helps managers and leaders get a clear perspective of everything that is going on in the workplace.

This culture of mutual respect, trust, and open discussion among employees can bring about a change in the outlook on the workplace as a whole.

Here's how your company stands to benefit from the policy:

Understand Employee Attitudes.

An open-door policy creates a conducive environment for open communication. It effectively allows employees to be more forthcoming about the work-related challenges and concerns they face. As such, this policy helps you understand the attitudes and sentiments of your team.

Higher Levels of Engagement.

One of the best ways of ensuring daily operations run smoothly is by staying in touch with what's happening on the main floor. A true open-door policy actively encourages engagements which leads to an efficient flow of information. And this benefits everyone in the company.

Promotes Transparency.

Everyone knows that transparency is key for an effective leadership style. With an open-door policy, employees feel like they can trust their managers and leaders more because they have access to them whenever they need it. This makes the workplace environment much easier to handle because there are no hidden agendas.

Promotes Communication & Teamwork.

When you have an open-door policy, communication between employees is improved significantly. This type of relationship helps facilitate teamwork within the organization because everyone knows they can coordinate with each other easily and quickly when necessary. It makes the work environment more positive, which ultimately leads to better results.

Improved Workplace Relations.

Keeping managerial doors open, both literally and figuratively, cultivates a culture of openness and transparency. It brings down the walls of superiority, and this improves workplace relationships.

An Open Door Policy helps improve communication flow from bottom to top and from top to bottom. It helps in building trust, mutual understanding and improves the effectiveness of the workplace.

It plays a very significant role among manager interactions with employee relations which helps employee productivity increase and also provides a platform where conflict can be resolved through dialogue.

10 Powerful Lessons from Martin Luther King, Jr.

Today we celebrate and recognize the life and achievement of Martin Luther King Jr. MLK as they say was an American pastor, activist, humanitarian, and leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights using nonviolent civil disobedience based on his Christian beliefs.

We can learn many powerful lessons from the work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

1. Dare To Dream

Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream, and he declared his dream to the world.

He believed in his dream and passionately worked on it to bring it to reality, even though he did not live long enough to witness the full realization of it.

He showed the world to dream big when he declared:

“I have a dream that one day little black boys and girls will be holding hands with little white boys and girls.” – MLK

Even though the dream was not realized in his lifetime, it was realized in ours.

No matter where you are on the journey, believe in your dreams.

Your dreams are valid, no matter how big they are.

Believe in yourself, believe in your dreams, and work hard to make those dreams come true.

You can do it, so go for it!

2. Love People

Martin Luther King Jr. believed in the power of love.

He taught people around him to love.

Love wins always.

He believed that hating people is stooping low and no one should ever fall prey to hate.

“Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.” – MLK

When you return hate for hate, no one wins.

3. Persevere

They incarcerated him on different occasions, which never deterred him from fighting for human rights.

He showed that the fact that you are going through a difficult time does not signal a great time to quit.

Never quit. Just keep moving forward.

“If you can’t fly then run if you can’t run then walk if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.” – MLK

4. Invest In Yourself

He believed in empowering the human mind through education.

He described ignorance as a dangerous thing.

“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” – MLK

While he encouraged education, he also believed the lack of education is not an excuse not to serve.

5. Serve People

If anyone ever exemplified a life of service, Martin Luther King Jr. did.

He believes serving others is the epitome of greatness:

“Everybody can be great … because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.” – MLK

6. Forgive

Be quick to forgive.

Never allow hatred to develop in your heart for anyone.

Preventing hatred starts by learning to forgive quickly.

“Forgiveness is not an occasional act; it is a constant attitude.” – MLK

7. Stand Up For Justice

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” – MLK.

His stance for justice was obvious.

He discouraged keeping quiet in the face of injustice and standing up for what is right.

8. Have Faith

Martin Luther King Jr. was a man of great faith who delighted in doing God’s will.

“I just want to do God’s will. And he’s allowed me to go to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the Promised Land! I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the Promised Land.”- MLK

Throughout his life, his faith in God was obvious in his thoughts, actions, and speech.

9. Step out of Your Comfort Zone

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” – MLK

Successfully pursuing the dream in your heart may involve stepping out of your comfort zone.

10. All Things Are Possible

MLK inspired greatness in people.

He showed us that the human spirit has so much power to accomplish whatever we set our hearts to do.

For him, “impossible” was not an acceptable word.

He dreamed of a future where segregation would be history and everyone would be treated equally regardless of skin color.

He was not only a genuine leader; he was a great leader.

He did not search for consensus but molded consensus.

Martin Luther King Jr. changed the course of the human race.

King's impressive command of the above leadership lessons led to truly historic success. They hold powerful lessons for all leaders, and underscore the courage and persistence needed to change the world. Leaders who want to change minds and overcome deeply entrenched prejudices, biases, and misguided values need to master the eight lessons profiled above and illustrated through Dr King's words and deeds.

Lean Quote: Persistence Makes all the Difference

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.

"Never quit. It is the easiest cop-out in the world. Set a goal and don't quit until you attain it. When you do attain it, set another goal, and don't quit until you reach it. Never quit."   —  Bear Bryant 

When you’re pursuing a worthwhile goal it’s almost inevitable that at some point you’ll think one or more of the following: 

“This is harder than I thought it would be.” 

“Why is this taking so long?” 

“I’m getting nowhere with this.” 

“I keep failing at this goal.” 

“I can’t do this. What was I thinking?” 

And when you do have one—or more—of these thoughts, it’s very likely that you’ll want to give up. 

Not giving up is a mindset. And it’s a mindset that you can adopt. What you do need is to constantly tell yourself the following: 

I persist when things get tough. 

I will either find a way or make one. 

Every problem has a solution, and I have the perfect ability to find it. 

Every day I gain more knowledge and insight about what works and what doesn’t, which means I’m getting stronger and wiser. 

Setbacks are temporary. 

I will find a way through this. 

Think! What’s the best thing to do now? 

Having an “I won’t quit” mindset will make it much easier for you to persist—and refuse to give up—until you achieve your goal. 

When you feel like quitting, look at all your reasons why your goal is so important to you. If need be, add even more reasons why. The greater the quantity of reasons—and the stronger the reasons—that you have to keep going, the more likely it is that you won’t quit. 

Refusing to give up doesn’t mean that you should simply keep doing the same thing over and over again. If the approach that you’re currently using isn’t working, try a different approach. Continue in this way until you find a method, technique, or strategy that does work. 

When you want to quit, push yourself to keep taking consistent action toward the achievement of your goal. Even if you haven’t seen results yet, you never know what may be happening underneath the surface. 

Just because you can’t see anything yet, although you’ve been working on your goal for awhile, this doesn’t mean that nothing is happening. You may be closer to achieving your dream than you think. Don’t give up, when you could be just moments away from succeeding. Keep chipping away. 

Achieving large, hairy goals isn’t easy. Somewhere along the way it’s very likely that you’ll want to quit. But when you feel like quitting, don’t give up. Live your best life by refusing to quit. 

 

Got to the Gemba with a Plan and Purpose

You can’t make the right decisions from the meeting room. You have to go, watch, and learn. In Lean, we talk about “going to the Gemba” or Gemba Walks. The Gemba means the “place where value is created”. The idea is simple; if you want to improve your business, you need to learn more about your processes, your people, your customers, you need to go and see for yourself. 

Managers and business leaders today are often so separated from the actual work by corporate structures. They have not seen the process. They have not spoken to any customers. And they don’t even talk to the people who do the work daily. 

When you make decisions at arm’s length – there is no real understanding of what is happening. Often this causes customers and employees more pain. If you want to make a difference, go and see for yourself and learn what your employees need you to do to make customers happier. 

The Gemba is also the place you go just not to learn but also to lead others. It is where you train your people, invest in colleagues learnings and spend time engaging directly with your customers. 

Planning for the Gemba can make a difference in earning the right of being respected as a leader. Going with purpose accomplishes small but daily wins, it is how momentum is built. Conversations with value stream workers will be constructive and target conditioned based. 

