Toxic Work Environments
At the core of the “to work from home or not to work from home” debate is the balancing act between organizational trust and accountability. In my opinion, to tell an employee explicitly (or implicitly) that the only way to confirm their productivity is if the manager can directly witness their work in an office setting is to tell that employee that they are not to be trusted.
Making Better Decisions
This past Thursday, we launched our six part series, “Nobody Wants to Think Anymore” with a kickoff episode featuring my co-host, Dan Strafford. In this series, we’ll be interviewing business leaders from various industries for practical advice on what critical thinking means to them, how critical thinking is applied within their sphere of influence, and what it takes to build critical thinking skills.
Visual Management Systems and Trust
You can’t help improve that which you cannot see. You can’t hold an individual or team accountable for that which is not measured. Visually showing the blinking red or amber lights in addition to the green ones in your department lets others in the organization see that your part of the company is not perfect. Adopting and weaving visual management systems into the flow of work is an important tool to show that it is not only acceptable, but expected, that we all work together to improve upon organizational challenges.
A Plea for Humanity
Today's brief message is a plea for humanity, balance, and healing in the wake of last Saturday's mass shooting in Buffalo, NY.
Progress is to be found through #diversity, #equity, #inclusion, and #education.
Grace. Dignity. Compassion.
Andy
An Excerpt from the Ten Essential Tools of Continuous Improvement
A gemba walk is an opportunity for leadership to see how work is accomplished with their own eyes, listen carefully to the challenges and opportunities the team faces, and ask questions with the intention to seek to understand challenges and opportunities so they can be an advocate for and supporter of the team or department.
The Ten Wastes
My goal in introducing the eight wastes of Lean and the two additional wastes of emotion and meetings is more about developing the ability to see wastes clearly than it is about properly classifying them. As the saying goes, “What gets measured gets managed.” This ability to see waste is key to the adoption of a continuous improvement mindset. After all, if we can’t see waste and inefficiency, how can we continually improve our standard work?
Setting Annual Goals
Trust builds when actions are aligned with words. Flow is maximized when work is aligned up, down, and across the organization. Accountability flourishes in an environment of strong communication and multidirectional transparency. The three are inextricably linked, and strong goal-setting practices serve as the foundation for establishing trust, accountability, and flow.
A Special Video Introduction
Welcome to my first YouTube video! In this extended introductory segment, I provide a bit of insight into my background through several "icebreaker" questions and also delve into what makes me tick as a leader.
I discuss critical skills of the future and outline the importance of adopting a lifelong learning mindset and striking the appropriate balance between behavioral and technical skills.
Finally, I read a brief excerpt from my book, Balancing Act (Kaplan Publishing, 2021).
Thank you for your time.
Setting Organizational Master Goals
Goal setting within a business can be fraught with start-stops, discontinuity, extra-processing, and long wait times from ideation to implementation. Poorly designed goals that do not connect up, down, and across an organization can do more harm than good. That harm evidences itself in the form of team mistrust, employee dissatisfaction, failed projects, and poor performance. Moreover, if corporate goals change too frequently, the organizational change management curve and many individual contributor change management curves can’t keep up, leading to–you guessed it–team mistrust, employee dissatisfaction, failed projects, and poor performance.
The “It” of a Business
By being clear about what the company does and its differentiator(s), the average individual change management curve gets shorter and individual morale/competence improves–all else the same. Since the average individual curve shortens and individual outcomes improve, the organizational change curve (aggregated curve) gets shorter and overall outcomes improve.
Death, Taxes, and Change
What makes business different is that a business is a going concern. What this means is that a business should–theoretically–last forever. But just like a human or your automobile, entropy is out to get your business. Without significant maintenance and substantive change through time, your business will fall apart and return to the stardust from whence it came. Therefore, change is a necessary condition for the success and survival of any business. Operating a business without a plan for how to deal with change–or imagining that change is not important–is akin to having a death wish. Left unattended the opposing forces of change and entropy will rip the organization apart.
It All Begins with Purpose
In the boardroom, determining corporate purpose is a team sport that is driven from the office of the CEO with input from the senior executive team. Like its personal counterpart, a high level of human skill is required for the best results. Quiet egos, open ears, curious, agile minds, and courageous, yet compassionate voices are necessary conditions for success.