Leadership Trends and Realities

Leaders who are Serious about Implementing Lean MUST Drink the Kool-Aid!

Jonena Relth, President and Leadership Evangelist, TBD Consulting

I just finished reading an insightful book about ThedaCare's transformation to Lean Healthcare delivery which started in 2002. ThedaCare, Wisconsin's largest employer has as its foundational principle to:

RESPECT which means wanting everyone on staff to have meaningful lives, and working actively toward their fulfillment.

The book, "On the Mend, Revolutionizing Healthcare to Save Lives and Transform the [Healthcare] Industry" written by John Toussaint, MD and Roger A. Gerard, PhD, is deemed to be:

"Part case study, part manifesto, this groundbreaking book uses plain language and real-life examples to explain lead healthcare - - not as theory, but as a working system based on proven lean management principles adapted from industry and applicable by any healthcare provider."

An honest tell all, Toussaint and Gerard hold nothing back. They included failures as well as some of the successes they enjoyed along their "Lean Journey" which started in 2002. While the book is about a large hospital system, the leadership principles will apply to all businesses implementing Lean.  I see this as a valuable teaching book that can help the rest of us hopefully avoid some of what a friend of mine refers to as, "the alligators in the Lean transformation swamp." I'm a big believer in benchmarking the best in class, especially if they share the problems they overcame to get to where they are today, so I found this book easy to read and my margins are full of notes from what I learned and want to emulate.

As with all large change initiatives, it is imperative that senior leaders embrace and lead the way. Your employees need to see you modeling the new ways/behavior, etc. and see proof that you are drinking the "Kool-Aid" that you want them to drink WITH YOU. Developing a Lean culture is no different from other change initiatives and Toussaint and Gerard talk about the bumps in the process because their leaders weren't going to the Gemba [workplace where the real value is created in an organization] every week.

If we are to learn only one thing about change in 2013, it must be that all the leaders of an organization need to be on board and modeling the desired changed behavior. If we don't, we might as well save our money and not invest our time and efforts "Pretending" to change the cultures of our organizations.

We hire smart people and they know when we're serious enough to make the change happen or if we're just trying out the flavor of the month that they can ignore.

A different way of doing business is possible - one that is more customer-focused with less waste and cost and improved ROI and performance metrics. Lean is the way for us to improve businesses in our country and we need to get serious about it!

To successful LEAN change initiatives in 2013!

TBD Consulting has a 21-year, proven track record for ensuring employee performance improvement which translates to employee performance success. Whether you need help developing an in-house training organization, create a Lean Academy, or simply need "extra hands" to meet your deadlines or ROI goals, please contact Jonena. She and her qualified staff are here to assist you with your organizational development, coaching and training initiatives.

Corporate Office 602-263-1961. Email Jonena today!

Lean Strategies Improve Products and Services while Lowering Costs

Jonena Relth, President and Leadership Evangelist, TBD Consulting

If you believe Lean is just for manufacturing - please think again!      Non-manufacturing organizations are also improving their products and service delivery while lowering their overall costs of doing business.

I'm encouraged to see leaders from all types of organizaitons looking beyond the ways they have always done things in the past to implementing innovative solutions such as Lean to curb their costs to do business, poor quality customer service and/or products, employee shortages and employee dissatisfaction— all symptoms of deeper problems inherent in so many companies.

These forward-looking leaders have realized the financial and moral imperatives for improving quality and safety and eliminating waste as strategies for responding to their pressing challenges.

Lean (adapted from the Toyota Production System) is not just for manufacturing or another short-term fix: it’s a way to transform entire divisions into safe and high-quality, high-performing organizations. If implemented property, Lean can be the "how to" for managing change and creating continuous improvement.

Lean is used to eliminate obstacles that prevent organizations from providing best-in-class customer service and products by eliminating issues as vast as out-of-date technology systems, worker frustration and errors and oversights that can increase patient safety risks. Some "fixes" are complex, but lean methodology strives to find well-thought-out improvements that can be implemented quickly and without costing a fortune, if at all possible -- thus the name Lean.

As a leader, it makes sense to at least research whether your organization would embrace the methodology and sustained results derived from lean implementation.

Take a peek and give me a call if you'd like to see how lean strategies can help your organization improve your products and service delivery while lowering your costs.

Jonena

TBD Consulting has a 21-year, proven track record for ensuring employee performance improvement which translates to employee performance success. Whether you need help developing an in-house training organization, create a Lean Academy, or simply need "extra hands" to meet your deadlines or ROI goals, please contact Jonena. She and her qualified staff are here to assist you with your organizational development, coaching and training initiatives.

Corporate Office 602-263-1961.  Email Jonena today!

Drawbacks of Leadership Evaluations

Robert Whipple, www.leadergrow .com

Having a philosophical framework in place is a good start, but you also need a detailed plan for moving forward. The plan will include the most important business drivers for your organization, how you intend to measure and improve them, along with the needed strategies and tactics. For non-leaders, the plan will constitute a personal map for improvement.

