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Four kinds of behavior account for 89 percent of leadership effectiveness.

Businesses are full of managerial approval loops. An employee wants to take a break, and he must check in with the supervisor. An employee wants to buy a hand tool, and she must go through channels to put in the request. A back-office employee wants to do something to take care of a customer, and he has to get permission. An employee wants to learn a new skill, and must get authorization from her manager for the company to pay for evening classes. In each of these cases, if you talked to the manager, you would probably hear something along the lines of the approval being a check to ensure that the employee does not make a mistake. These bosses feel like the approval process is good for the company. But I see it as something significantly different. I see a red flag that screams poor process. I see a lack of trust. I see unclear standards. I see an untrained employee. In short, I see a leadership failing.

To continue from the previous post on Leadership Lessons from Disney we will discuss another 6 lessons. 

"Challenge" is one of the explicit values in The Toyota Way 2001 but it looks quite different. Yes, there are challenges issued. But behind that challenge is a support structure. The leaders, at all levels are expected to stretch their own personal development, but to do so within the context of kaizen, deep understanding gained by genchi genbutsu, team work and most important of all, respect. The leader's development level is gauged by how the challenge is met even more than whether it is met. Just "get-r-done" doesn't work here.

Too often [kaizen] has come to mean assembling a special team for a project using lean of Six Sigma methods, or perhaps organizing a kaizen "event" for a week to make a burst of changes. We sometimes hear the phrase "doing a kaizen" as if it were a one-off activity. At Toyota, kaizen […] is how the company operates at the most fundamental level.

Try this five-step process that CCL suggests to clients and users of our self-assessment, WorkLife Indicator.

I really like these three tips: Complaining trumps self satisfaction. The people in an organization which is 10 years into a lean transformation should not be satisfied with their condition. A happy lean culture is a faltering lean culture. People should be happy, but there should be a distinct sense of dissatisfaction with the status quo. Frequent and brief complaining followed by 5 why root cause analysis and corrective action is a characteristic of a sustaining lean culture. Structured program trumps invisible behaviors. It's tempting to think that a formal, structured lean program is no longer necessary after 10 years of practicing lean because it is now "in the blood" and does not require special promotion or attention. However this is rarely the case. Nature abhors a vacuum, and corporations seem to abhor a vacuum in program-space. Best to keep the lean program and improve it also continuously as a support mechanism. Pedal to the metal trumps cruise control. Thomas Jefferson said, "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance" and coincidentally this is also the price of a sustained lean culture. At no time is it safe to put the program on cruise control. Corners always want to be cut, people naturally want to do what is easy, and without strong leadership to remind people that sometimes the important things are not easy, a lean culture will not sustain. Developing people trumps driving results. After 10 years even people who may have only paid this lip service begin to see the cause and effect connection and begin to believe. It takes time to develop people. When you can point to people that have developed with the organization and are driving results, this is a sign that the elements of a sustainable lean culture are in place.

Four

Going to the gemba to understand what is really happening, digging for facts especially when they contradict popular perception, developing a strategy, and communicating that strategy to stakeholders and customers. That's leadership, law enforcement style.

An interesting article into the thinking of Mr. Ohno. I've got to read this book.

Specifically, Karen and I have an excellent discussion related to the traps many practitioners fall into when working with value stream maps as well as how, and why, this tool is being used by many non manufacturing focused organizations.

In his recent e-letter Shook offers the same 5 key questions for transformation: 1) What is the purpose of the change-what true north and value are we providing, or simply: what problem are we trying to solve? 2) How are we improving the actual work? 3) How are we building capability? 4) What leadership behaviors and management systems are required to support this new way of working? 5) What basic thinking, mindset, or assumptions comprise the existing culture, and are we driving this transformation?

As thirty years ago, so today, when people ask for recommendations for lean tours, "You know, a world class facility where our leadership team can see best-in-class lean culture with engaged employees in a highly variable demand and complex product mix environment while leveraging IoT," preferably within driving distance. That's all good, a delight all around when we can accommodate. But from now on, I'll have to find a polite way to ask the question, "If your leadership team was looking right at it, would they know?"

What's the point of the morning meeting? Paul Akers says it is about building a team. You can not build a team when the leader is talking. The leader must ask employees questions so they talk. When employees talk you are building a team.  What do you ask? Ask them "what bugs you?" Problems are not the employees fault. Management is to blame.

We often think about the principle of "go and see" applying to giant companies, where leadership and management is far removed from the front lines. But it applies to small companies, too - as small as a single coffeehouse.

Instructional design, adult development and neuroscience all play into the best practices for making learning stick. Technology, too, can be part of the equation. Here, we offer some basics about learning transfer and leader development.

Mindfulness has been receiving wide attention lately in countless books, published research papers and mainstream business literature. The physical and psychological benefits of mindfulness are indisputable, and the implications for coaching, behavioral change, and leadership development are profound. Coaches and clients alike can leverage their change work through these simple tips.

I like the idea. However, I can't read it real well. What I can read looks awfully simplistic.

"The foundation for transparent thinking is the elimination of a blaming and shaming culture"