The Motivational Power of Confident Problem Management

Executives take on big initiatives and big projects with the expectation of big results. These efforts are typically cross-functional with a lot of different perspectives and mindsets at play, not to mention all of the personalities involved.

When implementation leaders accept the responsibility for guiding this kind of journey to a safe and successful conclusion, they know there are going to be bumps in the road. When an organization develops the capability for skillful management of these types of problems, they gain access to positive employee behaviors that drive competitiveness.

To keep the obstacles and issues that crop-up along the way from demoralizing their teams, expert leaders do the following:

• Investigate: by conducting an objective investigation to collect both the facts and the various perspectives on the problem.
• Measure: by taking a read on the scale and scope of the issue.
• Futurize*: by using their experience to come up with a complete picture of the potential damage the problem could cause and the speed at which it could spread.
• Communicate: by selecting what each group needs to know in order to feel as confident as possible that the right people are applying the right approach to the problem.
• Solve: by applying problem solving resources and methods with the power to deal with the magnitude and level of difficulty of the problem. And for the biggest problems, with the capability on board right from the start, to squash the problem quickly, even if the worst case scenario is realized.
• Update: by keeping those closest to the problem and those who will be most impacted by it the most fully informed. And then selectively managing other communications to:
  • minimize wasteful “fretting” behaviors – worrying, speculating, gossiping, spinning
  • maximize the image of factual sincerity and clarity
• Validate: by verifying the success of the problem resolution from the perspectives of all the groups involved in and impacted by the change effort.

It’s not easy to do all of the above in a way that truly inspires confidence throughout the organization, yet it’s certainly worth the energy and time it takes to develop the right people for the job. When the people within your organization are confident major undertakings can be managed from start to finish, you’ll recognize a fresh willingness to take on accountability and a new level of creativity among the troops.

* “Yes, of course I made that word up. That’s what I love about the English language; people just make up the words they need as they go along.”

Natural Team Motivations

A VP of a company enjoying a high level of success may find its senior leadership isn’t motivated to aggressively pursue process improvement. Even so, most businesses have a budget for improvement initiatives, even if they’re not particularly forceful about it. An inspired leader can make significant improvement happen by tapping into the natural motivations that drive people within the organization.

For example, a VP can assemble a business process improvement team to cut costs associated with a particular process by 50 percent or more. This kind of breakthrough process improvement doesn’t have to be difficult, and the motivation doesn’t have to come from a forceful push made at the very top.

This can be done by tapping into the motivations team members bring to work every day. These motivations include:

• the desire to eliminate hassle from the job
• the pressure to learn and gain knowledge to accomplish other objectives – advancement, job security, etc.
• the fulfillment gained by making a difference
• the good feeling that comes from improving quality for customers
• the satisfaction enjoyed by earning increased respect from peers

Tapping into the team's natural motivations generates energy for success and enables significant improvements take place.

Next week: keep motivations high even when problems crop up along the way.

Persuasive Arguments Flow Uphill

In a healthy working environment, natural behaviors that we all recognize drive how people behave when they interact with each other. Take the  case where people of differing perspectives come together to generate ideas, develop plans, and make decisions.

Natural human behaviors that we all recognize drive the dynamics.  The energy of the people in the group drives the idea, plan or decision uphill.

Here’s how it works:

A persuasive argument flows uphill, resolving the concerns of slightly dissimilar individuals first. Then, it moves around the room like a circular game of catchball.

Imagine yourself in a circle where players to the left have different perspectives from you and players to the right have a perspective most like your point of view. Now, imagine you are convinced the group should come to a particular decision and you want to persuade them to agree. Your energy will set the persuasive argument in motion. But it is the energy of the other people, some who don’t share your perspective on the decision, who will close the deal for you.

It’s the restatement of the reasons for agreement that persuades the next person in the room along the chain. As the energy progresses around the circle, different perspectives create agreement. Your persuasive argument flows uphill.

Great Lean Thinking in Entrepreneurial Innovation

The following posts discuss how Lean principles are being applied in creative areas – business startups and product development.  

Parallels between “Lean Startups” and “Adaptive Design” by Mark Graban, the Lean Blog

Four myths about the Lean Startup by Eric Ries, Lessons Learned  

image above from http://www.wordle.net/

Workaround – Glass Half Full or Glass Half Empty?

 

An interesting perspective on workarounds pops into view during a recent discussion of frustrations surrounding an ERP software implementation.   

During the conversation mentioned above, a National Account Manager employed by a company serving the construction industry mentioned the term “workaround”.  As the discussion continued, it became clear to me that he saw the term workaround as having a completely positive connotation.   

