I've finally plucked up the courage to set-up an online blog. I'm going to endeavour to blog as often as possible to share my thoughts, to share some articles and news i find interesting, and also use it for my private reflections (you guys won't get to see that!). Also i hope people will read and comment on some of my posts.
The spur for deciding to set-up a blog has been my studies through the Open University. They encourage learning and reflection, and collaborating with others.
I recently
had the pleasure of spending a weekend in Antwerp, at the hands of Happy Melly
and their DARE13 conference. The conference was designed to bring an eclectic blend
of Lean, Kanban, Agile, Scrum, Improvement, happiness theorists and anarchists
together in a refurbished shipping hangar on the Western Scheldt. I was pleased to be able to present my experiences from this conference at the Connecting Improvers community monthly call (a community that I created for fellow improvers at OpenText), the slides of which can be viewed at the bottom of this post.
It’s fair
to say that I was not a typical delegate. Not being a software guy, nor an
Agile coach, nor did I work for an SME or a web startup. I also have no grand
ambitions to change the world, unlike Happy Melly found Jurgen Appelo (@jurgenappelo)
who, in the absence of Jim Benson due to plane trouble, kicked off the
conference with his manifesto for creating tribal businesses. It was a good way
to start and really set-up the rest of the conference by being energetic,
purposeful and slightly goofy. I was struck by his observation that “we don’t
learn from mistakes or from best practice, but from engaging in experiments”,
this is pretty controversial seeing as the old business maxim of “best practice”
still holds sway, and also the vast number of articles released recently
encouraging people to fail fast etc. Business, management and Leadership in its
current form is still too much of an art, for it to become a science it would
do well to borrow scientific tools like hypothesis testing, building
experiments and the like. This chimed quite neatly with another speaker (Paul
Klipp) who said: “Organisations don’t teach non-scientists to conduct
experiments”
The rest of
the conference can be summarized through a helpful 4 box grid I composed.
Scrum’ers, Kanbanista’s, the cult of Seddon and the free
spirits. These titles aren’t meant to be derogatory, merely illustrative.
Before attending the conference I was unaware of the schism in the software
world between Scrum advocates and Kanban supporters, suffice to say I am not the
best person to outline their respective philosophies. But I will echo the words
of Dean Leffingwell, who is an avowed Scrum’er, when he explained to those that
mock developers using waterfall techniques, that “without it we wouldn’t be
here today”. Both methodologies seek to reduce the batch sizes of features or
bugs that can be resolved during a certain period, hey just disagree over what
the size and the time period should be. What did I learn from this? Well my company
uses a customized version of Agile, and I can see the difficulties we have in
mastering this skill at an enterprise level, which makes me think Agile isn’t
scalable (many other presenters would disagree). What I definitely heard loud
and clear was that the world had moved on to exploring Kanban, and that
whichever method I chose there were plenty of companies that could sell me
software programmes to make it easier to use.
I’ve been
exposed to John Seddon before (not in person, sadly) but via YouTube and the
systems thinking study during my MBA. And it is core, it makes sense to me; you
can’t affect change on anyone part of the system, you need to step back and
assess the system in its entirety. I don’t particularly enjoy his criticisms of
Lean Six Sigma (hey it’s how I make my living!), but I like people and ideas to
challenge my thinking to make sure it doesn’t become fixed. Richard Moir’s
presentation was by far and away my favorite. It was simple, practical (looking
at Aviva’s IT department’s issues to completing features) and had me reflecting
on some of my current projects and whether I was- “Solving the right problem”.
I wasn’t by the way, but I struggled to see how you could balance making
essential small improvements without killing them off by saying you have to
investigate the whole system.
The Free
Spirits infuriated me a bit. I think it was the juxtaposition with such
detailed and technical material that didn’t compute for my overloaded brain. I
like innovative thought, I like to be provoked by unusual and innovative ideas,
but I also need to be convinced. Most of the ideas spouted by the free spirits
were untested, and so the evidence of practical application producing a positive
result was missing. However in the spirit of the DARE to try something motto of
the conference there were a couple of ideas I liked, and may even try. I urge
you to run out and read Jurgen Appelo’s book “How to change the world”, it is
essentially a packaging of all the change management stuff you’ve ever heard,
but with all the bits that don’t work removed. Although I was put off by the
new age core of Peter Moreno’s talk but was able to accept his message around
understanding and controlling emotional reactions at work (deep breathing helps),
and I will adopt Laurence Vanhee’s tactic of solving sticky issues in a maximum
of 3 meetings.
The best thing
about the DARE13 conference wasn't the lunch, or the incredible barista crafted
coffee’s, or the time we had for breaks, or the BBQ on the second day. It was the
Lean coffee sessions. These are pretty simple to run and ensure that the
participants share their experiences and solve problems in a collaborative way.
