Lean Quote: Leaders Focus on Solutions, Followers Focus on Problems

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.

"Leaders think and talk about the solutions. Followers think and talk about the problems."   —  Brian Tracy  

Do you want to lead a team of individuals in the future? Ask yourself, do you wish to lead with just nagging about the problems, or do you wish to have problem solutions?

There is a big difference between the leaders who count on personal achievements and those that count on group achievements. Real leadership encompasses:

• Leaders are more focused on the solution.
• Self-awareness and self-confidence sums up a leader.
• Leaders work as a team and not as an individual.
• Humbleness differentiates a leader and a follower.
• A leader has to be proactive and initiate problem-solving.

Let us look at some of the main elements as to what qualities a leader must-have.

Sense of Effective Direction

Leaders are the individuals that direct the whole organization and businesses as per their experience and knowledge. They know where to move on to and immediately work on it. If any problem is faced, they are the first ones to resolve it and set ahead.

Goal-Oriented – Leaders Lead, and Followers Follow

Keeping an eye always for the goal can turn out to be the most crucial quality. As you want to achieve the heights of success in your industry, you need to maintain and achieve time on time.

Provide Problem Solutions and Work on Them

When you develop yourself as a leader, everybody will look up to you to get solutions to their problems. Leadership is like an encouragement that people need from you. So, you will not only help others, but also you will encourage them to get out of the problems quickly.

Believe in Yourself First and let Followers Lead

When you can help others and inspire them, you will have a new kind of satisfaction in yourself. Believe in yourself first, then you’ll be able to make your team believe in achieving the set goal. Allow them to speak up and be a good listener as well. Free them to take up their own decisions, and some might come up with great solutions.

A leader doesn’t bush around the problems they come up with. They simply work on the solutions. Whereas followers only think of the problems they are facing. The larger goal is far away from their vision, because of that they can’t come up with problem solutions.

The Unexpected Benefit of Celebrating Failure

Many people shy away from failure. There’s constant wonder and worry about what will happen to an individual when they fail, especially in their place of work. However, celebrating failure can and often brings unexpected success. I want to share a TedTalk by the Head of X (formerly Google X), Astro Teller, where he introduces the “Moonshot Factory” where his team works to solve the world’s biggest problems, and celebrates failure as a necessity for success.

Here are a few tips from today’s TedTalk:

• Run at the most challenging parts of the problem at hand first. Failures will often lead you to the path of success.
• Shift your perspective. Sometimes shifting your perspective is more powerful than being smart or right.
• Encourage the path of least resistance. Make it a safe space to fail and reward and celebrate failures. This can come in the form of hugs, high-fives, applause, promotions, or even bonuses.

Encouraging teams to take on only the most ambitious projects and allowing them to fail at them is what leads to profoundly amazing things. At X, that means celebrating teams that kill their good projects. These teams are applauded, literally, in front of the rest of the organization. They receive bonuses and vacations for recognizing that their project will fail to be great. And for newcomers to X, this can all seem a little odd.

But as a leader, Teller considers himself a “culture engineer” and believes strongly in the power of social norms. Creating a set of social norms that promote psychological safety is key to getting the best from your team. Teller said that most teams “don't think it's safe to tell you that the business plan that you asked them to make isn't really great. It's just good. Wouldn't that be amazing if they would actually tell you that, because you don't want them working on something that's good but not great. You want to unleash them, but you have to know first. And you're not operationally enough in the details to even know. They're the only people who really know.”

I hope that this TedTalk inspires you to celebrate your failures and to create an environment that encourages the path of least resistance. 

Personal Habits All Leaders Should Nurture

Image Source: Pexels.com

Only 21% of respondents in a recent Gallup survey strongly agreed with the statement that they trusted the leadership in their organization. And 34% strongly agreed their manager creates a trusting and open environment.

These numbers are incredibly low considering the ultimate goal is for every employee to trust leaders, be inspired by them, and feel they can trust and communicate openly with supervisors. Great leadership can produce high-performing employees who are engaged and energized in their roles.

Becoming an outstanding leader requires you to intentionally develop your skills in the workplace while also prioritizing personal habits that support your growth. If leaders adopt these habits, their abilities in the workplace and impact on employees will improve drastically.

Learn to Communicate Effectively

You must communicate effectively with people if you want to have a lasting positive impact on them.

Communication helps you discover pertinent things about your employees, like the accommodations they need to work effectively, how their personal life impacts them, and how they feel about their role. Effective communication is also critical for ensuring team and individual tasks and projects are completed and workplace productivity persists.

You can practice effective communication in your relationships and bring what you learn to work with you. For example, let’s say you and your spouse disagree. You’re able to work it out after actively listening to their concerns, validating them, and coming up with a solution that works for both of you.

You can use the same framework in any disagreements you have with your employees or in the ones they have with each other. Actively listen, validate concerns, and present personalized solutions that fit you and your employees.

It’s also a good idea to make notes about each employee’s preferred communication method and style to ensure you’re communicating with each person in ways they can resonate with.

Reflect Often

Leaders are busy. For starters, leaders are responsible for meetings with stakeholders and other company leaders, managing an entire team, and ensuring individual leadership projects are completed.

Being always on the go like this hardly leaves time to reflect on what’s happened in and out of the workplace. But you must make time for self-reflection. You can analyze what’s worked and what hasn’t. You can become much more self-aware and understand how you’re affecting yourself and others.

Carve out time each night to reflect on the day you’ve had. You can make it a part of your bedtime routine and journal about what happened. You can use your nighttime walks with your dog to reflect. You could even do some reflecting in the shower.

Wherever you can find space and time for honest reflection, take advantage of it.

Exercise Regularly

Regular exercise can do wonders for your leadership abilities. The Mayo Clinic says that physical activity offers the following benefits:

●       Socialization

●       Deeper sleep

●       Improve muscle strength and better endurance

●       Helps control your weight and maintain weight loss

●       Prevent chronic health conditions like diabetes and high blood pressure

When you’re able to socialize and interact with your employees, you can build real relationships with them. Deeper sleep allows you to rest and reset for each day. When you’re at a healthy weight, strong, and able to do things longer, you can put more into your work. 

In addition to the above benefits, exercise can be a solid stress reliever. If being a leader comes with anything, it’s stress. You’re responsible for a lot of people, projects, and company goals. That pressure can be overwhelmingly stressful at times. A healthy coping mechanism for stress helps you navigate turbulent times better. It also helps you bounce back quicker.

When and how often you exercise is up to you. Fitting short routines into your morning, lunch period, or evening will be most beneficial and easier to remain consistent with.

Prioritize Sleep

The Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion said that getting enough sleep can reduce stress, improve your mood, help you think more clearly, have better interactions with people, improve decision-making, and help you perform better at work. 

You need all of these things as a leader. So, prioritizing sleep is a must. Establishing a bedtime routine can help you get the 7 or more hours of quality sleep each night you need. A bedtime routine can help tip your body off that it’s time for bed, easing a natural transition to sleep.

Start small with your routine. Don’t make it a chore by adding a bunch of activities to it. Stick to a couple and add more as you see fit. Choose calming activities that are tailored to who you are and your specific needs. Keep your routine under 30 minutes and stay consistent to regulate your body’s circadian rhythm.

Nurture Personal Passions

As important as you are in the workplace, your leadership role can’t be everything. In other words, you need a life outside of work to maintain balance in your life. Without a healthy work-life balance, you risk burning out and becoming a less effective leader.

Give your personal passions the same attention you give your work responsibilities. Not only do personal passions provide a way to reduce stress and relax, but they can also help improve your confidence and self-esteem because you’re doing something that allows you to nurture your authentic self.

Spend time on your passions weekly if not daily to keep you grounded.

Shape Your Company’s Workplace Culture

Working on yourself personally through the above habits will translate well into your leadership role in the workplace, particularly when it comes to shaping your company’s culture.

Effective communication, reflection, health and wellness, work-life balance — all of it can and should be incorporated into the workplace culture you build for your team. A positive workplace culture such as this can increase employee engagement, lower your turnover rate, and draw top talent to your company.

Take the feedback your employees give you about the company culture they need and the core values in your personal and professional life, fuse them, and come up with a vision for your company culture.

It’ll take time to see it come to fruition. So, be patient, continue to learn, and incorporate policies, procedures, resources, support, and values little by little.

All leaders must take the time to nurture specific personal habits to be the best they can be, starting with the ones above.  

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.

Lean Quote: Build Employee Engagement by Believing in Your People

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.

"My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me."   —  Jim Valvano  

A great leader can easily instill confidence among the staff. In order to maintain the positive work atmosphere which inspires creative thinking and new ideas, staff members have to feel confident about their work. A leader that simply nitpicks about everything and demonstrates extremely negative reactions for every mistake made will eventually ruin the positive energy in the work environment and ruin the self-confidence of the majority of staff members. A great and effective leader can inspire staff members to improve their performance and productivity by actively working on their confidence improvements. Publicly acknowledging those who perform well in certain areas can significantly contribute to this cause.

There are several ways that the leadership can show that they care about employees. Having a genuine belief in the people who make the organization successful starts with small steps.

Communicate Appreciation

Putting an employee recognition program into place is relatively simple. Give front line managers the guidance and resources that they need to regularly recognize employees for a job well done. Make employee recognition and praise a part of the workplace culture. Connect specific performance to organizational goals, but also to the professional and personal goals of the people who work there.

