Guess the Procedure, Win a Prize

A job site requested some crucial items from head office but wasn't getting a timely response. Repeated phone and email inquiries got no action, and work at the site ground to a halt waiting for these items. It turned out that the coordinator at head office was waiting for her superior to tell her it was OK before releasing the items to the site. She "couldn't send that without authorization, the site manager should know that."

Digging further, there was no procedure at this company for how the site was supposed to request this kind of item from head office. A previous supervisor had yelled at the coordinator when she had sent items to site that he hadn't approved of. So, to protect herself, the coordinator had, within her own mind, made up a procedure that required her direct supervisor to tell her, in person, to go ahead with such shipments.

Creating a spontaneous procedure is a great initiative, it helps get the job done more easily the next time. But people have to know about a procedure in order to follow it. And, since fear had made the coordinator more concerned with protecting herself than with serving her (internal) customer, she never bothered to tell the site what she was waiting for.

So, lot's of learning points:

1. People will make up procedures, where the company has none. They have to in order to survive. We need to tap into this initiative and have some way to capture, document, and spread the use of these procedures.
2. Procedures need to be known to all parties invovled.
3. People should work for their customers, not for their boss. The coordinator was focused on how to stay on the boss's good side, rather than on how to help the site move the job forward. This is management's responsibility to drive fear out of the workplace.
4. Communication helps, lack of communication hurts. The coordinator didn't tell the site what the next step in "her procedure" was, she just put things on hold until she heard from her boss.

Procedures can be beautiful. But they have to be documented, understood by all involved, and focused on adding value to the customer.

Don't Just Say No

"Just Say No" is good advice when asked to do drugs or to vote for Sarah Palin. But when you're responding to suggestions from employees, from your direct reports, from students, or from anyone over whom you have authority, resist the temptation to "Just Say No."

A couple of incidents this week revealed two common responses to a boss figure who just said "no":

• In one organization, a very enthusiastic, top-performing employee brought a suggestion to management and was shocked that it was abruptly dismissed, with comments like "that would be totally inappropriate", "that's unacceptable" and "this stops here." The employee felt completely shut down and disrespected, and it was pretty obvious that the boss wasn't receptive to further discussion on the issue. Despite this, the employee was convinced that the idea would be very good for the organization. So, with a positive yet rebellious spirit, the employee went underground and worked to implement the idea anyway. The boss soon found out, and came down hard with disciplinary action. Things got ugly. Relationships got damaged. Motivation plummeted.
• In a second organization, employees had gotten quite used to their suggestions being dismissed, with some variation of "we tried that before" or "that wouldn't work here". Over time, the employees completely stopped voicing their suggestions. When management then ran into a problem that they couldn't solve and asked employees for help, nobody would volunteer solutions. Subsequent third-party interviews with staff revealed that they had many ideas that might have been helpful, but were resentful and hurt enough to "let management figure it out for themselves, since they're so smart." 

In both cases, the boss said no. In some cases, there was attempt at explanation, as in "we tried that before." But, in neither case did the boss invest any time in dialogue with the employee to gain common understanding.

In the first case, dialogue with the enthusiastic employee might have allowed the boss to see the value in the suggestion, or allowed the employee to see why it validly needed to be modified to be effective in the organization. If they could have gained common understanding of each others' point of view, they would have been able to come up with a modified suggestion that would have been truly fantastic. Even if the boss had been able to leave a door open for the employee to present a modified suggestion, the toxic ugliness could have been avoided.

In the second case, dialogue with the employees could have helped them see why their suggestions actually wouldn't work, or it could have helped management see how the ideas might work now where they wouldn't have before. Without dialogue, the employees felt ignored and rejected, and stopped volunteering any of their creative energy, even when asked.

So, when subordinates bring ideas to you, invest some time in dialogue, and make it clear that you value their suggestions. If you have to say "No", work to gain common understanding, and draw out and validate the employee's reactions and emotions, leaving the door open for future suggestions and creative input.

When it comes to employee suggestions, just say no to Just Saying No.

Convincing More Convincingly

A food-processing company was preparing a communication plan to help with the rollout of some new processing equipment. As part of this effort, management considered all of the methods for getting the word out to the employees; the comprehensive plan included monthly newsletters, informative emails, personal conversations and staff meetings, and management felt confident that the plan would effectively tell employees what was happening. The wording chosen for all of these messages was positive and upbeat, emphasizing the benefits of the new system, with carefully selected quotes to show how good everything would be.

This is typical of many communication plans:

1. Figure out the message you want to convey, to executives, to middle managers, to staff, to customers.
2. Spin the message so it's unfailingly positive and enthusiatic
3. Choose media for delivering that message.