The session starts with a Kanban board (with columns labeled- Prioritized, In
progress, Completed) and post-it notes with ideas for discussion. Each person
gets to put up their ideas and they get 3 votes to use how they chose to indicate
priority. Once prioritized the group takes the top topic and agrees to talk for
8 minutes, at the buzzer there is a simple thumbs up, down neutral to indicate
if the conversation should continue or whether the group wants to move onto the
next discussion. It was a simple and effective networking, problem solving and
sharing device that was an excellent way of regulating discussion and get the most
value for the participants.
On a final
note, like with many conferences, some of the speakers “didn’t do what it said
on the tin”, in that the title and blurb for their talk bared little resemblance
to what they actually spoke about. This is a conference peeve for me,
especially when I have turned down a choice of two other talks that might do what
they say. Also, and this is timeless advice to any presenter- walk the room you’ll
be in. It wasn’t until the second day that presenters realized that the stage
set-up meant they were walking in front of the projector, also don’t be awed or
inspired by having access to conference technology…. Keep your presentations
simple and ensure that you can still get your message across in the event of a power
cut.
The
case for stealth innovation- Paddy Miller and Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg
I
often have a strong feeling of dread when the latest copy of the Harvard
Business Review is found upon opening the letterbox. Not because it isn’t
useful and informative (I should hope so considering the subscription costs!),
but more because it’s like a trip to the dentist; you know you have to, and
often it’s not that hard once you’re in there, but you dread the thought.
Enough of dentist metaphors! This month’s Review contained a great article on
stealth innovation.
Not
all companies are in the same position as OpenText of having to innovate to
remain market competitive; in fact some companies do a roaring trade in talking
innovative whilst being anything but. Whilst old school dinosaur companies make
a habit out of avoiding it until the last possible moment (I’m looking at you:
banking industry).
I
found this article interesting on two levels; the practical “how to” aspect of
stealth innovation and the shock that some companies that should (perhaps even I
just assumed would...) have innovation hard coded into their DNA also struggled
with the same issues as mere mortal companies. The article opens on this
premise, but doesn’t explore it in detail, with a short anecdote/case study on Pfizer.
I mean, if there is one industry you hope would be innovative it would be big Pharma.
But
pushing my shock to one side the advice for practically applying stealth
innovation was really powerful:
A Leading cause of innovation
death is early exposure- it’s sort of obvious, at the idea stage you don’t
have the data, you don’t have the solution, you don’t have market research, you
don’t know how long it will take and how long it will cost… And logic dictates
your idea will be filed under B, for bin (or T for trash for my American
readers)
Mandate from the middle- This is where the
resources are appropriated, and where people are most likely to understand the
implications of your idea. I love the authors’ comment on asking for advice
rather than pitching the idea. How many times have you worked yourself up into
a frenzy about an idea for someone with different energy levels shock absorb
your passion? (Just me then?)
Stealth testing- The strength of
this tip was the case study. Again I fell off my chair shocked that at MTV
there was a concern that an innovative idea might be killed off. Many questions
entered my head at this juncture; I was astonished anyway that someone thought
Jersey Shore was a good idea, but now I’m puzzled that this went through a
strenuous vetting procedure and still survived intact? In the example chosen by
the authors the innovators took risks and were creative in their approach to
conducting a test… however I couldn’t help but think most companies would not
look so kindly on this type of behavior (with or without performance stats to
back it up).
Couple
of quick fire points on the rest of the article:
Resourcing-
“just find some space in a budget and re-apportion it” I’ve seen this concept
in many a textbook but never in any company I’ve worked in… I wonder if this is
how academics imagine companies work?
Comparing
stealth activity to illegal activity- this is felt came out of no-where and the
use of Jerome “What’s a billion between friends?” Kerviel a confusing example… I
didn’t see what he did as innovation but more like a massive fraud and
attempted cover-up. I felt a better example here would be to have highlighted
cases where stealth innovation resulted in compliance issues or minor legal
infractions… but I guess that just isn’t glamorous.
Also
on a related point, can we stop calling them “rogue traders” it makes them
sound like a morally dubious character from the MadMen universe, and instead
use the less common phrase “convicted criminal”
Yesterday evening I had the pleasure of battling snow and
ice to get to Deloitte’s Luxembourg office out near the local airport. The
presentation was ably led by Paul Lee, Global Director of TMT Research, and the
man responsible for gathering the information that makes the predictions
possible (80% success rate in the last two years!). I won’t go into the detail
of how the predictions are sourced from Industry and then tested with in
consumer markets for adoption, you can find out more about that on their dedicated
internet site
Instead I’ll list some of his key predictions, and then riff
off them below:
Predictions
Bring your own computer- Very few additional companies will
adopt a policy.