Support Professional Development

One of the best investments a company can make is to develop the talents and interests of employees. Host work-related workshops to teach new skills, and create a corporate tuition support for employees who wish to pursue industry certifications and degrees. By doing these things, you are communicating that you believe in your employees.

Offer Salary Incentives

Give employees the ability to “write” their own salary increases based on their performance and reaching learning milestones. As employees complete certifications, degree, or work training programs, give them the chance to earn more. Increase salaries well in advance of performance reviews, and then use this time to encourage and inspire them to go beyond their goals.

Celebrate Employees

It’s a great idea to celebrate company achievements, but it’s even more worthwhile to believe in and then celebrate employee successes. When an employee reaches a milestone or completes a goal, take the time to celebrate this in front of his or her peers. Make teams about supporting each other and then rejoicing when someone on that team succeeds.

As the organization shifts to believing in employees, it becomes much easier for employees to believe in the company. Goals become a personal link to the greater good that the organization stands for. Use the above steps to increase belief in your people and they will believe in the company.

Key Questions For Strategy Deployment

Strategy is not about doing the important things but rather the process of choosing, the responsibility of leaders to grasp the situation and decide the plan forward.  I always tell others that strategy deployment is a focusing mechanism. This is about sharpening your focus by selecting the vital few breakthrough objectives.

The strategy deployment process identifies and concentrates resources on the vital few stretch achievements that support the vision. It separates those performance issues that require dramatic improvement from the many incremental improvements that can achieved at the local level. All the changes that the leadership believes to be incremental are skimmed out of the strategic plan and addressed through quality in daily work. The remaining category of contribution – the vital few breakthrough achievements – becomes the heart of the strategy deployment process.

Asking intelligent questions is critical for executives who are responsible for making decisions and setting corporate strategy. Below are a series of questions that you can use that evaluate strategy comprehensively.

Breakthrough Objectives Questions

• Can the “Breakthrough Objective” be measured?
• Do “Breakthrough Objectives” clearly tie to your Strategic Plan Objectives?
• Is the advantage unique enough to distinguish ourselves from competition?
• Do the breakthrough objectives clearly indicate how we consider winning 3-5 years down the line?
• Have you stretched your target past the 3-5 year outlook that would be considered breakthrough performance?
• Has the team reached consensus that these are the critical few breakthroughs that will lead to competitive advantage?

Annual Objective Questions

• Can the “Annual Objectives” be measured?
• Do “Annual Objectives” clearly tie to your breakthroughs?
• Is the advantage unique enough to distinguish ourselves from competition?
• Is the “Annual Objective” stretched to carve out a good chunk of the breakthrough objective where it would be considered a healthy challenge for the organization?
• Can actions realistically be taken within a 1 year time frame in order to achieve the result (assess time to implement plus pull through results)?
• Has the team reached consensus that these are the critical few “ Annual Objectives” that will lead to competitive advantage?

Improvement Priorities Questions

• Can the “Improvement Priority” be measured?
• Do “Improvement Priorities” clearly tie to your “Annual Objectives” ?
• Is the “Improvement Priority” specific to a business value stream and what action will be taken to deliver a result?
• Is the action to be taken a new approach or the same as current operations? (If it is the latter, you may need to dive deeper into what you will do differently or better)
• Can actions be taken within a 1 year time frame in order to achieve this Improvement priority (implementation time + results achieved)?
• Does the improvement priority have potential to become a standard part of the business? (i.e. Daily Management)
• Has the team reached consensus that these are the critical few “ Improvement Priorities” that will lead to competitive advantage?

Targets to Improve Questions

• Can the “Targets to Improve” realistically impact
• Improvement Priorities
• Annual Objective
• Breakthrough Objective – if achieved with long term sustainment
• Are the “Targets to Improve” SMART?
• Are there both leading and lagging indicators?
• Can the “Targets to Improve” be measured and maintained routinely to meet our monthly cadence review?
• Has the team reached consensus that these are the critical few “Targets to Improve” that will lead to a competitive advantage?

By posing the right questions, you can help assure the best outcomes for your organization.

If I had to take one lesson from my business experience it is without focus you are lost.  Infinity is not available to us in this life.  Time and money are limited and as such we must utilize these limited resources effectively.  I can see no way to achieve our objectives other than to utilize discretion, prioritization and selection.  For after all, some things are simply more critical and more important.

Focus on Feedback Instead of Criticism

Getting feedback on both a personal and professional level is critical to an individual’s development and advancement. However, if the feedback is done incorrectly, it may sound like criticism.

This can damage the relationship between the leader and the follower, but it doesn’t have to be that way. The person in authority must recall that there is a clear difference between criticism vs. feedback. Namely, criticism is damaging and hurtful. There’s nothing positive in it. In contrast, feedback is beneficial, useful, and constructive.

So, what’s the distinction between feedback and criticism?

Criticism is judgmental. It’s all about pointing the finger and accusing the recipient of something negative. It’s about condemnation and saying, “Look what you did wrong.” Moreover, there is usually an assumption made concerning the motives of the recipient. As a result, there’s the connotation that the recipient’s worth as an employee and as an individual, is “less than.” The employee’s superior who criticizes often comes across as authoritarian, condescending, and arrogant.

In stark contrast, feedback can be motivating and even inspirational. It doesn’t overwhelm the recipient with negativity and revolves around issues that can be changed. Feedback is never intended as an attack, but rather to inform. The person giving the feedback has the opportunity to gain the perspective of the recipient and can be incredibly motivating when willing to help the employee reach or exceed expectations as part of a “team effort.”

Now that you know what effective feedback looks like, it’s time to get down to the nitty gritty—how to actually deliver constructive feedback with as little pain as possible.

Follow these oure steps to give valuable feedback:

Step 1- Ask if You Can Give Feedback

• “Communication is what the listener does.” – Peter Drukker
• Respects the individual, and their situation
• If someone says “No” twice, then the ask turns to “I need to talk to you.”
• Starts with: “May I give you some feedback?” or “Can I share something with you?”

Step 2- Describe the Specific Behavior

• Descriptions should be about behavior not the person
• Descriptions about behavior need to be as specific as possible
• Starts with: “When you…”
• Avoid starting with: “I think…”, “I feel…”, or “I’ve noticed…”

Step 3- Describe the Impact of the Behavior on Self or Others

• Describe the consequences (positive or negative) that result from the action
• Impact could be self or others- focus on the one that is most impactful to the individual
• Starts with: “Here’s what happens…”, “The impact of your actions are…”

Step 4- Next Steps

• Feedback is about the future not the past.
• This step is the most critical. What is it that you want the person to do differently?
• The solution should come from the individual, not the manager.
• Starts with: “What can you do differently?” or “Thank you, keep it up!”

Giving effective feedback is key to building strong teams and high-performing companies. That’s why so many organizations focus on creating a culture of feedback.

Positive employee feedback and constructive feedback can:

• Boost employee loyalty
• Strengthen team bonds
• Promote mentorship
• Improve performance
• Increase employee engagement

In fact, Gallup found that when managers provide weekly constructive feedback, employees were 5.2x more likely to strongly agree that they receive meaningful feedback and 3.2x more likely to strongly agree they are motivated to do outstanding work.

Bottom line: When and how you give feedback matters. So make it count.

Lean Quote: Power of Time Management

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.

"Standing still is the fastest way of moving backwards in a rapidly changing world."   —  Lauren Bacall   

Time-based competition is a demonstration of the power of time management, and how companies can use it to gain a competitive advantage. For companies that make best use of time as they respond and adapt to changes in the market and other possible conditions and obstacles, they will gain an adaptive advantage. But time-based competition is about more than just viewing time as a critical resource, it’s about time as the basis of strategy.

George Stalk and Thomas Hout, both of The Boston Consulting Group, wrote, Competing Against Time: How Time-Based Competition Is Reshaping the Global Economy in 1990.  This book was one of the first to identify the importance of time as a competitive advantage.

Based on their research, they outline four rules of responsiveness that the value-delivery systems of corporations are subject to:

The .05 to 5 Rule
Most products and many services are actually receiving value for only 0.05 to 5 percent of the time they are in the value-delivery systems of their companies.

The 3/3 Rule
The waiting time has 3 components, which are the time lost while waiting for:
- Completion of the batch a particular product or service is part of
- Completion of the batch ahead of the batch a particular product or service is part of
- Management to get around to making and executing the decision to send the batch on to the next step of the value added process

The ¼-2-20 Rule
For every quartering of the time interval required to provide a service or product, the productivity of labor and of working capital can often double, resulting is as much as a 20% reduction in costs.

The 3 x 2 Rule
Companies that cut the time consumption of their value-delivery systems experience growth rates of 3 times the industry average and 2 times the profit margins.

The golden rule of time based competitiveness is to never delay a customer value adding step by a non-value adding step.  Instead, seek to do such steps in parallel.

Competition expressed in response time is known as time-based competition. Companies engaged in time-based competition seek to reduce the amount of time devoted during each stage of the general cycle by eliminating non-value-adding from activities, shortening time, and efficiently coordinating value-adding activities.

When response time to consumer needs is shorter than the one demonstrated by rivals, the company can achieve a greater competitive advantage and, frequently, tends to be dominant and is expressed in speed, which contributes to short delivery time, lower costs, higher quality, flexibility, and credible delivery.