Episode 155 – Events for Leadersights and 579 Leaders

Good morning, I'm David Veech and this is Elevate Your Performance. 

I want to share some other ideas I've had about 579 Leadership and share a couple of events that I'm planning. 

First, I'm starting to record episodes for a podcast I'm simply going to call Leadersights, after my book.  It'll be a mix of me telling stories of the things I've learned about leaders and lean systems and conversations with leaders about overcoming problems and setting goals.  Those leaders might be CEOs or they might be Team Leaders from a manufacturing plant.  The key is to share some insight. 

I'll have discussions with each of them about 579 leadership, which, as I hinted at yesterday, is about the application of the Leadersights of Love, Learn, and Let go.  So I'll want to hear their stories about each of those and share them with you. 

My target length for a Podcast episode is going to be 579 seconds, twice.  579 seconds is 9 minutes and 39 seconds, and twice that will be 19 minutes and 18 seconds; which should be plenty of time for a good conversation. 

I hope you'll share with me some of the things you are looking for in a podcast so I can keep making it better.  I'm going to launch the podcast on my birthday, August 22 with the first 3 episodes, then release a new episode every week. 

Second, in September, I am launching a new mastermind study group that will focus on 579 Leadership.  Here, the members will be the stars as we share the things we discover about leadership in every situation you can imagine.   

Here's what I'm planning: 

Members will complete an application for the program, committing to a 579-day-long program (1 year, 7 months, and 4 days). Our key objective will be to become more effective as leaders, coaches, parents, team members, business owners, etc.  

Individually, I'll work with each member.  We'll have a 360-assessment done and together we'll set goals and build your action plan to become a more effective leader.  We will complete a few other assessments or diagnostic instruments for your business and set goals and build actions plans to improve there as well.   Members will get an hour of coaching with me every two weeks, plus additional access if you're working a particular problem or goal.  Members will also have access to exclusive materials I've created just for the group. 

The group will meet virtually every two weeks for 86 minutes and 51 seconds (or there abouts) which is 579 seconds times 9.  This will largely be in a Lean Coffee format where members will bring issues and we'll discuss those issues and try to help you take action to solve a problem or drive an improvement. 

Once a quarter (six times in the 579 day cycle), we'll meet face to face for 579 minutes (9 hours and 39 minutes).  We'll meet in different spots for everyone who can make it.  I hope that the members will rotate hosting in their companies and invite us in for a Genba walk while we're there and let us work on a problem they're wrestling with.  I'd like to have an agenda that includes the genba walk, focus time on a problem or lesson, a guest speaker, open networking and discussion time, lunch, and end with dinner and drinks - 9 hours and 39 minutes is a long day – so we'll make it as valuable as we can. 

Twice a year (three times in the 579 day cycle), we'll have a retreat for 3 days someplace we decide we'd like to see.  I hope all members will be able to make at least one of these, as we'll have some special recognition activities in addition to guests, tours, and cases to study. 

Once a year, we'll take a vacation – pushing us to have some balance.  So I'll book a cruise or a resort for us to take our families to and we'll spend a week or so just enjoying each other's company and taking in some cultural aspect of wherever we go.  I have Japan, a European River cruise focused on wine and beer, a Mediterranean cruise focused on culinary delights, and the Bourbon trail in mind. 

I'm still working on a pricing structure that will reflect the value of the program.  For the first cohort, I'm thinking about $15,200 for the 19 month program if paid up front, or $894 a month if paid monthly but committed for the program.  I promise we'll get much more value that that from the journey.  Of course the travel will be extra, but I'll get the best rates I can for wherever we go and offer them to the group through our partner travel agency, Clandestine Travel.  Part of the fees will contribute to a partner charity that I'm sorting through now so we can also give back to our community. 

I'll release the application which will include schedules for the 19 months on July 26th.  I'm limiting the size of the mastermind to 28 people per cohort.   

I'm pretty excited about both of these events – the podcast and the study group.  I've been thinking about these for a long time.  Let me know what YOU think. 

Have a great day, and I'll see you next time. 

Episode 154 - 579 Leadership

I'm David Veech and this is Elevate Your Performance. 

Yesterday, I introduced this idea I've had surrounding numbers and balance.  I showed how odd numbers in the scale from 1 to 9, when depicted as dots on a line, have evenly distributed numbers on each side of a center point, reflecting a balanced system. 

As I researched the meaning of certain numbers: 5, 7, and 9 in particular I made some interesting connections. 

Five is positioned in the center of the scale from 1 to 9.  In that position, it reflects the pivotal point of change.  Leaders should be that pivotal point of change for their teams and organizations.  But the number 5 also reflects characteristics and values like freedom, curiosity, and adaptability.  These are all good qualities for leaders as well.   

5 also values experiences and is more willing to go with the flow than others.   

Seven represents a quest for wisdom.  Here, leaders ask questions...lots of questions, and listen carefully to the answers.  They tend to be more analytical than others and try to find meaningfulness in everything they do.  These all sound like excellent qualities to develop in leaders. 

Nine is a little more complex.  Nine represents completeness, or wholeness, but not finality.  It's like completing one cycle and then beginning another, much like we describe in the PDCA cycle of continuous improvement in a lean system.  Nine emphasizes the importance of transitions and transformations and how leaders should be guiding and empowering their people through these transformations.   

Nine is compassionate and kind and seeks the greater good.  Leaders here are wiser, stronger, more aware, tolerant, and supportive than others. 

These characteristics are all quite similar to what I describe as key insights for leaders in my book Leadersights – Love, Learn, and Let go. 

Nine, as the compassionate, guiding, and supportive leader demonstrates love – actively placing the needs of others above their own. 

Seven, seeking wisdom, asking questions, represents Learn – the on-going quest for understanding. 

Five, the free-spirited, experience-oriented (why not give it a try), going with the flow really captures the essence of Letting go.   

I want to keep exploring these leadership values, characteristics, and behaviors so I am doing two specific things to focus my energies.  I'm out of time now, so I'll tell you about them tomorrow.  Join me here at 9 am. 

Have a great day and I'll see you tomorrow.

Episode 153 - Numbers and Balance

I’m David Veech and this is Elevate your performance. 

 

A few months ago, I stumbled onto a little article about numbers and numerology.  As I was reading through what they said each of these numbers meant, I kept drawing connections with leadership.  Weird, I know. 

 

Through much of last year, I’ve been reflecting on balance in all things.  This is one of the keys to lean thinking and making a workplace more productive.  Everything naturally strives for balance or equilibrium.  When things are out of balance, it creates stress on the system or on the human.  We can feel it when we’re out of balance.  Entrepreneurs and many other leaders often dedicate enormous energy to their work, sacrificing balance in the pursuit of success.  But how do you get someone who really loves what they do to take a vacation? 

 

So what does balance have to do with numbers?  I started thinking about how certain numbers can illustrate balance.  Think about just the numbers 1 through 9.  If we use dots to represent numbers you’ll notice that odd numbers each have a center point with an equal number of dots on either side.  With a little push, you can see that these look like scales that are perfectly balanced.   

 

That made me dig a little deeper into those odd numbers and what numerologist say they mean.  Keep in mind, I’m not an expert numerologist.  I don’t even know how a number comes to be associated with a person.  I’m looking for something that might be catchy enough to help me lead leaders to become more effective. 

 

That’s all I have time for this morning.  Over the next couple of days, I’ll share more insight into what I discovered and how I have been able to tie everything back to my 3 key insights for leaders - Love, Learn, and Let go. 

 

Have a great day and I’ll see you tomorrow 

 

 

Episode 152 - Plans

I’m David Veech and this is Elevate your performance. 

After taking June off from making videos, I figure it’s time to get back at it, especially since it was one year ago today that I made the first of these.  I managed to run a pretty good streak then.  When I broke the streak, I broke that momentum.  As with everything else, if you’re running a streak and something breaks that momentum, it’s very tough to get back to it, so the videos got more and more sporadic. 

Because of that, I’m hesitant to commit to getting back on this horse, but I do need to make some more and spread some more joy and knowledge.  Let me share some plans with you that I’ve been working on and thinking about. 

I did a short workshop on Fearless Teams for the NK Institute for Human Advancement.  It was a blast and got great feedback.  In my consulting engagements, building effective teams is a major focus area.  We all need teams to WORK.  I’m also building a couple of additional workshops we will offer in the future. 

Fearless teams lead to fearless culture.  Any change you’re trying to make in your workplace, whether it’s new software, or something from the Lean Six Sigma toolbox, if you don’t address the culture change needed, that initiative will fall short of your goals.  I help companies bridge that gap.  While your lean consulting group is doing their thing, or your software implementation team is doing theirs, I work in the space between the technical change and the people to bring about a culture change.  That’s the sweet spot for my coaching work. 

3 other big things I’m planning to launch in the next several weeks: 

First, I want to offer a mastermind study group through the NK Institute that will focus on High Speed Problem Solving.  This will be an ongoing membership-based group that will take lots of deep dives into techniques and skills for problem solving.  We’re still working the details, but I want to meet virtually every couple of weeks and face-to-face about once a quarter with one of the participants hosting at their workplace.  While we’re there, we’ll do some specific work on their specific problem. 

Second, I’ve had this nagging idea about a new leadership study group where the focus is on balance.  I’ll be writing some more on this idea in the future, but this group will be developing more effective leadership behaviors to drive change, build wisdom, and work in cycles where we define a challenge, work to meet that challenge, then set a new one in an upward spiral elevating performance for everyone. 

The third is a podcast.  I’ve been wrestling with this one because producing a podcast is a lot of work, and marketing it to get any followers is real heavy lifting.  But I think I can do this and tie it to the leadership study group.  I want to talk to leaders about balance, about learning, and about problem solving.  Be watching for more information about this.  I’ll need at least 10 episode in the can before I can launch, so I guess I need to start on that very soon. 

I guess I’d better get to work, huh?  Thanks for listening.  Subscribe to get updates and let me know if you’re interested in participating in any of those three projects.  And if you need help developing teams and problem solving skills for your employees, reach out.  I’d love to work with you. 

Have a great day and I’ll see you tomorrow. 

Episode 151 - Quality Circles

Hi, I’m David Veech and this is Elevate your performance.

Let’s talk about Quality Circles; also known as Quality Control Circles or QC Circles.

Quality circles are small groups of employees with cross-functional skills who work together on a problem in the workplace to learn how to solve problems.

This is my definition based on my understanding of the INTENT of quality circles programs at Toyota and Honda.

The key outcome for quality circles is not the solution to the problem, but on having people learn, understand, and use the key problem solving process.  They of course learn by doing, so the solution is the gravy to the meat and potatoes of LEARNING.

I heard a story a long time ago about the birth of Quality Circles.  Let me remind you that Deming initiated the quality movement in Japan in the 1950s through his lecturing with the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers.  

Sometime in the mid to late 50s, after Deming had taught another group of managers and engineers the basics of Statistical Quality Control, someone is said to have asked him repeatedly about ways to get more employees involved in solving problems.  

The story says that Deming made a short, off the cuff remark about pulling a group of employees together after they’ve experienced a problem and have them stand in a circle to discuss and solve their own problems instead of calling someone else.

This informal, off-the-cuff comment sparked another movement in Japan that included a series of local, regional, and national QC-Circle conferences where workers who solved a problem through a QC circle would present their findings to an audience of peers, who would then select certain ones for awards and celebrations.

Joseph Juran, a contemporary of Deming’s, wrote several articles on Quality Circles in the mid-1960s, published in Quality Digest and other similar publications in the United States.  All of these were completely ignored, of course, until the 80’s when everything Japanese was duplicated, or at least we tried to duplicate.

I was in Grad School at Clemson in 1991 researching production systems when I first learned about Quality Circles.  I was studying self-directed work teams, but quality circles kept coming up in my research and my discussions with managers.  

A lot of companies tried to install Quality Circles programs in the 80s and 90s.  But as we are wont to do here, we usually mandated that every employee be assigned to a Quality Circle, and they would meet once a week and solve problems to save the company money.

This attitude had to come from Juran’s articles that said Japanese companies who participated in all these Quality Circles conferences reported saving about $10 Million annually through the programs.  

US companies wanted that $10 million bucks and missed the whole point about people volunteering, once a problem had occurred, and that other people would be recruited to join the circle with the full support of the company.  

Needless to say, most efforts in the US failed.  

I started studying quality circles at Toyota after I joined the University of Kentucky faculty in 2001.  Toyota maintained about 150 to 170 active quality circles at any given time.  They reported saving about $10 million from these efforts - a surprisingly consistent number.  

I discovered similar findings at Honda’s facility in Marysville, Ohio when I served on the board of IdeasAmerica.

I found this so cool that I wrote about creating circles in my book Leadersights.  Here, though, I called them Learning Circles in an effort to get the focus on developing people.  

I hope you’ll pick it up, read it and give it a try.  When you do, call me.  I’d love to help make your system more successful.

I hope you’re finding these videos helpful.  

Please like, comment, share, and subscribe to let me know!

Have a great day and I’ll see you next time.

Episode 142 - Timelines for Toyota - Part 2

I'm David Veech and this is Elevate your performance.

With Sakichi Toyoda's death in 1930, his Son Kiichiro and nephew Risaburo were left to run his businesses.  As a result of a great earthquake in 1923, which destroyed significant pieces of Japan's railways, demand for automobiles soared.

Ford built a plant in Yokohama in December 1924, beginning production in March of 1925.  In 1927, General Motors began assembly operations in their plant in Osaka.  The surge of vehicles produced by these two plants effectively destroyed Japan's domestic automobile makers at the time.

It wasn't until 1933 that Kiichiro established an Automotive Production Division within the Toyoda Automatic Loom Works.  It began prototyping parts and designs which were reverse-engineered from a 1934 Chrysler DeSoto and a Chevrolet Engine.  Kiichiro had to establish his own steelmaking department as well, because their expected demand from existing steel mills was too low.

They purchased some machines, and converted others from the Loom works to begin making parts.  Kiichiro also sent an engineer to the US from January to July of 1934 to learn more.  That engineer visited 130 plants, 7 research facilities, and 5 universities to study the automotive and machine tool industries.

The Japanese government asked Toyoda to develop a truck as well, so Kiichiro bought a 1934 Ford Truck to use as the model, similar to how he used the DeSoto as the model for their first car.  That first car, the Model A1, was finally finished in May 1935.  The first truck prototype, the G-1 was finished in November that year.  Both were prone to serious defects.

With promising developments in the domestic manufacturing capability, the Japanese government changed the licensing rules, restricting licenses to manufacturers owned by a majority of Japanese citizens, effectively restricting Ford and GM from continuing operations there.  This, despite low output of the 2 domestic manufacturers, Toyoda and Nissan.  By September 1936, Toyota's volume had grown to just 100 vehicles per month.

In 1936, Toyoda hosted a contest to design a new Logo for the company, and changed the name from Toyoda with a D to Toyota with a T, as Industry leaders recommended.  People submitted 27,000 entries with the winner announced in the October 10, 1936 issue of the Toyota News.

They established the Toyota Motor Company in August 1937 and saw their dealer network grow to 22 outlets.  These dealers became significant investors in the new company.

We'll pick up here tomorrow and talk about Japan's entry into World War II.

Give me some feedback.  Let me know what you'd like to know more about.  Post a comment or send me an email.

Have a great day and I'll see you tomorrow.

https://www.toyota-global.com/company/history_of_toyota/75years/text/index.html

Episode 139 - Recap, Reset, Relaunch

I'm David Veech and this is Elevate your Performance.

I have to apologize for letting this series slip.  I've been letting a lot of things distract me from this project.  I really enjoy making these short videos and sharing them with everyone, but the most value I get is simply focusing my thinking for a short period of time each morning and that actually has helped make my day a little smoother.  So it's important for me to get back into this groove.

Let's recap a little with recent episodes.

A few months ago, I reset my production schedule to parallel the outline I have built for a new book on problem solving.  That started back in October 2020.  

I did short video episodes on Why I think problem solving is so important, then some videos on yesterday's, today's, and tomorrow's problems.

I did episodes on the scientific method and the Shewhart cycle, then a few episodes working through my own C4 process including how to use the C4 cards, the C4 worksheet, and a C4 Master Presentation file.

In November, the video schedule really started to slide. After recording 22 episodes in October, I only did 8 in November, 3 in December, 6 in January, 5 in February, and this is just my second one in March.

Since I did that review, I also discovered that I had missed a numbered episode early on, so that my episode numbering scheme was off. My last episode, on March 8th was actually 138 instead of 135.

I am currently designing the capstone course for the Masters of Engineering Management program for the Department of Engineering at The Ohio State University.  That course will be 100% online so I have a bunch of videos I need to record for that.

I have 30 years of course contents that I've organized into a structured library that I want to create online courses and programs for.  I've been making the production of these way too complicated and that has kept me from making the progress I know I need to make on them.

I want to make a series of short How-to videos and give restricted access to these for clients. 

What I'm doing now is building a synchronized schedule that will allow me to get these projects done over the summer.  That's pretty ambitious for me, so I could use your help.

If, when you see one of these videos on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, or YouTube, I hope you'll just take a second to send me a little note of encouragement.  Even if you don't watch the whole video, leave me a comment or even a quick like.

Thanks in advance!  

Have a great day and I'll see you tomorrow.

128 - The Craft Age and craft culture

While this segment is called The Craft Age and craft culture, I’m not sure that "Craft Age" is an appropriate term.  Since the very first human struck two rocks together to make a sharp edge, we've been making things by hand.  

Craft manufacturing is just that.  Making things by hand, with or without the aid of tools.  Crafts people are often called artisans and they make unique pieces of work to trade.  

The success or failure of a crafts person depended upon functional quality.  If the product didn't do what the customer needed it to do, or if it failed to last as long as the customer thought it should, then the craftsman probably couldn't stay in business.  

In the middle ages, when more people began migrating and congregating in villages, towns, and cities, the craftsmen would band together to form a guild, whose purpose was to protect the craft.  They would restrict entry into certain professions, and define training requirements, from apprentice, to journeyman, to master.

The culture surrounding this economic system depended heavily on understanding value from the customer's perspective, and on development of expertise by the craftsman.  That's the only way to guarantee quality.  

These three characteristics - value, mastery, and quality - live on today.  A quick visit to Etsy.com will show you how strong craft manufacturing remains.

On the down side though is availability.  When your business model focuses on making exactly what the customer wants, and your financial situation doesn't allow you to speculate it's impossible to have a product "in stock." 

When today we have Amazon Now delivering products to us in 2 hours, that tells you that people have lost patience except for some special purposes.  While once we were content to wait for that customized quality good to be made just for me, now we're not.  

And the cost doesn't help.  Manufacturing products by hand is expensive.  

As population centers grew and taxed the capacity of the craft guilds to satisfy the demand of the population, inventive people go to work to speed production and lower costs.  We’ll talk about a few of them over the next couple of days.

Now the challenge is to get exactly what we want and at the cost we're willing to pay - the value problem; and to get it to work just as we need it to work - the quality problem.

Have a great day and I'll see you tomorrow.

Thinking about 2021

After the new year, I'm planning to get back into the daily video business.  I've been spending these past couple of weeks focused first on family, then on developing some new ideas.

Neither of these are really new ideas, but I'm mustering up some energy to get them going this time around.

First is a concept around a high confidence culture.  This is based on what I think is the most significant factor in a successful culture of engagement: self-efficacy.  I've been talking about self-efficacy for years and sometimes it seems like I'm the only lean guy who does.  Self-Efficacy is the confidence we have about our own ability to do a particular task.  It could be a particular job at work, or an entrepreneur's marketing efforts, or my confidence that I can take a train from one part of DC to another.

Self-efficacy isn't something that just happens. Leaders can help shape this in team members, and I believe this fundamental understanding of how to build confidence in team members, and then to let it flourish is the first step to becoming a more effective leader.

The second idea is to build a more focused practice on coaching others.  I intend to take on clients who want to become more effective leaders and build engaging, high-confidence cultures.  I need to keep it oriented toward leadership in organizations, since it's that culture piece that we want to employ to create a better work environment for as many people as we can.

I guess I'll end up with three tiers of membership.  

    Tier 1 is individual, one-on-one coaching.  It'll start with a 360 degree assessment.  I use the LifeStyles Inventory (LSI) from Human Synergistics.  It'll also include an organizational assessment for profitability using the Quantum Profit Science Profit Model and will show how your organization compares with its industry averages.  We'll build a personal development plan and a roadmap to more engagement and we'll connect once a month for an hour to help you with accountability.

    Tier 2 is individual, one-on-one coaching as in Tier 1 but with 2 sessions per month, plus access to a weekly group Zoom call that will use lean coffee dialog techniques to discuss issues that participants bring to the table, rather than a set agenda.

    Tier 3 is the big Kahuna.  It includes the same individual one-on-one coaching as at Tier 2, and this group'll get their own weekly Zoom call.  But for this group, we add a specific project for participants from their own workplace.  Every 6 to 8 weeks, we will have a 3 to 4 day workshop focusing on a deep dive into a familiar topic, or an introduction to something completely new.  Finally, twice a year, pandemics notwithstanding, we'll meet face-to-face as a group in a place where we can learn, reflect, and relax.

What will the coaching focus on?  I'm glad you asked.  As the author of a book on leadership and another book on problem solving, it's a good bet that we'll be spending a lot of time on both of those topics.  But they will always be discussed within the framework of the high confidence culture.  Lots of lean systems thinking, principles, practices, tools and techniques with a special emphasis on standardized work (no, it's not the same thing that you're familiar with), workplace organization, visual management systems, and problem solving systems.

What's it going to cost??  I haven't figured that out yet.  I do know that I'm capping tier 3 at 16 people so I can provide a proper level of attention to achieve their learning and performance objectives.  What would you be willing to pay to get one or two of your key people into a focused development group like that?  Let me know.  

If you want to know when we're going to start and how you can be first in line, send me an email (david.veech@leadersights.com).  If you're ready to take that plunge now, go to https://calendly.com/davidveech/15min and schedule a 15 minute video chat with me.

All the best and Happy New Year.

David

125 - Cultures of Engagement

https://youtu.be/jZEuHIko1jM

Hi, I'm David Veech and this is Elevate Your Performance.

It's December 14, 2020.  The first truckloads of COVID-19 Vaccines headed toward 636 distributions centers over the weekend.  It'll still be months before we reach a point of saturation that will allow us to put aside our masks and social distancing, so please, keep maintaining your safety protocols through the holidays and well past when you get your own vaccination.

Here are a couple of cool events from history on this date.

On the sadder side, in 1799, George Washington, our first president, died at his home in Mount Vernon, Virginia.  In 1861, Prince Albert - Queen Victoria's husband - died in England.  He was a strong advocate for our Union - an important ally for the United States that was now in our 8th month of Civil War.

On the cool side, today is the day in 1900 that Max Planck presented Quantum Theory at the Physics Society in Berlin.  In 1911, Raold Amundsen reached the South Pole with 4 team members, after a 1400 mile trek over Antarctica.  

What piqued my interest in the Amundsen/Scott race to the south pole was Jim Collins and Morten Hansen's book Great by Choice.  They use it to contrast todays companies, in highly competitive and unpredictable markets.  

Some companies prepare like Amundsen and get similar results - they win.  Others prepare like Scott.  Scott's team died on the return trip from the south pole.  Pick up Collins' and Hansen's book along with Roland Huntford's "The Last Place on Earth" which Collins recommends as an excellent study of the two explorers.

The discipline applied by Amundsen's team created a culture that drove excellent performance.  In that kind of environment, your team has to be fully engaged.  

How do I define a culture of engagement?  The biggest difference between a culture of excitement, as I described in my last video, and a culture of engagement is the level of self-determination by the team.  

In a culture of engagement, everyone knows the vision, the goals, and the boundaries; they're trained to mastery level; and they're allowed to do whatever is necessary within the boundaries to achieve the goal.  And then, they do it.

Engaged team members don't wait until the Kaizen team comes to make improvements.  They make improvements everyday, practicing true kaizen - doing something everyday to make like a little better for those around you.

The leader's job is clear...set the vision and the direction, along with what's allowed and what's not allowed.  In lean we call these boundaries and rules Standardized Work.  But once these are set, the leader trains, teaches, and coaches, emphasizing problem solving and then let's go - encouraging everyone to improve everything without waiting for approval, as long as they operate within the rules to determine that a solution is in fact better through experimentation.

The harder part comes in how the leaders respond to failure.  If you hope to sustain this culture of engagement, we need to celebrate failure as learning events.

Please keep in mind that culture is fragile.  Any mishandling by leaders can undo any progress made toward this highest level of performance.  

Have a great day and I'll see you tomorrow.

david.veech@leadersights.com

https://www.leadersights.com

Merch:  https://teespring.com/stores/leadersights

124 - Cultures of Excitement

Hi, I’m David Veech and this is Elevate Your Performance.

Let’s take a quick look back at what happened on December 8 in history, then we’ll get into today’s topic - Cultures of Excitement

Perhaps the first crack in the glass ceiling occurred on this day in 1660 when a woman was allowed to play the part of Desdemona in Shakespeare’s Othello.  Apparently up to this point, men played all the roles, even email characters like Desdemona.

On the bad news side, today in 1980, John Lennon was murdered outside of his Manhattan apartment building by Mark David Chapman.

Let see what shapes up for today and what kind of history we can make.

Today, I want to continue building on the evolution of corporate culture.  We started with a culture of defiance, then compliance.  Compliance is the default organizational culture.  No matter what we do, we normalize in compliance and we’ll get locked in there if we don’t deliberately shake things up.

For future business survival, we have to break out of Compliance as often as we can think to and we do that first by asking for involvement.  In a culture of involvement, leaders ask for input to improve the workplace.  A lot of leaders in a lot of organizations do this regularly, but we can’t sustain this and push to the next level without certain working systems that allow us to process the input from involved employees productively.

As we push past involvement and begin allowing employees to not just share ideas, but participate in testing and implementing their ideas, we lay the foundation for a culture of excitement.

We love a workplace that’s exciting.  But what is it that excites people?  

Participation is a big part of it.  So what are we asking people to participate in with us?  One of the more popular activities is a rapid improvement event.  These events go by a wide variety of names:  Kaizen Event, Kaizen Blitz, Action Workout, 5 days/4 nights, Improvement workshops…anything.  

They are focused activities that bring a cross-functional group of people together for a set period of time…usually 5 days.  In that week, participants receive focused training on solving the problem at hand or implementing a particular strategy - something like creating a work cell, or a 5S campaign to organize the workplace. 

These same kinds of things make for popular Television Shows like Trading Spaces, Extreme Makeover Home Edition, Fixer-Upper, or Flip or Flop.  These are focused on getting the maximum result possible in the minimum amount of time.

What makes these exciting is the attention, the resources available, and the results.  These events are facilitated by skilled team members.  The tools they employ are designed to equalize the group so that the input from the front-line employee weighs the same as input from the CEO.  That’s very satisfying for most of us mortal humans.

So in that week, we feel listened to.  We feel like we matter.  We help make a real change in the workplace, and we can measure that change to show how much better we made things.  And that feeling of “look what we did” or “I helped” and “We won” is wonderful.  I think it’s winning that excites us the most.  So these events have to leave us feeling like we won. 

But how long does it last?

When the event is over and the facilitators go on to the next event, the participants are usually back to their old status - just team members.  They’ll remember how exciting the event was and they’ll say things like “I can’t wait till the Kaizen team comes back to do that with us again.”

A culture of excitement runs on events.  Since events are usually limited in scope to a small area that can actually get finished in a week, for a large organization, people might never participate in a second event.

These events drive great improvements in organizations of all kinds.  They work.  Don’t misunderstand me.  But they don’t create real, broad employee ENGAGEMENT.  The difference is critical. 

I’ll talk more about that in the next post.

Have a great day and I’ll see you tomorrow.

Welcome December

Hi everyone.

We have made it to December, despite 2020!  Of course, there have always been end-of-the-world predictions surrounding the first day of Winter, December 21, so we can't say we've got it made until at least after that.

2020 has definitely been a year for disrupting habits.  There are so many things we "used to do" that we've had to reinvent.  But we've done just that...Reinvented.  So I've been thinking this morning about habits and how it's so hard to build good habits that stick for long.  If we've reinvented and created something that works, will we keep it after the pandemic passes?  That made me think about change initiatives, projects, and programs and why so many fail, or why we have so many in the first place.

Being human is just difficult.  If we could stick to stuff, would we be better off?  Let's start with diets.  I can show you in my "LoseIt" app that I was able to maintain a streak of 481 days of logging every meal.  In that time, I lost 30 pounds!  But then, for one reason or another, I broke the streak. 

Once it's broken, the effort to get back into it is enormous.  So, I've gained all that weight back.  I don't really need anything new, though, because I know exactly what to do to achieve that level of success.   My biggest question now is: Why can't I get back into it? 

I learned everything I needed to know and I should have been able to sustain without the details of keeping track of everything.  But I didn't.  So the lesson to me is that the system and some help are absolutely required even after all that learning.  The same applies to your work.  You can't rely on people doing everything that needs to be done just because they know how.  Leaders build the systems that not only sustain, but also propel the workplace into the future.

Have a wonderful December. I have two things I'm prioritizing (after family) that I could use your help with:

1. I want to do more professional speaking in 2021.  (Profession is code for "Paid".)  If your company is having a meeting, either virtually or in person, I hope you'll consider me as a keynote or workshop speaker.  If you're in a chamber of commerce or professional association, please recommend me to the program committee.  I'm happy to follow up with proposals to provide the details, but start by booking a call with me.

2.  I have discovered a cloud based system that changes the way we keep track of work as it progresses through our processes.  It is unlike any financial software or ERP system I've ever seen.  It bases everything on a profit model created from your current financials but run through an algorithm that allows you to see first if you're in line with competitors in your market segment, and second, precisely where you can focus to increase productivity, profitability, and engagement. 

I need 6 to 10 small- to medium-sized companies to try this with so I can really understand how it works.   The company that produced it (QPS) is making a special offer that makes it affordable for even a very small business.  Please think about this and book a call with me to talk about how we might be able to run it in your company and what you can expect.

If I can help you with anything else, send me a message. 

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112 - More of Today's Problems

Good morning!

I love taking a look back through history as I prepare for these daily videos.  Here’s what I found for today:

• In 1636, Harvard College is founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

• In 1793, Eli Whitney applied for a patent for his Cotton Gin, a device that dramatically changed the economics of growing cotton in the southern United States, which I think allowed slavery to expand because the Cotton Gin made plantations profitable.

• In 1886, President Grover Cleveland dedicated Liberty Enlightening the World, also known as the Statue of Liberty.  She was a gift from France celebrating our Centennial in 1876.

• In 1927, Pan American Airways launches the world’s first scheduled international flight.

• In 1955, Bill Gates was born.  Happy Birthday, Bill!

I encourage you to take a step back every now and then and take a look around.  This quick review of the past always sparks some desire to learn more.  I use the Eli Whitney example of one of the seminal events that enabled the transition from the Craft Age to the Mass Production Age.  

We are still trying to make the jump from Mass Production to Lean Production - and when I say production, I don't mean just manufacturing.  We "produce" services as well and the principles are just as applicable.

Today, we still have problems, whether caused by a system failure or a decision to be better.  

To me problems are NOT bad things. They teach us. They challenge us. They drive us forward. We only think they hold us back because our heads aren't always on right.

I've had a few conversations with people about framing this and here's what I've learned.

The fundamental problem for business is "how can we be successful."  In most cases, success = growth.  But there are a variety of ways to shape success, and there are a variety of reasons to grow.

• Maybe we want to keep high paying manufacturing jobs in your region. 

 

• Maybe we want to have some positive impact on the community - one client of mine that makes medical devices said they want to reduce overall healthcare systems costs through improved patient outcomes.  

• Maybe they are focused on providing a reward those invested in the success of the company - following the old “Maximize Shareholder Wealth” purpose.

How can you grow your business?  To me, there’s really only one way:

• Be more innovative.  That means to learn and act faster than others.  This can lead to 2 basic things:

○ New processes for higher quality and productivity (including a faster process for launching new products, better processes for sales and marketing to reach new markets, etc.)  

○ New products for market growth

How can a company be more innovative?

• Get more ideas from more people.  In other words, improve employee engagement and confidence so they are willing to share their ideas.  We can do that in several ways:

○ Give them ownership (leadership has to let go) and rewards (not necessarily money) for sharing their ideas

○ Give them better thinking skills to improve the quality of ideas (teach them how to think critically)

○ Give them a structure that allows them to experiment with their ideas quickly:  Give them structures so that they can more quickly see problems that might prompt ideas (structures that make them more aware of what is going on)

○ Give them practice at doing these things

I've designed the C4 system I've been talking about to do all of these.  Let me help you put it in place.  Send me an email at david.veech@leadersights.com or send me a direct message on one of my social media platforms.

I’m David Veech and this has been Elevate Your Performance.

Have a great day and I’ll see you tomorrow.

110 - The C4 Worksheet

Elevate Episode 110   The C4 Worksheet 20201026

How do you keep track of ugly problems?  I've been in dozens of meetings where teams of people argue back and forth about what problem is really plaguing them or who should be doing what about it.  Lots of talk.  Lots of defensive emotions.  Lots of stress.   Zero action.

I've said this before but I'm telling you again, you have to write down everything that comes up when talking about a problem.

In most cases, problems that employees tell us about can be taken care of with the C4 card I shared with you last week.  It works great to help people think through the critical issues of the problem, find the most likely root causes, and develop more effective countermeasures by requiring us to think through the impact the countermeasure will have.

But what happens when it's a big ol' ugly problem?  

To address these, we need a team.  To help the team get it's head around the problem, we need something a little more flexible and substantial than the card.

In lean circles, we teach A3 problem solving.  A3 is simply the size of the paper that you work on.  The process follows PDCA steps.  But in many cases, the A3 is just a blank sheet of paper, or a paper with several large blocks designated for different activities, and I have found that many people find this very intimidating and it limits their progress as they try to figure out what is supposed to go where on this blank form.

So I thought I'd offer up some training wheels.  I took a Quality Circles Theme report from Toyota and used it as a guide to create this annotated C4 A3 worksheet.

It starts off with some questions to ask and answer and offers some descriptions and examples of what to put in each block.  It's everything you need to keep track of a problem or a project in summary form.  

It is not sufficient for collecting everything a team needs to complete a proper analysis of processes surrounding the problem or for details related to confirming root causes and managing experiments to gather enough data to evaluate countermeasures.  For these tasks, I've put together a C4 master presentation file that I'll talk about tomorrow.

This C4 A3 is available to download for free at my website, https://www.leadersights.com.  Just hover over "Learning Resources" and click on "Free Downloads."  After we verify who you are, you're free to download everything we have there, including a full copy of my book, "The C4 Process."

I will also be teaching how to use these in a Lean Frontiers Digital Workshop coming up December 3-4.  Here's the registration link:  https://leanfrontiers.com/highspeed/

Have a great day and I'll see you tomorrow.

108 - Four Types of Problems

I mentioned yesterday that how we process the C4 Card depends on the type of problem we have.  The types of problems that I have written about in my books are:

• Alert Response Problems:

• Problem occurs that threatens your ability to serve your customer

• Requires immediate report and immediate response

• Short term countermeasures contain the problem from spreading further

• Follow up analysis to find the root cause and develop a permanent solution

• For these problems, you'll need to take some action to contain or correct the problem immediately.  When the "crisis" passes, grab a C4 card or worksheet and quickly capture the problem and describe what actions you took.  Try to pull a few people together to dig into the problem deeper to make sure your countermeasure will correct the root cause.

• Measured Response Problems:

• Problem is visible through process metrics as an "out-of-standard" condition

• Could also be a nuisance problem but doesn’t threaten customers (usually smaller in scope)

• Individual reports the problem

• Coach works through the problem with the individual, escalating the problem if warranted

• Together they develop and implement the countermeasure

• For these problems, when you see the deviation from standard in your process, pull a C4 Card and capture the problem as the gap between what you planned and what you actually got.  Assign a coach - or do it yourself - and work through the card to define and clarity the problem, the find the root causes.  Afterwards, develop several countermeasures to try and implement the one that works best in every similar process.

• Individual Ideas:

• Individual has an idea and is willing to share it with us

• Ideas often stem from unresolved problems that may be hard to define

• Coach works through idea with the individual to identify the problem and check if the idea actually solves the problem

• Together they decide whether or not to implement the idea

• For these problems, write the idea in the countermeasure section of the card, then, as the leader coaches the team member, we identify the problem that prompted the idea, the find its root cause.  If the idea solves the problem at that root cause level, we can say it's a good idea; if it doesn't solve the problem, try something else!

• Management Response Problems:

• Problem is created when management sets a goal that exceeds current ability (push the standard; set a stretch goal) OR

• Business is making slow or no progress on annual or quarterly goals

• Assign a team to work through the problem solving process to pinpoint problems or barriers to success, find its cause or articulate the obstacles, develop and implement a set of countermeasures, then track progress

• For these problems, pull a team together from the start and build the plan to achieve the goal, but dig through to understand not just the root causes of any problems you foresee in pursuing this new standard, but also to identify any potential barriers to success.

Tomorrow, let's talk about escalating and using the C4 worksheet.

Have a great day and I'll see you tomorrow.

107 - The C4 Card Part 2

Good Morning.

Yesterday, I showed you the C4 Card and what it's used for.  Today I want to show you how it works.

Working the Card

• Problem occurs/team member has an idea

• Post card

• Leader pulls

• Assign coach

○ TL or Peer coach

• Dialogue 

○ Critical thinking

○ 5 whys

○ Initial evaluation

• The Dialog piece not only helps the team member but it teaches the coach how to ask better questions and build stronger relationships

• Cross unit coordination

○ Cross-shift/Cross-Dept

• Adjust inputs

• Countermeasures

○ Explore multiple options

○ Evaluate

○ Plan

○ Execute

• Confirm - Check the result.  Do we need to update any procedures or standardized work? Review the process - did we follow it as planned?  If we deviated, why did we deviate?  What did we learn by going through this?

How it works depends a little on how the problem shows up.  We'll cover these tomorrow!

I'm David Veech and this is Elevate Your Performance.

Have a great day and I'll see you tomorrow.

79 - Gemba Walks

Good morning!

Do you want to know more about what’s going on in your workplace?

As a leader, do you sometimes feel like people hide things from you for one reason or another?

If you’re working from home, do you often feel isolated and disconnected, wondering what the rest of your colleagues are doing?

Take a walk.

I’ve mentioned that I’ve studied Toyota pretty extensively.  19 years ago, Toyota leadership released “The Toyota Way” in an effort to teach their expectations for people around the world.  It is a remarkably simple document that explains their 5 philosophical principles.

Challenge

Kaizen

Genchi Genbutsu

Teamwork

Respect

One key thing I’ve learned is that Toyota, as a global company, tries very hard to use English in documents like this, so when the Japanese words remain, that usually means there isn’t an adequate translation for the term in English.

In this list we have Kaizen and Genchi Genbutsu.  One of these days, I’ll do one of these episodes on what I’ve learned about Kaizen.  Today, I want to focus on Genchi Genbutsu.

I’m not a Japanese linguist or anything, but here’s what I’ve learned.  Genchi translates directly to local.  Genbutsu translates directly to in-kind.  Those are hints, but not very helpful.  By the way, if you look up gemba (with an m) you get nothing, because it should be genba (with an n) which means actual spot or the scene of the crime.

The Toyota Way says Genchi Genbutsu means “go to the source to find the facts to make correct decisions, build consensus, and achieve goals at our best speed.”  Friends who worked there usually say it means “Get your boots on and go and see reality.” 

So gemba walks are born from this need to go and see what is really going on and go see it for yourself to really understand the people, the process, the purpose, and the problems in real time.

Because the Toyota Way emphasizes building consensus, I like to teach leaders that an underlying principle for every gemba walk is to improve relationships with your people.  Yes, go and see to ensure the system is working properly.  Yes, go and see to set new challenges for the teams to achieve.  Yes, go and understand the problems people experience and the processes that lead to them.  But you are dealing with people and this is an opportunity to either build trust and build consensus, or to break it through bad behavior.

As we progress, I’ll focus on each type of gemba walk in more detail.  But for now, you can do a system level gemba walk to see overall how the workplace functions - and you can do this virtually by having video calls with your key team members. 

You can also do a process-focused gemba walk to understand a specific work process and the team of people who work with that process.

And you can do a problem-solving gemba walk to go and see the point of occurrence of a problem and understand how and why it happened.

But again, underlying all of these are critical relationship building behaviors.  The key things that drive an effective gemba walk will always be Go and See, Ask Questions, and Show Respect.

Have a great day and I’ll see you tomorrow.

77 - Upcoming events

To help you see where you need to be to stay competitive and relevant in the future, I'm planning a series of activities starting in November.

First, I am building a series of six webinars focusing on culture change.  They'll be 90 minutes each (give or take).  I'm planning to do them in 3 two-day chunks - so the first 2 sessions on Monday and Tuesday, November 9-10; the next two on November 23-24; and the last two on December 7-8.  You'll need to register for each separately. 

I'm also doing a 2-day problem solving workshop with Lean Frontiers on December 2-3.  We'll be doing 4 hours each day with some applied learning activities for you to take into your workplace during and after the workshop.

The links to all of these are below, but I'll be posting these everywhere as I try to build an enthusiastic audience!

Online workshop:

Lean Frontiers Presents High Speed Problem Solving - an online workshop with David Veech, 12 - 4 pm Eastern, December 2-3.  Register at https://leanfrontiers.com/highspeed/


Webinar series:

1 - You CAN change your corporate culture:  November 9, 2 pm https://leadersights.zohoshowtime.com/sessions/moving-your-defiant-culture-forward-1753881878

2 - Moving your Defiant culture forward:  November 10, 2 pm https://leadersights.zohoshowtime.com/sessions/moving-your-defiant-culture-forward-3330595178

3 - Stuck in a culture of compliance?:  November 23, 2 pm  https://leadersights.zohoshowtime.com/sessions/stuck-in-a-culture-of-compliance-7005116609

4 - Getting your people more involved: November 24, 2 pm  https://leadersights.zohoshowtime.com/sessions/getting-your-people-more-involved--7209413867

5 - Your people are FIRED UP!  Now what?? :  December 7, 2 pm  https://leadersights.zohoshowtime.com/sessions/your-people-are-fired-up-6187929511

6 - Building a lasting culture of engagement:  December 8, 2pm  https://leadersights.zohoshowtime.com/sessions/building-a-lasting-culture-of-engagement--9024463091

68 - Reflecting on the week

How did last week go or you?  Did you make a point to learn something?

I've had a couple of new opportunities show up in the past couple of weeks that have been forcing me to rethink a lot of things, particularly about what I'm going to be doing in the future.  Which I still haven't quite figured out.

But hey, I'm only 60 and have my whole life in front of me, right?

Both opportunities will force me to learn some new stuff, so that really appeals to me.  I think I can probably take advantage of both of them instead of having to choose between them.

I've been late this week more than previous weeks getting this little video ready because I've been taking advantage of my learning energy, which runs strong first thing in the morning.  So I've been reading and reviewing new things instead of writing up what I plan to say for the video.

I like doing these videos, but others ask me if I'm including calls for action and "what are you trying to accomplish with them".  I started doing them with the hopes of having more people join me in discussing the topics I'm covering and hopefully, by some indirect magical connection, that they might lead to more people learning more about what I do and how I help people, leaders, and companies.

I've had a couple of great discussions with a couple of folks, but I haven't gotten much traction, but rather than quit, I realized that I enjoy creating something in the morning.  So I'm doing these for me as much as for anyone else.

I have some client work returning this month and I'm trying to figure out how to stick to my schedule while working with them.  I think I have it figured out.

This coming week, I have an array of topics for you that seem kind of random, but remember, everything follows this theme of "Letting Go" this month. 

Stick around.  Make some comments.  Ask some questions.  Let's have some fun with this.

Congratulations to Authentic, winner of the Kentucky Derby yesterday.  Sad to see the shots of the empty stands, but it was a pretty good race!

Have a great day and I'll see you tomorrow.

64 - Measuring Quality for Better Results

If you're not getting the results you want, it's probably because you're measuring the wrong things.

One of the things I do in my coaching and consulting business is help companies define measures and build visual management systems.  Contact me and let's have a chat.  I can help.

Since the theme for this month is Let Go, one of the main systems that allows a leader to let go is an effective visual management system. 

Yesterday I mentioned a measurement system, and that measurement system is the heart of that effective visual management system. 

Today, let's focus on measuring quality.

Whatever kind of work you do, there should be some way to measure the quality of your results.  In some environments, that's often hard to see. 

The very best measures are always objective measures - those that are easy to see.  In manufacturing it's usually easy because you have a product to put together and measure to see if it meets the customer's requirements. 

In other environments, you may have to shift your thinking a little to recognize that where ever you produce some kind of product or service, you can measure the product against a customer requirement.  It might be a contract, or a purchase order, or a reimbursement request, or a query to a database, or breakfast at a restaurant, or the education of a student, or spraying a house for bugs. 

How you measure that quality component needs to reflect the quality of the PROCESS as well as the quality of the PRODUCT.  We have to be able to see where the weaknesses in the product and process design are so we can prevent problems from occurring. 

Sadly, our first instinct when quality is poor is to blame the person closest to the error, yell at them or figuratively slap their wrists and tell them to do better or else.

If instead we examine the process and ask "how can we prevent this error from ever happening to anyone again?"  then our thinking will be in the right place. 

So whatever you measure and post in your visual system should encourage people to share when they make a mistake and where the process is difficult.  That's probably not going to happen if you measure defects in "parts per million."

Your measures also need to be easy to collect so you don't burn good, productive time just collecting data to update your board and your database.

Send me your questions about measuring quality and I'll post an update soon.

Have a great day and I'll see you tomorrow.