Why? Because it relies on companies providing a voucher or
subsidy for the employee to buy a PC, hence this is very different to the BYOD
trend. That subsidy is a taxable benefit and so it increases costs to the
employer; as a result of these two factors only 5% of companies have a BYOC
policy. Additionally there is an emerging requirement for BYO IT, as technical support
is not easily provided to a range of non-standard operating systems and hardware.
But perhaps the most significant barrier (in my humble opinion) is privacy;
would you sign up to companies being able to delve into your personal files?
But what about VPN I hear you cry? Sadly bandwidth required for high quality
VPN is not universally available, and so this may erode the productivity gains
that have been forecast for flexible working.
The end of strong password security- The rise of
multi-factor authentication.
Why? You can now crack a complex password (e.g. H@rvard567!)
with equipment that can be bought for $10k. Also the hackers have moved towards
obtaining the master password files from organisations with the intention of
decrypting them. In fact Deloitte predict that more than 90% of “strong”
passwords are at risk, and a recent study has shown that use of the 10,000 most
popular passwords accounts for 98.1% of all in use. So how is this going to be
tackled? Multi-factor authentication (not two step as Google et al have been
introducing). Examples include a password sent to a register mobile, dongles,
biometric etc.
I appreciate the irony, as whilst I was writing this my Yahoo!
Account was hacked from Japan, Russia and Romania, and spam sent out to my
contacts…. Apologies all!
Over 1 billion smartphones will be shipped this year.
This was interesting purely from a stat and usage
perspective. There is a lot of buzz in industry at the moment about going
mobile, and the increasing focus on producing mobile compatible interfaces. I’ll
admit I struggle with practical application of some stuff in a mobile device; I
personally feel more comfortable viewing emails on a tablet, but tend to
respond to them on a Laptop… Anyway couple of key things Paul said about
mobile;
There will be 1.9 billion smartphones in use by the
end of 2013
20% of those users may never (or less than once
a week) connect their device to the internet through wifi or cellular network.
Hundreds of millions of users won’t have a data
package!
400 million smartphones’ usage will resemble that
of a feature phone (makes calls, texts etc)
This is partly because of high charges for roaming and data
usage (see next segment) but is also due to smartphones being handed down (or
up, I’m not quite sure) to the older generation; effectively Grandparents will
be given the gift of smartphones once their children or grandkids get bored of theirs.
As an aside Paul pointed out that they will be used like feature phones also
because…. No one is making feature phones anymore!
All you can app (AYCA)
Is a fixed monthly subscription to replace data plans and
download limits. Put simply most punters (or consumers) can’t tell the
difference (file size wise) between a 30 sec clip of video, music, or web
browsing, and thus metered billing is toast! As once they realise how expensive
it is to watch live sport (cost price is $10 per GB, but billed to consumers at
less than $5 per unit) the market for it will evaporate! So the solution
appears to be AYCA; typically bundling social networks together (a bit like
cable TV does with channels) and movie services and/or spotify (or other music
service providers) for a monthly fee. This is expected to be popular in local
income economies with India’s Reliance telecom taking a lead. One of the most
interesting case studies is that of Globe Telecom’s (Phillipines) partnership
with Google; providing free access to Google services (search, Gmail etc) and
the websites navigated too from a Google search… hmmm.
Enterprise Social Networks
This really piqued my interest, mainly (full disclosure)
because OpenText has just launched its own ESN internally with the intention of
delivering it to the Enterprise. Bullet point observations:
90% of Fortune 500’s will have at least
partially implemented an ESN
Only 1/3 of users will read content once a week
With only 40% posting at least once a month
We’ve had intranets since the early nineties,
and yet they have hardly garnered high usage stats
On a related note the ratio of TV watching
(western Europe) vs. times spent on Social networks is still 40:1
Reasons for these startling numbers are varied; time obviously
ranks fairly high, struggling to keep up with another social network feed, and
not knowing how to use it…. Hang on what?
Well as crazy as it may seem that last point is key. I’ve
been in two companies that have launched ESN’s and both times they’ve suffered
from the “why?” question. In a bank I worked in they launched an ESN to
encourage collaboration; this really struggled early on as the majority of
staff in a bank don’t need to collaborate, they need to follow policy and procedure
(note: collaboration is what got the LIBOR traders into trouble… although I appreciate
the tenuous cause and effect). Those that do need to collaborate… already do.
They’ve not been sitting around scratching their heads wondering why their global
project is struggling to get off the ground; they’ve probably been using email
and voice conferencing.
There is also the Facebook LinkedIn paradox (not sure if
that is the right term), is the ESN for sharing pictures of cats and weekend
plans? Or is it to make connections and share business data or business value
adding content? In both ESN implementations the answer to that question has
been left up to the wisdom of crowds…. With predictable results; The bank ESN
felt like entering a dangerous world where a wrong comment or observation could
be met with swift retribution from HR, the opposite is true in software (600
communities? How can I navigate that!) where pretty much anything goes.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against ESNs. I think they are
an evolving force for good. However as Deloitte point out, employees could do
with a guide, there should be some loose principles, and it should be aligned
if not embedded with existing business processes. If these things don’t happen
then over time the tool will wither and die.