This is also typical of why many communication plans, and many change efforts, don't work all that well.

Whenever things are changed in your organization, it affects people. So, in good faith, we try to prevent resistance by improving communication, by keeping people informed. We increase the quantity of information that we send out. We focus on the positive aspects of the change. We try to convince people that the change will be good. We do more and more talking, in whatever form, to try to be more and more convincing.

To uncover and address resistance to change, we need to acknowledge that change truly does impact people. Very few changes are all butterflies and rainbows. The people doing the jobs are the experts at their jobs, and will have valid suggestions, valid fears, and valid concerns. Communication plans should focus as much on making sure people are heard as on keeping people informed.

As managers, we need to learn to listen to our people, to uncover and validate their concerns. Consider H.B. Karp's Positive Approach to Resistance, which is founded on two well-supported assumptions:

1. Resistance is real. People will always resist, knowingly or not, those things that they perceive as not in their best self-interest.
2. Resistance needs to be honored. It must be dealt with in a respectful manner or it will resurface.

As part of your communication plans, consider learning and implementing Karp's positive approach to resistance. This includes four separate steps, each of which should be completed before moving on to the next:

1. Surface the issues. Make it safe to voice concerns, and use active listening and interviewing techniques to draw out all the concerns.
2. Honor the resistance. Make it clear that it is OK to resist, it is natural to resist, and that surfaced concerns are legitimate.
3. Explore the issues. Strive to fully understand what the concerns are, rather than discounting them or explaining them away. Try to truly see what it looks like from the others' point of view. Then ask for help to figure out how to move forward in a way that would be least distressing, and most positive.
4. Recheck. Close the loop and re-examine the feelings and concerns about the issues, and about the path forward. Often, the resistance issues are no longer important, because they have been heard and understood. If not, rechecking sets a new starting point for followup sessions, in which you can continue to explore and resolve the resistance positively.

If all this mumbo-jumbo is Greek to you, consider the words of Epictetus (Stoic Greek Philosopher) - “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” Your communication plans should include more listening than talking, surfacing the issues rather than pretending that they don't exist.

What We've Got Here is a Failure to Communicate

Why do our organizations get off track? Why do our projects go off the rails? Are the reasons technical - problems with the actual mechanics of doing the work - or is something else going on?

Looking at projects with themes as diverse as software implementation, change management, time management, business development, strategic planning, efficiency, and retention, a little digging reveals that "what we've got here is a failure to communicate" - Cool Hand Luke (1967)

Five examples:

1. Management of a 200-person service organization regularly issued a newsletter to employees, and considered this adequate notification of important strategy and policy changes. The reality was that less than 30% of staff actually read the lengthy newsletter, and the writing style was long-winded and hard-to-understand. Uptake of key messages was only running around 10% of personnel, so very few staff knew what was going on and morale was very low. Still, management ranked themselves "very good" at communicating with their staff.
2. The new CEO of a non-profit hired a consultant to help with strategic planning, and invited the board of directors to the facilitated sessions. The chair of the board aggressively disrupted the first session saying "Why are you wasting our time? We already have a strategic plan!". The CEO was shocked - he had been trying to find the organization's plan continually since being hired a few months earlier, without success.
3. Very high turnover in a 30-person technology company was concerning management, and they decided to review their wage policy since competitors were "obviously poaching [their] best employees." Retroactive exit interviews revealed that several people had left because they were convinced that the company was on the verge of bankruptcy. Rumours had circulated months earlier about some significant financial troubles. The rumours had actually been true, but the company had since restructured their debt and essentially eliminated their cash flow problem. There was no open communication with employees about "shareholder issues". With no communication, the rumours escalated, and contributed to several key people leaving.
4. Leaders of a transportation company held focus groups to gather employee input on an upcoming technology change. When the change was actually implemented, none of the employee suggestions had been incorporated. Morale plummeted and, despite management's well-intentioned attempt, the consensus among employees was that "They never listen to us. They ask us for our suggestions, but then they just shove [their original #%$^&* plan] down our throats."
5. The relationship between a sales agent and the manufacturer she represented went septic, and accusations flew wildly back and forth. The manufacturer accused the sales agent of not adequately representing them, and decided to withhold commissions on numerous accounts. The sales agent felt cheated by this apparent breach of contract by the manufacturer, and ended up starting legal action against the manufacturer after discussions failed. One key factor that emerged was that the sales agent did not do any reporting of her considerable business activity to the manufacturer, so the manufacturer had no idea how much work she was actually doing. Another factor was a product weakness that had affected most of the reference accounts to whom the company routinely referred new prospects. The company and the agent were both unaware of these problems. So, the reference accounts were giving poor reviews, weakening the agent's ability to sell.

More and more, I'm seeing problems resulting from failures in communication, rather than failures of a technical nature. And, many of the technical failures seem to have communication failures as their root causes as well.

I'm not saying that technical problems don't happen, but I'm clearly seeing the value of investing considerable time and effort in thorough, relentless, two-way communication and clarification.

Why We Need More Coffee Breaks

A manager in a municipal government was lamenting the policy change that drastically limited the time allowed for coffee breaks. Not because he really loved coffee, or didn't want to get back to his job, but because he noticed that communication within the organization had gotten worse since the change.

In the good old days, people from different departments would get together casually over coffee, in groups, in pairs, and just chat. Inevitable, there would be a lot of talk about the Riders, but there was also be a lot of talk about what's going on in the office. "What's happening with you?" and "How's your project coming along?" were explored in a casual, relaxed setting and a lot of information was exchanged.

Now, that process is outlawed. Instead of a thirty minute coffee break with 15 minutes on football and 15 minutes about what's going on at work, they now have 15 minutes on football, followed by a 90 minute meeting to discuss what's going on at work.

When it was suggested that you could have a meeting and just make sure there was coffee, he wisely pointed out that it's not the same. A meeting with coffee is structured, formal and often unproductive. Coffee with some shop talk is unstructured, relaxed and often very productive.

Could more coffee breaks actually make your people more productive?

Training Isn't The Problem

In a time management seminar for a large organization, there were managers from 10 different departments in the classroom. As we explored their issues and frustrations, a common theme emerged: all of them were spending a significant part of their days trying to find the information they needed on the corporate network. They unanimously agreed that the network was poorly organized, and had slow, inefficient search capabilities. "I start a search in the morning and check to see if it's done in late afternoon, often it isn't!" They just couldn't find what they needed.

So, since it was very hard to find information, when they did finally find it, they would make their own copy. And, since most of these managers were below the level that were issued laptops, they would have to print out the documents so they could take them into the field or bring them to meetings. And, since most of these managers were below the level that were issued bookshelves and filing cabinets, they didn't have any place to store these printed copies. So they'd either pile it up on their desk or the floor, or throw it out.  Either way, they'd end up searching for it all over again the next time they needed it. Often, the printed paper versions would end up being out-of-date the next time they used it.

The design and usability of the company network was out of their control. The lack of access to laptops for portable access was out of their control. The capacity to file and store printed documents was out of their control. But, instead of addressing those issues, the solution that was implemented was to train these people on time management.

The system you're working in largely determines your capacity to get results. In this case, the system made it very hard for people to get the information they needed when they needed it. In situations such as this, training isn't the answer. No matter how well trained, the system would keep holding these people back.

What's Your Problem?

If you're in business, you need to know what your problem is; what is the problem that you are in the business of solving?

T. Harv Eker, high-octane creator of Secrets of The Millionaire Mind, says that an entrepreneur is someone who solves problems for a profit. Good definition. The more problems you solve, the more profit you make. The bigger the problems you solve, the more profits you make.

When you realize this, and look at your business in terms of solving customer problems for a profit, you can't get to problems fast enough. Bring them on! Seeing problems as opportunities for profit is quite a bit different from seeing customer problems as a nuisance to be avoided.

One household appliance company kept hearing laments from their customers about how hard it was to get rid of their old clothes washers and dryers. Apartment dwellers especially had a problem, with no place to store their old appliances until they could hire someone to eventually haul it away. While the company had ignored this customer problem for years ("We're in the new appliance business, not junk hauling!"), an employee suggestion led them to consider the opportunity it presented.

They were delivering the new appliances anyway. They had capable staff onsite with the equipment needed to move appliances. They had space on the delivery truck, since they had just unloaded the new appliances. The staff were returning to the truck empty handed. The truck was returning to the depot empty. The company decided to offer a removal service, charging a small but highly profitable fee to haul away the old appliances at the same time as they delivered the new ones. They built a relationship with a recycling organization and a used-appliance outlet to get rid of the old equipment. The customer problem was solved, the company's profits increased.

How many more problems might they be able to solve?

• Customers have a problem unpacking, installing and connecting the new appliances. It's often pretty complicated and needs a good handy man to complete. Solve that problem with some cross training and a few tools, and you have an on-the-spot installation crew. More profit opportunity.
• Customers have another problem getting rid of all the packaging and large cardboard boxes from the new appliances. Solve that problem by taking the packaging back in the mostly empty truck. More profit opportunity.

