So as I started my routine as I do everyday, I was thinking to myself. What have I done in the past week? It is Wednesday, I usually give a "state of the dept." address every Wed. morning yet, I wanted to do something different. I'll toss all the efficiency, productivity, utilization, etc... numbers aside and engage my staff. What pray tell did I do. Well I have a "Lean Concepts" whiteboard that sits right behind my desk out in the middle of the manufacturing floor. I pick basic principals of Lean, and put them on the board for a month. Within this month we track and engage the principal that we are doing. Recording data, running the PDCA cycle etc. Is it working? I would say yes. How so? My staff are starting to engage and come up with their own ideas and bring them to me. Why are they seeking answers to their problems? I'll tell you why... I've learned a thing or two in life. Most of the lessons I've learned are the hard fought lessons we all learn from failure. Listening to peoples problems and giving them an answer has always been easy. What I failed to do was teach them to identify their problems, and bring me a solution. Really simple stuff right? Wrong... I was failing to listen to what was being said, I heard their problems and would default to working the problem in my own mind thereby acting as an enabler.
I will credit all of the prior paragraph to my uber builder/banker tendencies. If any of you have ever taken the Taylor Protocol CVI, you will be familiar with this. I am an uber builder/banker with a nice dose of innovator. But to quote Yoda, "Merchant exists not in this one". Yeah that means I need the extra special coaching session on smiling at things and do not frown when things do not go your way. So knowing Lean at its core is a people based system, I have to continue to run my own PDCA on the way I address things, as sometimes just the wrong frown or wording of a question can shut down an individual and destroy the bridge you were building. Jeez.... nobody informed me that I actually have to continue to improve myself. I thought all I had to do was manage process, increase thru-put, you know put stuff in boxes and make money. How wrong I was and sometimes still am.
When we shut down our lines of communication with our staff, how in the world are we supposed to get the input needed from this people based system? We don't and that in turn imparts its own set of failure points to the equation.
What has been working for me this week though is mindfullness. Yeah I'm gonna go all eastern religion on you folks but just listen to me. When things are going south and we as leaders are not getting the desired result, we must center ourselves before we goto Gemba. Oh there I go sounding like I know what I'm talking about again. Believe me it is much easier said than done. When you see Joe and John screwing around and not making quota due to their excessive habit of jaw jacking A3 the problem. My goodness more Lean jargon I may or may not understand. Fishbone diagram the issue out and add in Mother Nature. Is the environment not conducive to work, would rotation schedules every 2 hours break the monotony and keep the staff engaged and productive?
Yeah I've rambled a bit in this post and rightfully so. I think I've made a few base hits this week thus far. Nothing major, nothing earth shattering, yet I made solid and sustainable change. The biggest being realizing that my staff needs me, but I need my staff. They are the subject matter experts and by ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS, we as leaders can better make the right decisions for our respective organizations.
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