When I explained how people like myself, who work with Lean and Six Sigma, usually apply a negative connotation to the term and associate it with “waste”, he looked as if he didn’t believe me, and even responded  in an animated, slightly high-pitched voice, “Really!  I would have thought you technical people saw it as just the opposite – a creative way to improve on a bad situation!”   

Days later, just to make sure he didn’t think I was the only person with a strange negative perception of workarounds, I sent him a link to  “Beware the Workaround” (you’ll l have to scroll down to the December 2009 posting).  In this humorous blog entry, the improvement specialist author, describes a bathroom workaround which at first glance seems smart, but on further review, just looks like it will lead to more waste.         

For an interesting take on how an impending crisis can make a workaround start to look just fine, please also visit Dean Willson’s blog posting Workarounds - Dreaded or Welcome?

Lean is Like my Neighbor’s Beloved Lawn Tractor

I have a friend who loves his lawn tractor second only to his family. He talks about this grass cutting machine like it’s so much more than I would ever think of it being. He washes it, waxes it, and keeps the blades sharpened, ready to do their best work. Now this guy doesn’t cut grass for a living - he’s an assistant police chief in a large town nearby. So his reverence for the machine isn’t based on the fact it’s providing for his family; it’s based on something else.

When he talks about mowing he will tell you how it feels to sit in the seat, what it’s like to make the turns, the sound of the engine, and finally he will tell you about the great job it does cutting the grass. He talks about the lawn tractor the way other people I know might speak about a car they’ve always wanted and finally were able to buy.

It’s interesting. To me, it seems funny to talk about a lawn tractor in such a personal way but perfectly reasonable to talk about a car in that manner. Is it because we sit inside the car that we see the human perspective as so central to the quality of a driving experience? Could it be that the simple shift from inside the car, to on-top of the tractor, makes us think of the tractor as more of a “tool” and therefore less accountable for delivering a high quality human experience?

How does this relate to technical business improvement? Are methodologies like Lean and Six Sigma more like a tool designed to complete a chore, or should they be accountable for delivering a high quality human experience? And how would you define that kind of experience for each of the groups involved?  For example:

• the executives who launch the initiatives
• the technical leaders who drive them
• the managers who oversee the various functional changes
• the ground-floor personnel who make them work in the day-to-day business

How would you define a high quality experience for the people in operations, the people in purchasing and supply, the people in product and service delivery, the people in marketing, sales, engineering, IT and HR…?

“Executizing” Academic Sounding Terms – Gaining Social Authority

A short story inspired by happenings in the real-world. 

Brandon is a young engineer working as a technical business improvement leader for a mid-sized business in a service industry.  On a recent day, his youthful enthusiasm for learning, and his desire to share new ideas, smashed right into the reality of what seemed to be a harsh executive perspective.  Here’s what happened:

In a chance lunchroom conversation, Brandon excitedly mentioned a new term and concept he had learned to an operations executive.  The term was “gaining social authority”.  When he said it, the executive, who had been relaxed, almost spit out his drink.  Next, he looked at Brandon and said in an irritated tone, “I’d throw anyone out of my office who used that kind of academic sounding term.  I hate terms like that!  They make me think the person using them doesn’t know a thing about getting things done in the real world!” 

Later Brandon complained about the incident to his manager.  During the back and forth conversation Brandon learned people throughout the company had come to respect this particular executive’s preference for plain speaking, if not his gruff manner.  Those who’d been around awhile understood the executive didn’t want technical experts using specialized terminology as a means of separating themselves from the rest of the workforce. 

After the conversation with his manager, Brandon thought to himself, “maybe the executive should show more tolerance for different perspectives.” And, in the next moment he thought, “in any case, I’ll make sure I respect the preference for plain speaking, at least until I see some reason not to.  And, in the future, I’ll work harder to phrase things in a more common way - heck, maybe it will make my work stronger as a result.” 

Months later Brandon was giving an executive overview of the very same concept, “gaining social authority”, to a room full of people.  The presentation clearly conveyed his passion for the “social authority”  approach, yet his explanation had been completely scrubbed of the specialized term.  Instead, Brandon talked about working to “get everyone on board” before “moving ahead” with a suggestion or plan for improvement and other details.  His presentation was comprehensive and understandable.   … During this session, Brandon noticed the executive who responded so gruffly in the lunchroom.  To his pleasant surprise, the executive seemed both engaged and pleased.   

Afterwards, Brandon reflected once again on the lunchroom interaction, this time with a smile on his face, and thought, “imagine that, in one fell swoop the gruff old guy taught me a lesson and did me a favor!…Good for him!”  

To gain deeper understanding of the social authority concept, please read the following post “Separating Responsibility from Authority” and consider reviewing the following presentation, “Nobody Likes Bad Change”. Both appear elsewhere on this blog.