So, next time your customers complain, or share a problem with you related to your business dealings with them, think about how you might solve that problem and turn it into profit. Because that's what entrepreneurs do.

You've Got to Listen

A small SK software company has a truly great product that could save large industrial companies millions of dollars. The company has made great efforts to convince some large customers that their product is truly great. They've sent out information about their product, they've done presentations, and they've itemized the benefits of their software. But the company has not made any significant sales.

The company has truly failed to communicate. They've "spoken" lots, but they've truly failed to listen. That's four truly's so far (five now), and I truly mean every one of the them (six!).

This company, as personified by its founder and owner, actually seems incapable of listening to others. Have you dealt with people like this?

• Suggestions from salespeople on how to improve the sales model are brushed off as whining;
• Suggestions from customers on how they'd like to test the product before buying are brushed off as cheap;
• Suggestions from colleagues on how the company might better present the solution are brushed off as unnecessary.

In the owner's mind, the product speaks for itself, and is perfectly suitable, as is. The sales people should just get out there and sell it, and any customer that doesn't buy it ain't too smart.

There is still a chance that this company will succeed. But there's a greater chance that this company, and this great product, will become obsolete without ever making the impact that it should.

No matter how smart you are, make sure you learn to listen.

It is truly the most important part of communication, and the most important part of running a business.

Truly (eight!)

Does Fear Really Work?

The owner of a small print shop had six pretty happy employees and a thriving little business. As things got busier, the owner brought his wife in to help run things. She was a bit of a tyrant, and was a fan of the good cop, bad cop approach to management. She was the bad cop.

As the work environment deteriorated, several of the employees quit. The remaining employees were unhappy, and one expressed concern to the bad cop, saying that everyone was afraid to make a mistake, afraid to try anything new, afraid for their jobs. Her response was that "fear works for me," she was OK with having fearful employees; that was part of her strategy, her management philosophy.

Within months, all of the previous employees had left. Within a year, the company had folded. The bad cop manager, to this day, still laments the difficulty of "finding and keeping good employees."

Does management by fear really work for you?

The Struggle to Let Go

Whenever you delegate a task, hire an assistant, create a key new role, or transition your job or your company to a successor, there is always a struggle to let go. Here are five things that make it difficult, and some possible ways to address them.

1. They don't know how to do the job as well as you. This is a certainty, especially at the beginning. There is always a learning curve when someone new is brought in to do a task, but often the problem is not with the new person, but with what you've given them to work with. Do you have documented Standard Operating Procedures (SOP's)? Have you really captured the approach that you found successful in a way that the new person can use? Have you trained them? Have you mentored them? Have you let them try it on their own? Often, we get someone to do a job, and then hold them accountable to the standards in our heads, standards that they don't even know exist.
2. They do the job differently than you would. This is also a certainty, since they are not you. Unless the job is absolutely trivial, no two people will approach it exactly the same way. While standardization is important, and SOP's can help the transition, realize that different is not necessarily worse. It can be a significant threat to your ego if a newbie comes in, tries something different and it actually works better than what you've been doing and preaching for years.
3. You don't really want to let go. Especially in the case of retirement, or succession planning, it is very hard to give up control, and the associated feelings of importance, of influence, of being needed. Moving towards the next thing you are going to do can help take your mind off of the things that you are no longer doing, that somebody else is now doing. Changing your title to something supportive, rather than controlling, can indicate your willingness to relinquish the reins, and help you accept the change as well. Sometimes this takes some coaching or counselling, either professional or from a trusted colleague, to help you work through the emotions - much like dealing with grief.
4. They don't seem confident. They keep having crises that drag you back into they fray. They ask for your help, they ask for your advice, they just seem so young and inexperienced and, in comparison to you, they are. But they're also competent, and learning. Perhaps you need to pull back more, to force them to stand on their own. Or, perhaps you need to shift your thinking, and realize that asking a mentor for advice is not a sign of weakness, it's a sign of strength.
5. You don't want to follow. New people bring new methods, new inspiration, new systems, new requirements. If you've been handling a role your way for years, and it has worked well for you, it seems absurd to have to change just to match what the incoming whipper-snappers want to do. Sure, they might set up some fancy new software, or new scheduling methods, but it doesn't apply to you, does it? So, they end up making all kinds of workarounds to accomodate you - out of respect, out of necessity. It's times like these when you need to dig deep, accept your changing role graciously, and honor the systems and changes that your successor is trying to implement - out of respect, out of necessity.

Letting go isn't trivial, and often pushes a lot of your emotional buttons. But letting go is the key to allowing the organization to grow beyond just you. And the key to letting the new people shine.

Nothing to do With Technology

A TV news production company has an online presence, a 24-hour news channel with text, photos, and videos; glitzy and content-rich, but basically, a website. The technology and tools they use are identical to the tools you can use to do this at home, with the same kind of software running on the same kind of computers. Sure, they have fancier cameras, and professional staff, but there's nothing in the technology they're using that differentiates them from us, from the masses. So what does differentiate them? What gives them a competitive advantage?

Touring their facility, you see computers, cameras, computers, microphones, and more computers. There is a physical desk and background set where the news is produced, but most of what you see throughout the building is technology. Indeed, a news production company is a technology company, an IT company. But that's not what they feel is responsible for their success.

The people in this organization are remarkable, the relationships are remarkable. The production engineer talks more about how well the different groups work together than about how the technology works. The person who creates the headlines and graphics enthuses about how good the internal technical support group is. The technicians are so grateful for how well the five branch offices work together, with a frequent and free flow of problems, solutions and support. The union leader is proud of how well management and labour get along - "we just talk things out; it seems like everyone's just trying to help people do good work and enjoy their work. We do really cool things. People love coming to work here."

Over and over, throughout the company, people would willingly demonstrate the technology they used. But, more noticably, people would enthusiastically rave about how good the people were, how positive the environment was, how strong the relationships had become and how much of a joy it was to work there. These were people who were doing an unplanned technical demonstration for an unplanned technical guest, but their enthusiasm and their presentations had little to do with technology.

Indeed, the success of their technology company has little to do with technology. The continuing success of their company is firmly rooted in the human side of things. Isn't yours?

Twelve Leadership Tips That Really Work

Are your people taking too much initiative? Do they solve problems spontaneously, and apply their creativity to problems that arise? Are they functioning effectively as a team, with great communication and conflict resolution skills?

If so, there is no time to lose. Here are twelve proven techniques that are guaranteed to reduce motivation, and inhibit those pesky spontaneous problem-solving activities that sometimes arise amongst your staff.

1. Give Orders - When someone presents you with a situation, make sure to tell then what to do and what not to do. Direct them and give them commands to make sure they know who is supposed to do the thinking.
2. Warn and Threaten - A little fear goes a long way. In no uncertain terms, lay down the law. Something like "If you don't shape up, then ... blah, blah, blah ... dumpster diving and food stamps ... blah, blah, blah ... cattle prod."
3. Preach the Gospel - Where fear falls short, guilt can save the day. Talk about responsibility, and duty, and should's. Make it a moral issue. If necessary, beg, and appeal to their conscience.
4. Advise and Solve - Suggest a different approach; tell them what would be best. Whatever you do, don't let them come up with ideas on their own. That's just asking for further creativity in the future.
5. Persuade and Argue - Especially when there's conflict, make sure to present facts and arguments explaining why they're in the wrong. If they stubbornly try to have their issues heard, try speaking louder or covering your ears.
6. Criticize - Point out how they are being foolish, or overly sensitive. Identify how their thinking is skewed, how they're wrong, and why what they're saying is, at best, wrong, and at worst, stupid.
7. Praise Them - Butter them up with compliments, and try to put a positive spin on their complaints. Let them know how intelligent they are, how they've always managed to succeed in the past. Just make sure you don't let them talk about how this challenge might be different.
8. Ridicule and Shame - Call them a whiner, or a sloppy worker. Or dismiss what they're saying because they're a typical engineer, or accountant, or a woman, or Ukrainian, or whatever. Labelling is an effective tool, because it quickly addresses their delusion of being an individual by lumping them into some arbitrary group.
9. Interpret and Analyze - Let them know that you completely understand them (even though you really don't have a clue and honestly don't care - you just want them to do their job). Imply that you fully understand their inner motivations - they're just jealous, or have a problem with authority, or they're angry. Just make something up - it still works.
10. Reassure and Console - Especially with interpersonal problems, a kindly "you'll feel different tomorrow" goes a long way towards dismissing the importance of the issue. Platitudes like "every cloud has a silver lining" are also useful for avoiding their snivelling.
11. Interrogate - Challenge everything they've told you with lots of questions. Why did you do that? Why didn't you come to me earlier? How long has this been going on? What have you tried? Anything to imply that they were wrong and should change their behavoiur. If you have a bright light you can shine in their eyes, all the better.
12. Distract and Divert - Tell a funny story, or, better yet, tell them about your own problems. Sometimes a cup of coffee or a shiny trinket can take their mind off the situation, and save you from having to hear about it. Whatever you do, don't let them focus obsessively on the problem at hand - that's unhealthy.

All of these techniques contain the powerful message that they need to change; they need to think, feel or act differently; they are not OK. All of these techniques are wonderful for showing people that we don't accept them as they are. And, as we all know, feeling unaccepted is the perfect environment for poor psychological health, personal stagnation, and poor communication.

Of course, if you're a bit of a wingnut, and actually want to encourage creative problem solving, team work, and good communication, you might want to avoid these behaviours. These are the Roadblocks to Communication outlined by Dr. Thomas Gordon in Leader Effectiveness Training. Surprisingly, he actually recommends NOT using these techniques, in favour of other, more effective leadership techniques. Go figure!

Boss Botches Bag, Nurse Nags Nicely

1. Intravenous solution causes a red track up the patient's arm.
2. IV disconnected, and replaced with new bag.
3. Shift supervisor prepares a form to send to the lab to see if it's contaminated.
4. Nurse says "I think we should send the name of the patient with it as well. The lab might have to talk to them, if they find something."
5. Supervisor overrides her, saying "They don't need that."
6. Not much later, the lab phones down and says they need the patient's name.
7. The nurse informs the supervisor, and does very well not to say "I told you so".

How often does the hierarchy interfere with the daily work at your business? Usually, the people who do the work are truly the experts. If you're the boss, stop telling the workers how to do the job, and start asking them how you can help them do it better.

Do Certifications Suck?

• The Society of Manufacturing Engineers has a three-tiered Lean certification program, with Bronze, Silver and Gold levels of recognition. The American Society for Quality and the Association for Manufacturing Excellence have also contributed to this program.
• The Kaizen Institute has a two-tiered Lean and Lean Six Sigma Green Belt and Black Belt certification program.
• The International Independent Board for Lean Certification offers independent Lean certification in more than ten countries.
• The list goes on and on - Lean Certification Online has, as it's name implies, an online Lean Certification program. Automated Learning has an International Lean Certification Standard. Beyond Lean offers Lean Six Sigma Certification.

From one point of view, this is great, and I mean that. There are literally hundreds of companies and organizations offering some form of Lean certification, trying to teach people standard skills and philosophies to improve their organizations. There is great debate about what standard is, about what Lean is, but the intent (beyond making money through training and certification exams) is noble - let's teach people about Lean.

Now I've known many skilled professionals who've pursued and maintained various certifications, and who are very effective in their roles, so this is not a criticism of the valuable learning inherent in the various certification programs. Yet, there's a significant problem with certifications that emerges in most of the companies I've known.

Almost without fail, organizations seem to end up with a Quality guy, or a Lean department, or some Six Sigma gurus who end up doing the improvement work. There ends up being a quasi-elite group, generally of certified this-that-or-the-others, that are the people who "do that sort of thing." Certifications often suck the initiative out of the rest of the group, and often suck the confidence out of the other workers. You'll hear variations on "I don't make the changes - I just do the work" or "that's something the Lean team does" or "I've given up making suggestions" - the workers themselves are not involved in continually making their own work better and better.

So, while Lean Certifications are well-intentioned, it creates a very different workplace than that advocated by Deming in his 14th point for management, "Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation. The transformation is everybody's job."

So, pursue certifications and get some Lean training as you see fit, but remember that the goal is to get everybody involved in the transformation, not just an elite certified few. Are certifications sucking the initiative and confidence out of everybody else in your organization?

We Removed a Shelf That None of Us Could Reach

In a recent report-out session with a hospital department, one of the changes that the group was most excited about was "We removed a shelf that none of us could reach." Among the many other improvements they made, this one stood out for several reasons:

1. "We" removed a shelf. It was the people in the area that made this change, not a facilities department, not a Six Sigma black belt, not a Lean guru, not a project team. "We" did it. "We" owned the change. "We" liked the change. If someone else had tried to impose this change on them, they probably would have resisted.
2. We "removed a shelf". We didn't add a shelf, we removed it. This was a simple, inexpensive change that required no budget and freed up a resource for someone else to use. It goes against the common thinking that bigger is better, more is better, just-in-case is better. In a small way, it goes against the annual budget dance, be voluntarily reducing what they needed. They improved their area by reducing the amount of storage capacity.
3. We removed a shelf "that none of us could reach". Not only was this shelf too high for convenience, it was too high for safety. Getting rid of it eliminating the climbing, the standing on chairs, the reaching, the give-me-a-boost's. They took away one structural factor that might have contributed to an accident, and made their environment safer.

Simple changes like this, taken one-by-one, seem insignificant. We're tempted instead to look for big, dramatic breakthroughs. But taken over time, these little day-by-day changes add up. After ten, twenty, one-hundred little changes, we're surprised to realize that our entire department has been transformed. "We removed a shelf that none of us could reach" is a perfect example of what Continuous Improvement is all about - small changes, made daily by the people doing the work, to make things better, bit by bit.

Initiative Dies at a Small Non-Profit

A non-profit board was functioning relatively well as a community of equals. Then, a new member joined, bringing a forceful personality and a strong belief in hierarchy and reporting structures. Within a few months, as this new member worked to establish some "much-needed control and reporting structures", other members started to hold back.

In order to avoid conflict, members began to withhold their suggestions. They stopped volunteering feedback and opinions, and developed a practice of waiting for the "powers that be" to make decisions. These competent, confident people had previously initiated and completed numerous successful projects before the implementation of this structure.

The new hierarchy clearly established roles for various members and committees, which nobody had a problem with in theory. But, in practice, it ended up that everyone waited for the others, waited for the committees to make decisions, so as to avoid conflict. Since the volunteer committees met infrequently, and communication was only "allowed" through the appropriate channels, the entire organization ground to a halt.

Where before, people could make a quick call, make some joint decisions, and take on additional tasks as needed to get the job done, the new hierarchy squelched that initiative. With no mechanism to remove or constrain the new member, the future of this volunteer organization is in jeopardy.

The introduction of the hierarchy, in this instance, has all the elements of old-school command-and-control management. Despite "team oriented language", disrespect for people has been significant, with those who previously ran the whole show now being told that they aren't allowed to make decisions. The "I'm the boss. Do your job." mentality of this new member is seriously abrasive to the other competent professionals who previously contributed their time, energy and expertise. Now, they're just contributing their time and withholding the rest.

This one's still in progress; we'll see how it turns out.

Withholding Initiative, Withholding Creativity

A positive and passionate employee of a small non-profit organization had been routinely taking the initiative and using his creativity to update a display area near the entrance. After a couple years on the job though, he confessed a little sadly that he now reluctantly found himself withholding his initiative and creativity more often than not, more often than he wanted to. He still had a lot of ideas, but his experiences over the previous years had produced a shift in his behaviour.

The non-profit was run by a volunteer board of directors, and board members had widely differing opinions on what was acceptable and what was desirable in this display area. So, whenever he'd take the initiative and update the display, three board members would love it, two would hate it, and he'd end up having to take it down. Then, he'd try something else and two different board members would love it, two would be neutral, and one would protest. The frustration of having so many creative initiatives challenged, and reversed, damaged his will to take new risks, to take the chance of trying something new. He adpoted new lethargic behaviours to suit the environment, to survive in the culture, to fit the reality of how management actually operated.

By working with the board to clarify who was responsible for the display, and to provide a clear guideline for the content they wanted in the display, the frustration of reporting to several rather random bosses was greatly reduced. While there were still some differences of opinion amongst the board members about his displays, the new structure freed him from the immediate conflicts and challenges, and rejuvenated his creative spirit.

People generally want to give you their drive, passion and creativity. If you create an environment that encourages them to withhold their initiative, you'll end up with risk-averse employees who passively wait for you to tell them exactly what you want them to do.

The Hidden Waste of Hunting for Waste

A health care department had been on a Lean Six Sigma improvement journey for several years. They'd become quite effective at avoiding wastes in their medical processes. Unfortunately, they became so aggressive at hunting for waste that they inadvertently created another form of waste that they had real trouble seeing.

One example was a discussion about whether to get a water cooler and make bottled water available to staff on one small unit. Some of the staff had requested one, as they wanted purified cold and hot water to drink, and the topic was discussed at a meeting. The debate focused on whether a water cooler was a waste of money, whether it would waste time if people congregated at it (waiting waste?), or if it would add to walking time (transportation waste?), whether you really needed to filter water or whether the tap water was good enough (overprocessing waste?).

Looking around the room at the people attending the meeting, the overheaded cost of the meeting was about $2,200 per hour, and the portion of the meeting that dealt with the water cooler lasted about an hour and a half! So, while diligently trying to avoid waste, the organization burned up enough cash to pay for the water cooler and water for about four years. This pattern repeated on numerous small decisions, as everyone up the chain of command tried to make sure that nobody "below" them was wasting precious dollars.

Decisions need to be made close to the point-of-use. If we involve every layer of management in every little decision, we waste time and money, and send a frustrating message to people whom we are supposed to be empowering. Give people guidelines, define some practical limits, then get out of the way and let them make good decisions. And don't assume that meetings are free just because you don't see the immediate cost.