Start by identifying the key drivers for your organization. These are things that, if done well, will propel your business toward the vision.  Customer satisfaction is a key driver for most businesses, as is profitability. Others may include things like quality improvement and improving cycle time.  Develop a handful of key drivers.  If the list is too long, it will confuse rather than focus. I will use an example of a typical key driver, “improving profitability,” to demonstrate the process of creating a strategic plan.

Identify how you will measure progress in each of the key driver areas.  Measuring things is crucial for forward momentum. The old adage, “what gets measured, gets done,” is literally true. Strive to identify 2-3 ways to measure each key driver area from differing angles. The measure provides a focus for energy and also data on which successes can be noted and reinforced. Possible measures for our current example might be “manufacturing margin” (revenue minus cost of goods sold) and “return on investment” (revenue divided by total investments.)  These can be plotted against short-term and long-term goals to identify progress and celebrate it when appropriate.

Now identify improvement opportunities. These will be ways to make each measure move in the desired direction. For this example, you might identify a productivity improvement program in manufacturing or a new advertising campaign to increase sales. Each measure should have a few improvement opportunities that will drive progress.

You are now in a position to document strategies required to accomplish these improvements and to identify specific tactics. In our example, you might identify a strategy to engage in a Lean Manufacturing program to improve margins. The next step would be to identify associated tactics, such as hiring a consultant, training all employees in lean concepts, instituting a new reward system based on implementation of lean principles, etc. You may have several strategies and dozens of tactics for each key driver. Finally, you make the commitment and begin executing your plan. 

Assess the relative priorities of the tactics so there is a cohesive plan consistent with the vision in the event of resource constraints. A plan that is well documented, internalized, supported, and communicated will drive the business rapidly toward the vision. It also lets people know what to do and, more importantly, what not to do. It provides a roadmap for focused effort.

The preceding information was adapted from the book The TRUST Factor: Advanced Leadership for Professionals, by Robert Whipple. It is available on www.leadergrow.com.

Robert Whipple is also the author of Leading with Trust is like Sailing Downwind and, Understanding E-Body Language: Building Trust Online. Bob consults and speaks on these and other leadership topics. He is CEO of Leadergrow Inc. a company dedicated to growing leaders. Contact Bob at [email protected]

From Planning to Performance: Putting People and Execution back into your Projects

Posted by: Kelly Rietow, Principal, ROO Solutions

Well, it is that time of year again.  Time to budget, time to dust off last year’s annual plan, and time to wonder….what happened? 

How many “mission critical” or “#1 Priorities” projects stalled out, never got off the ground or were simply forgotten about?  Before committing to priorities and budgets for 2012, dedicate the time to set your organization and project teams up for success.  This requires realism, prioritization, adequate resourcing and most importantly, leadership commitment. 

To determine organizational priorities:

• Differentiate between must do, important and pet projects. 
• Use a simple Difficulty / Impact analysis to prioritize corporate initiatives
• Decide what you are not going to do. 
  • Organizations typically assign too many initiatives and projects with a finite amount of resources.  Focus on the critical few projects and figure out if there are things you, or your staff, can stop doing. 
  • If no one reads that report, stop creating it. 
  • If your pet project consumes 5% of your time but prevents you from participating in a key project, stop working on it or do it during off hours.
  • If that is the way “we’ve always done it,” ask why.  Update, change or eliminate the process if it no longer makes sense.
• Figure out how good is “good enough.” 
  • Define the outcomes and deliverables for different levels of performance.
  • Some projects require “A” level performance and need to be resourced that way. 
  • If you do not have the financial or human resources to deliver an A performance, define what “B” or “C” level outcomes would look like.  Sometimes lesser outcomes are fine and you can work toward “A level.” 
  • If B or C level outcomes are not “good enough”, the organization needs to adjust for resources for the project to be successful.

To set up your project team for success:

• Assign an Executive Sponsor.  He / she needs to help define project scope, remove obstacles and ensure progress.  This person needs to have the authority to make things “happen” at higher levels in the organization. 
• Clearly define project scope:  what is in scope and most importantly, what is outside the scope of the project.  If the Executive Sponsor / Leadership Team cannot define the scope or intended outcomes at a high level, stop the project and figure it out.  Lather, rinse, repeat until the scope is clearly defined.  You are unlikely to succeed if the Leadership Team doesn’t know what success looks like.
• Assign a Project Leader.  This is basically the Project Manager who herds the cats and keeps the project moving.
• Define the “Core Team” necessary for success and the “consulting members” whose expertise you only need on occasion.  Don’t tie people up in meetings unnecessarily.
• Set expectations and ground rules for team member participation and contribution.
• Standardize agendas and minutes.  Assign someone (other than the project leader) to be responsible for taking and distributing minutes. Limit action item review to 5-10 minutes.  Focus on the working part of the meeting.
• Celebrate milestones and successes.  Don’t save up all your pizza parties and company presentations for “the big one.”  Acknowledge the small victories along the way to keep the project top of mind and your team members engaged.  Encourage project updates during company meetings. 
• Project closure.  Include a lessons learned, a short team member evaluation to share with the employee and her manager, and a timeline to ensure your project is sustained.

There is a wealth of reading material regarding strategic planning, yet only a few really good, practical books on execution.  Before committing to too many projects, too poorly resourced, consider reading a title or two: