Sustaining Improvement - The Foundation

Posted by Graham Cripps on Tue, Aug 04, 2015 @ 11:43 AM

Sustaining Improvement - The Foundation

I have been asked on a number of occasions why sustaining improvement has been so difficult. In the words of a recent client "We have tried several times but it just doesn't stick"

My question to the client's management team had to be "So what changes have you made in your behaviours?"

Regardless of the methods used (Six Sigma, Lean or any other form of Continuous Improvement) the key to success rests with the Senior Management Team.

Sustaining_Imp_blog_P1 Any improvement strategy as to be driven by top down behaviours that are linked to the organisations values and vision. This means that instead of 'telling' what needs to be done the Senior Team get involved in the planning, showing and doing. They need to be see to be seeking to understand all of the issues that need to be addressed before they can ask for this understanding in their teams,This will involve Active Listening.

Bringing in a consultant cannot fix the problems associated with disengaged behaviours. Don't think for one minute that walking around the business saying "Good morning" will cut it either..... The Senior Team have to be totally committed and involved before they can begin to ask anyone else to be

I have worked with organisations where members of the board have been very knowledgeable about Continuous Improvement, but have made the mistake of telling people rather than showing them.

So how do we make it happen?

And how do we make it stick?

Starting At The Top

The Company Vision is a statement of what the company wants or needs to achieve. The Mission includes the measurables, in other words 'How will we know when we have got there?'. This requires a good understanding of the goals and what success will look like.

The action planning should be carried out in two stages, the first being the action plan for the Senior Team. The second should involve the next tier of management developing their plan with the support of the Senior Team. At this stage, understanding the team must be a priority.

Knowing that change can be stressful is not enough, providing support and development opportunities in terms of Mental Toughness is part of the plan.

Facilitating Change

All improvement strategies will involve change. With this in mind, the Senior Team should set the reporting structures in place but not rely on these alone. They should be seen to be getting involved in a supporting role, to ensure that all employees feel comfortable discussing the issues in an open and honest way. Showing how this can be done should be a natural behaviour.

In this way all issues and blockages can be faced honestly, without fear and can be discussed openly to find the best ways forward. Facilitating change is a key role of the Senior Team and they should facilitate through actions not just words. In other words - SHOW DON'T TELL

Commmunication

A key element is communication, the most important part is Active Listening.

Even before the planning stage, the Senior Team need to brief the whole business on the detail behind the Vision and obtain feedback that will provide an early insight into some of the challenges that may have to be managed during implementation.

Remember, the well being of all company members is the responsibility of the Senior Team so understanding the people is critical. The detail of an effective support mechanism need to be an integral part of the business objectives, not just for change.

Throughout the planning and action stages of the implementation, constant open communication is important to ensure the plan is kept alive and relevant to everyone.

Developing the team to cope with change, from top to bottom, is a challenge that must be faced before the initiation of change. This is where Mental Toughness assessment can help.

Cascading The Plan

When setting goals for the business each facet of the business needs to be considered. For example, what does each individual's contribution look like and how are they to achieve it? How will they be supported and developed where necessary?

Mental Toughness is a term that encompasses the 4C's:

Control - I really believe I can do this

Commitment - I promise to do this, I'll set a goal

Challenge - I am driven to do it, I will take a chance

Confidence - I will work hard to use my abilities to the full

For more on Mental Toughness and how it can be reliably measured and developed, click here.

Involving each individual requires the Senior Team to address the fundamental question of 'Whats in it for me?' at every level of the business. We all only do anything for purely selfish reasons, either it suits us or is the right choice for us at that time.

Make It Your Own

There are lots of books covering the subject of Continuous Improvement and, like this article, a lot contain personal perspectives and opinions. It has been my experience, over the last thirty years or so, that the best programmes are those that are truly 'owned' by the organisation - that is to say everyone in that business.

At the end of the day, the responsibility for the success or failure of any change lies with the Senior Team. Effective communication, goal setting, delegation, facilitation, review and having the right people in the right position are all important and are the responsibility of the Senior Team.

Graham Cripps

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Topics: Continuous Improvement, Business Process Improvement, People Development, lean, lean foundation

Learning To See - Simple Thinking

Posted by Graham Cripps on Fri, Jul 31, 2015 @ 10:09 AM

Learning To See - Simple Thinking

In this article I am going to give a snap shot of the application of simple thinking in a few examples. To gain a better understanding of how this is applied, I will be providing further details in September, via a short 'e-book', of how 'Learning To See' can be applied to Continuous Improvement activities such as problem solving, process management and problem prevention. If this is of interest please take a minute to sign up to the blogs to ensure you are notified of its available.

I have been using this phrase for some time to describe the learned discipline of being able to see things for what they actually are, without cluttering the facts with opinions and assumptions. Its about employing simple thinking.

This approach requires a degree of self-discipline in the first instance. However, it also requires a structured approach to many of the tools and techniques used in the management of business processes and procedures in any business.

There are five methods I use in my approach:

Clear factual descriptions of problem, function and purpose statements
Defining the boundaries of all activities
Use of Visual Management to aid management and control
Simple thinking
Future State visioning

I will provide an overview of each of these, using simple examples to demonstrate

Clear Factual Descriptions

I commonly use two examples to explain the meaning, the first being problem solving and the second business development

We have a problem to solve, so the first step is to establish exactly what that problem is - this will be a clear statement detailing 'what is wrong with what'. All too often problems are not solved because we end up focusing on and dealing with the effect (the symptom), which masks the problem.

Business development often becomes just an increased sales effort, whether through increased sales activity, product development or looking to new markets, which in isolation often fails. Having a factual description of the business issue is the first step to creating an action plan that takes into consideration four main areas (SWOT) and provides an informed set of actions that can be directly addressed. This list will inevitably include some 'go find out' actions as well.

The SWOT analysis (you can download a free, editable template via the button at the bottom of this blog) is a detailed review of the business considering all of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (or risks) that can be clearly articulated, using data and real information - in essence a clear description of where the business is.

Defining The Boundaries

Defining a boundary for any activity is an efficient way of ensuring time is not spent on things that are not part of the target activity. This may seem simple at first but it is all too easy to wander off in other directions, albeit for seemingly good reasons!

Visual Management

Visual Management is an integrated approach to supporting communication and information sharing, having visual messages may be part of something bigger.

In the 1980's the company I was working for signed up to a quality poster campaign.This involved lots of posters going up on site with a picture of a lion, bearing the legend "The Customer Is King" or a picture of a lovely, shiny, golden key stating "Quality is the KEY to our business" - so what? If the business processes and activities do not reflect these messages then what is the point?

Visual Management is about prompting the right reaction and should be tied into the business objectives and operating procedures and policies.

Simple Thinking

Clear, unclouded, focused, factual thinking. Recently I undertook an observation at a site, involving two guys who were themselves observing a complex activity. Their observation lasted about an hour and, in all fairness, copious notes were taken by both observers on what they saw, heard and experienced. My observation was of both them and the same activity they were observing.

When the observation session was complete we compared notes, I had a lot less written notes but had picked up on a number of issues that they had missed. So what was the difference? Both of the observers had entered the area expecting to see certain things, which was part of their preparation and plan for the observation event. I had deliberately avoided being told in advance anything about the activity we were to observe.

The two observers were looking for what they expected to see, whilst I saw everything as I carried no expectations for the session. I had no mental clutter, a clear understanding of what I was going to do and was dealing only with what I saw - the facts.

Future State Visioning

Future State Visioning is an important part of goal setting, having a clear visions is the first step to setting business or personal goals (or objectives). When coaching others to develop their goals I always ask if they use any form of visualisation and, as this is often seen as a bit 'fluffy', the answer is usually no. But if I ask the same people what they will be doing for the weekend, I can get them to describe the detail and even some of the emotions attached to that vision.....

Imagination (or creativity) plays a major part in successful goal setting and achievement. It has been said that the brain cannot differentiate between a real event and a vividly imagined one and we will all have experienced the emotions that imagination can provoke, both positive and negative. In goal setting we use our imagination to see what success would look like, feel like and even smell like!

I coached a Senior Team at a machine manufacturing company and we were looking at articulating their goal (to double turnover in two years). I asked them to consider all their senses in the context of this, what would the business:

Look like - would they be in the same physical space, what would the shop floor look like (more people, more processes, new products etc)

Smell like - new processes generate new smells, new products need new processes etc

Sound like - would the phone be ringing more, who would they be talking to, manufacturing sounds, process sounds, what new technology sounds would they hear

Feel like - kinasthetic feelings that come from new materials, new technologies and new processes.

The more detail we can imagine about our goal (future state) the more real we can make it and the more detailed your action plan will be.

It is said there is no such thing as luck in business, I disagree! luck is where opportunity and preparedness meet, therefore we need to be prepared to spot those opportunities. The better we can describe (or imagine) our goal, the more prepared we are to spot those opportunities.

Now you might be thinking what about this simple thinking stuff? For me this fits perfectly. Having a clear vision of a goal is the first step towards attaining that very goal.

Graham Cripps

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Topics: Boundary Diagram, Continuous Improvement, People Development, visual management

Active Listening - Needs More Than Your Ears

Posted by Graham Cripps on Tue, Jul 28, 2015 @ 09:22 AM

Active Listening - Needs More Than Your Ears!

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Active Listening is something that some people find difficult to grasp. Active listening is about ensuring and confirming understanding

Have you ever asked the question of someone close to you "Are you listening to me?"

I have found that we believe we hear, and we believe we understand, without any reference point other than ourselves.

For example, you ask someone to do something and they say "Okay, I'll do that later, I need to finish this first". There are a few problems here already!

When is later?
What will you actually do?
Is what they are doing more important?
Do they really know what you want them to do?

When we ask someone to do something we have a mental 'picture' in our head of what that something looks like. Likewise, if you are asked to do something, the person asking has their mental 'picture'.

This 'picture' is more than just a 2D image, it has other facets that we need to consider, such as emotions, beliefs and values.

Active Listening is about making sure your vision of something and the other persons vision are closely aligned, we all know what happens if they are not!

We need to use questioning and observation as part of Active Listening: questioning our understanding by restating what you believe has been said, probing into what the other persons something looks like, observing the body language as we restate to look for physical signs of agreement

As business leaders we should always be striving to understand what the WHOLE picture is all about.

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Topics: Problem solving, Continuous Improvement, Leading Teams, People Development, Stress Management, Management Tools & Techniques, Mental Toughness, Leadership, MTQ

Free Mental Toughness Assessment Session - Enter Our Prize Draw

Posted by Julie Camp on Wed, Jul 22, 2015 @ 02:23 PM

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Topics: Continuous Improvement, People Development, Stress Management, Mental Toughness, MTQ

Mental Toughness - The Component Parts

Why not enter our FREE Prize Draw to win a Mental Toughness Assessment for your organisation, use the button on the left.

Second in the Blog series - Mental Toughness - What is it? Paul Caffery, MD of ResultsResults, explains the components of Mental Toughness - Control, Commitment, Challenge and Confidence. plus the opportunity to ask him a question directly!

JC "Paul, you've told us that there are four component parts to Mental Toughness - Control, Commitment, Challenge and Confidence, can you expand on what each of these means? Lets start with Control"

PC "Certainly Julie. Control, in mental toughness terms, can be explained in two dimensions - Life Control and Emotional Control. If someone has a high level of Life Control it means that they really believe they can do anything they can set their mind to. Having a high level of Emotional Control means they can manage both their own emotions and the emotions of others.

JC "How would that benefit someone?"

PC "Well if you have high levels of control you are more easily able to focus on facts and reality without getting drawn into assumptions (misled) and less likely to feel that you cannot make progress because of the way that somebody else is 'acting up'......."

JC "Great. What about Commitment?"

PC "Commitment is about Goal Setting and Achieving. People with high levels of mental toughness enjoy setting themselves goals and doing whatever it takes to keep their promises and achieve these goals!"

JC "Thats how we like people to be! Okay, what about Challenge?"

PC "When we are talking mental toughness, Challenge is about Drive and Adaptability. People with high levels of mental toughness learn from experience and take calculated risks, they see setbacks as an opportunity to learn and they will push to succeed"

JC "Right so someone who is mentally tough will not just give up at the first sign of an obstacle, they will keep trying, and adapt their approach if required. And Confidence?"

PC "Confidence is about having the ability (or being able to acquire the ability) and the interpersonal confidence to influence others in order to get their 'buy-in' to ensure you can complete a piece of work or project. Also having the confidence and ability to stand your own ground when necesssary!"

JC "Brilliant! Sounds like my sort of person"

PC "Yes, they are great people to have around if you are serious about driving improvements through your business, and sustaining them. However, please remember my health warning - managers have a responsibility to manage the environment and processes at work so that unnecesssary stresses are removed from the workplace. My top tip is to find people within the organisation with high levels of mental toughness and get them to help you"

JC " Thanks Paul, another great tip!"

If you have any questions about Mental Toughness and the MTQ48, use the form below to ask Paul directly

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Topics: People Development, Management Tools & Techniques, Mental Toughness, Business Resilience, Leadership

Mental Toughness - What is it? Do organisations need it?

Posted by Julie Camp on Wed, Jul 08, 2015 @ 09:59 AM

Mental Toughness - What Is It?

Why not enter our FREE Prize Draw to win a Mental Toughness Assessment for your organisation, use the button on the left!

Interview with Paul Caffery - MD of Results Results

I recently had a conversation with Paul Caffery to find out more about Mental Toughness, a term often used in sport but becoming increasing prevalent in industry.

JC "Paul, what is Mental Toughness?"

PC "Mental Toughness describes the mind set that every person adopts in everything that they do. It is closely related to qualities such as character, resilience, grit etc. You could define it as 'A personality trait which determines, in large part, how people respond to challenge, stress and pressure, irrespective of their circumstances'"

JC "Do organisations need people with high levels of Mental Toughness?"

PC "Good question Julie. This is the first question you should ask when considering job specifications or potential candidates for a specific role, as many positions within an organisation do not require particularly high levels of mental toughness. However, if mental toughness is a core requirement for a role, then the good news is that it is something you can test for and develop in your selected people.

JC "We hear a lot about Mental Toughness in sport, what sort of roles would require high levels within industry?"

PC "We would expect people in roles such as Six Sigma Black and Green Belts, Continuous Improvement Co-Ordinators, Team Leaders or Supervisors, Managers, anyone involved in Lean Implementation to typically require high levels of Mental Toughness. These people can then help to improve your organisation's performance by developing new skills in themselves, whilst co-creating and improving the work environment and processes with the rest of your team. This in turn makes the new state of performance sustainable, whilst encouraging them to improve it further"

JC "What are people with high levels of Mental Toughness typically like?"

PC "A mentally tough person tends to be sociable and outgoing; being able to remain calm and relaxed, they are competitive in many situations and have lower anxiety levels than others. They also have a high sense of self-belief and an unshakeable faith that they have control of their own destiny. These individuals can remain relatively unaffected by competition or adversity, performing to the peak of their ability in terms of performance, behaviour, well being, resilience, aspirations, employability and the ability to bring difficult situations to a satisfactory conclusion.

JC "Thanks for the explanation Paul, anything else we should know about Mental Toughness?"

PC "Yes! I would like to issue a health warning about Mental Toughness, because the organisation and its management team are always responsible for ensuring that unnecessary and undue stresses are not placed on your people. It is counter-productive to require mentally tough individuals to cope with situations that should be managed and remedied by you!"

JC "Noted! Thanks Paul"

This is the first in our upcoming series on Mental Toughness, sign up to our Blog, Facebook page and Twitter channel to ensure you receive notification of new posts on this topic

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Topics: People Development, Management Tools & Techniques, Mental Toughness, Business Resilience, Leadership