How to plan for your next Gemba walk: 

1. Identify the Purpose for the Gemba Walk 

Before you go on any Gemba Walk, you must identify what is the purpose of the Gemba Walk and what is the theme. You might be looking for ways to improve productivity, reduce costs, reduce errors, improve flow or help facilitate improvement ideas. But you need to be clear on the purpose otherwise you will get lost and tied up in whatever is happening on the floor without clear improvements and outcomes. 

2. Ensure you understand the process you are about to observe 

If you do not know the high-level process that you are about to observe, the chances are that you will not be able to fully grasp the opportunities that exist. So before you begin any Gemba Walk, make sure you understand what you are about to observe so that you can provide the necessary support, guidance and insights. 

3. Recognize how the process performs in its current state 

During the Gemba Walk, the goal is always to be focused on the process and what stops the process from achieving its goals of maximizing customer value. So as you observe the process, consider the inputs into the process and are they fit for purpose. And how does the process, the inputs and the teams interact. 

Before jumping to solutions or opportunities, make sure you spend time observing and carefully understand how the current start is performing. Is the process performing as expected or is there delays, rework, confusion, movement etc? 

4. Visualize the gap between the ideal state and what actually happens 

Now that you have understood the current status, what is the best ideal state and where are the gaps. The ideal state does not have to be a perfect future state but an achievable ideal state (given a number of restrictions). What you want to identify here is what is the gap that can potentially then be closed. 

5. Look for opportunities for improvements to close the gap 

With a clear gap between the current and the ideal, what activities could be done by the team, managers, team leaders to help close this gap. Engage with the team, discuss options and build a document action plan for driving improvements. 

Gemba walks are a valuable way to improve business performance by identifying what is really happening on the shop floor. By taking steps to plan your Gemba walk, you’ll begin to overcome the mistakes of having to ad-lib, positioning yourself to be a more respected, effective, and successful leader. 

Management by Wandering Around is Not a Thing

Recently I was reviewing a management book by AMA that described many management practices to improve your ability. There was one that struck me as a bit outdated, Management by Wandering Around, also management by walking around (MBWA). 

In the early 1980’s, management gurus Tom Peters and Robert Waterman used the term ‘management by walking around’ (MBWA) to describe a style of business management which involves managers wandering around, in an unstructured manner, through the workplace(s), at random, to check with employees, equipment, or on the status of ongoing work. The emphasis is on the word wandering as an unplanned movement within a workplace, rather than a plan where employees expect a visit from managers at more systematic, pre-approved or scheduled times. 

The expected benefit is that a manager, by random sampling of events or employee discussions, is more likely to facilitate improvements to the morale, sense of organizational purpose, productivity and total quality management of the organization, as compared to remaining in a specific office area and waiting for employees, or the delivery of status reports, to arrive there, as events warrant in the workplace. 

Managers who did this received more information for problem-solving and got better results than those who stayed in their offices. In a way, MBWA is a variation on the system used in many organizations, where new managers rotate through each department to learn how things operate across the firm. Similarly, managers get a first-hand view of what is happening by walking around the organization. Doing so, they don’t have to wait for problems and challenges to be brought to them, nor do they have to depend on another’s perception of an issue. 

Don’t get me wrong managers should get out of their office and participate in the work affairs of employees. But MBWA has often devolved into walking around, saying hello, and slapping people on the back. That's not very helpful. 

Too many manager only come in long enough to make an appearance, but don’t spend time making any real connection. Such drive-byes feel like you’re checking off a to-do. Equally destructive is showing up, and heading to a nearby office to close the door and take calls.  

With the wrong tone and an imbalanced lens, all those “helpful pointers” feel more like “gotchas.” It’s great to point out what can be done better, along with stories and sharing of best practices, but be sure you’re also looking for the good news. I’ve seen many execs come through sweating all the small stuff that was “wrong” and completely overlooking the huge accomplishments of the team.  

Visiting the shopfloor (Gemba) is about listening and learning. Sure, it’s great to reinforce priorities, but be sure you’re really taking the time to listen to ideas and concerns and to ask what you can do to be most helpful. Listen well, take great notes, follow-up with the person who shared their idea. 

As you visit an area, ask earnest questions about how each team member’s work is going, improvements they’d like to see, and areas of concern. Get to know each of them on a personal level, too—nothing too intimate but enough to show you care about their well-being and appreciate them. 

While visiting the Gemba there are many people observing your moves, interpreting your words, and generally trying to understand your motives. It is here where you can build much needed trust, slowly removing the “us and them” culture. The Gemba is your audience so be prepared, each and every visit. Do not be naive to think you can get way with ad-libbing. 

In the next post I’ll talk about how you can go to the Gemba with a plan and purpose. 

Lean Quote: Setting Goals is the First Step to Accomplishing Anything Meaningful

On Fridays I will post a Lean related Quote. Throughout our lifetimes many people touch our lives and leave us with words of wisdom. These can both be a source of new learning and also a point to pause and reflect upon lessons we have learned. Within Lean active learning is an important aspect on this journey because without learning we can not improve.

"The trouble with not having a goal is that you can spend your life running up and down the field and never score."   —  Bill Copeland

This is the time of year when people are trying to turn over a new leaf. The beginning of the year marks a point where people make New Year’s Resolutions. Unfortunately, many fail to keep those resolutions. In fact, 81 percent of resolution's fail within two years. The top New Year's resolutions rarely change year to year. The most popular typically revolve around losing weight, managing stress, getting out of debt, quitting smoking, and learning a new skill.

Personally I recommend forgetting the whole concept of resolutions and concentrating on setting goals instead. Resolutions and goal setting may seem similar, but resolutions typically take a let's start something and see what happens approach, while goal setting is about planning a specific path to success.

Goal setting is a process whereby you decide what you want to achieve and set up a plan to do it.  The very first step of goal setting is to, first, determine what you want at the end of the journey. That is your ultimate destination.  Some people say that goal setting is just a matter of sitting down and deciding what to do.  If you fully intend to achieve your goals, you should perceive goal setting as an extremely powerful process of personal planning.

These practical tips on goal setting can help make it easier to set and reach goals:

Specific, realistic goals work best. When it comes to making a change, the people who succeed are those who set realistic, specific goals. And that makes it easier to stick with.

It takes time for a change to become an established habit. It will probably take a couple of months before any changes — like getting up half an hour early to exercise — become a routine part of your life. That's because your brain needs time to get used to the idea that this new thing you're doing is part of your regular routine.

Repeating a goal makes it stick. Say your goal out loud each morning to remind yourself of what you want and what you're working for. (Writing it down works too.) Every time you remind yourself of your goal, you're training your brain to make it happen.

Involve others. It is always good to involve others in the process of setting and achieving goals. Take advice when necessary. And don’t be rigid. There are people out there who are better at this. Their suggestions are always valuable.

Make an action plan. So you have set goals, written them down and now you are all set to start working towards achieving them. First step – make an action plan. There could be more than one method to achieve a goal. Which one suits you? Decide on it.

Track progress. Extremely important. If you don’t track progress, you don’t get an idea if you are going the right way and if you would ever achieve it in the time frame you had set in your mind. So track your progress everyday. There are various methods and tools to track progress and I’ll discuss them in detail in my next article.

Roadblocks don't mean failure. Slip-ups are actually part of the learning process as you retrain your brain into a new way of thinking. It may take a few tries to reach a goal. But that's OK — it's normal to mess up or give up a few times when trying to make a change. So remember that everyone slips up and don't beat yourself up about it. Just remind yourself to get back on track.

Persist. Don’t give up. As I mentioned, there could be many paths leading to the same destination. Try out different methods. Learn and improve. Be patient. Be persistent.

No strategy is set in stone, which makes the goal setting process a dynamic endeavor. Consider yourself a coach on the sidelines, continuously referring to playbooks and constantly re-evaluating strategies and players or making adjustments at halftime. Set goals, and execute on them—but be sure to evaluate those goals year-round, not solely during performance reviews. The more you monitor individual objectives, the greater the likelihood that they will be on target and fulfilled.