You Don't Act the Way You Say You Do

Do you do what you say? Do you practice what you preach? If people watched your behaviour, would they say it was consistent with how you typically describe yourself? Probably not, especially if the situation is potentially challenging, threatening, stressful or embarassing. Like, oh let's say, almost all management and business activities.

Each of us has what Chris Argyris calls an espoused theory of action; what we believe we'd do when faced with a situation; it's how we describe ourselves to others; how we think we normally behave. Our espoused theory of action closely fits our values and beliefs, and supports our self image in a way that's comfortable and consistent with our ideas about right and wrong. Unfortunately, what we think we'd do is usually incorrect, and is quite different from our theory-in-use, the actual behaviours we resort to when the going gets tough.

This disconnect between what we say we do (our espoused theory of action) and what we actually do (our theory-in-use) is obvious to those around us. Yet very few of us are aware of how inconsistent we are; of how much contradication there is between the two.

We say that we value family over work, yet we routinely work late every night, go in on weekends and keep our BlackBerry's on when we're on holidays, neglecting our spouses and short-changing family time with our kids. We say that we treat people fairly, yet we regularly point the finger of blame at our employees whenever something goes wrong. We say that we value input and want engaged employees, yet we impose decisions and change on our people, and discount their comments as whining and complaining.

According to Argyis, when faced with challenge we tend to take actions that allow us to:

• stay in control,
• maximize winning and minimize losing,
• suppress negative feelings, and
• be as rational as possible.

If a problem happens on a customer order, it is so much easier on our ego to blame an employee than to accept that our system of production is out of control; it's so much easier on our self-image to have people think Joe was the culprit, rather than risk them thinking poorly of us; it's so much easier to bury our fears and doubts about our leadership ability and point a finger at someone else; it's so comforting to rationalize that "if only they'd do their job right, we wouldn't have these problems."

We're very inconsistent, and we're blind to our own inconsistencies. To protect our fragile self-image, we believe we act in ways that are good and right, however we define those terms. Yet, also to protect our fragile self-image, we actually act in quite different ways, with actions that are unconsciously designed to keep us in control and minimize our personal exposure to loss and negative emotions. Because of this, we fail to learn more effective behaviours, to actually behave consistently with our values. After all, why should we change if it wasn't our fault?

When crises happen, take the risk to examine your own behaviours, rather than the behaviours of others. Turn off your rationalization programs, and look for the disconnects between how you think you behave, and how you actually behave. Allow yourself to see that they are quite different, and take true responsibility for yourself, your management, your company.

Look Ma, No Order Form

A mid-size national company prided itself on customer service. The company was willing to do things for its customers that larger competitors wouldn't do. They believed that their willingness to bend over backwards was the key to their success, and this was probably true. But it was also clear, based on employee suggestions, and very clear when looking in from the outside, that their almost religious commitment to being flexible was actually making their service worse in ways that management wasn't able to see.

As part of being flexible and offering good customer service, management refused to provide an order form for use by their customers. In this company, orders were received at a centralized sales center from customers all across the country. This company, with one hundred million dollars annual sales, prided itself on accepting orders in whatever format the customers wanted to send them. So, their customers would place orders by phone, fax, email or online, in free-form text, with whatever information they wanted to include, differing from order to order and from customer to customer. There were no guidelines, no attempts at standardization. When asked about the possibility of providing an order form to help streamline the order process, management's response was "There's no way we'd do that to our customers. We believe in good customer service!"

So, some orders would list specific product codes, others would describe a product in words, others would say "same as last order", despite the fact that six different people from that customer site might order product and it was rarely clear which "last order" they were referring to. Some orders might include desired shipping dates and delivery methods, others would not. Some orders might include a purchase order or payment method, others would not. Many would have incomplete addresses or contact information, or would miss some other key pieces of information that were necessary to process the order.

So, on many, many orders, the Service Agents would have to call back, clarify, guess, interpret, assume, look up information, and fill in the gaps that customers left when submitting their orders. Fully one quarter of each Service Agent's day was taken up with trying to complete and clarify missing and required information on incoming orders. They would inevitably have to involve the customer in this process, often repeatedly, in order to resolve all the issues.

How much easier would it have been for the customers, and for the Service Agents, if the customers knew up front what information was necessary when placing an order; if they had a simple, straightforward order form to guide them? Customer service would have been much smoother, with less telephone tag and back-and-forth communication.

This company was certainly successful, but they could have been so much more successful, with a lot less stress and busywork. In their mind, good customer service meant "doing whatever it took to rework the customers' orders and fill in all the required information." This approach just ended up creating more work for both customers and Service Agents.

How much wasted effort could have been avoided with even a little bit of standardization?