Let’s start with the negative. Having the same lunch every day to save time in choosing, likewise having an automatic door, as examples of how far Saban will go to eliminate waste. Does a great deal of harm to what Lean Six Sigma process improvement is about. Yes Nick is removing variation, and that is alright for some.... but I doubt (even tenuously) that Nick's lunch order is a root cause of his team's consecutive national championships.
Secondly is this concept of standardisation. The author seems to be suggesting that standardisation is one of the key factors in winning. I agree with the author on the standardisation of the small stuff, however I think rather than talking about continuous improvement he would be wise to focus on the flexibility this affords the team in terms of its playing philosophy (explained in the next paragraph)
What I love about this article is the focus on process. Alabama have a process for preparing teams to win games, not a process for winning games like many other sports teams. The sports world is obsessed with developing a winning formula, the "one best way" if you will, that can conquer all teams in all scenarios. What Saban and Alabama do well is respond well to differing challenges. They've learnt how to adapt to meet the strengths and weaknesses of opponents and they have enough intellectual flexibility to know that sticking to one catch all philosophy is unlikely to work. This work he does with his team means they can flex their approach during games as well, something many struggle with.
The other thing I love about this article is at a detail level. Saban prioritises that which adds value. Coaching and interacting with his players is his number one priority. His team doesn't get better by him responding to emails faster, they don't get better by him spending time with the national and local press, they don't get better by him spending more time watching tape.... they get better because he prioritises time spent with his team; coaching, mentoring, adjusting, reinforcing.
What it also does is add to the volume of evidence that suggests Lean can be applied outside of manufacturing.
I appreciate that by placing provocative title on top
of this post, I have certain obligations to you the reader. So lets get the disappointment
out of the way…. This topic sprang to mind when I was in attendance at “The
Place for Luxembourg Improvers” and their Pecha Kucha evening (Which apparently
is the sound in Japanese that best signifies chit chat). The evening was
attended by many a varied speaker from across the Luxembourg “improvement scene”,
but it was a presentation by Floriane Maffei of DHL. Her presentation explored
the DHL improvement way; leaning heavily on the six sigma concepts, mixing it
with a performance management system that rewarded a continuous improvement
mindset. But it wasn’t their incredible progress that got me thinking, it was
actually the prevalence of large programmes in defining the improvement journey
of many companies.
Although it didn’t feel particularly pleasurable at
the time, before landing a role at Open Text, I was wandering around various companies
hearing about their approaches to Lean, Sigma, BPS, OpEx etc. But really there
was great pleasure to be derived from hearing about the latest advances in the
industry, and the student in me had a great time comparing and contrasting the
different approaches. In this time each company I spoke to was keen to stress
the gigantic scale and number of resources being ploughed into their “Programme”.
Evidently if you are going to be serious about doing improvement the bigger the
better, right?
So it’s worth exploring these big beasts and how they
worked their programmes. Having worked at Lloyds TSB just after they had pulled
together their Lean programme, the size was at times overwhelming; £18m in bottom-line
efficiency savings within 18 months, 50 people roaming the UK, a small
centralised team, but very explicitly a programme that one day would run out of
funding and be consigned to history with all the plaudits a successful
initiative brings. Its date with destiny arrived at about the 2 year mark, at
which point something miraculous happened… the business of its own accord
agreed to set-up its own improvement teams, made up of former members of the
programme team. And so the improvement journey continued to evolve at a local
level, with customisations and differing targets/objectives, and to my
knowledge (although branded differently) still exists today as the way most
departments do business. RBS was at the same stage of its development when I was
there; looking off into the distance they saw that they would run out of roll-out
style projects within operations. Consolidation was not on their mind, instead
the big programme concept continued to hold sway, leading to expansion into
other non-operational areas to continue to fuel the 300 people employed
specifically for the task of implementing Lean. In hindsight there were two key
differences between these programmes, one was that despite being a programme
the desire was to keep the resources utilized rather than exploring other
options, and this in part was driven by the other difference which was at least
50% of the staff were drafted in from outside and not necessarily with prior
banking experience. Whereas in the Lloyds scenario the staff could go back to their
old jobs, or had a decent enough network/skills to source an internal position,
in the RBS example those who came into the organisation came with a specific
purpose of doing Lean, to keep that talent in the organisation the show has to
go on.
Two other examples of big beast like programmes, are
Maersk’s Process Excellence programme and Zurich’s entry into Lean Six Sigma
work. Both are huge global programmes, they have a defined shelf life (and
executive funding), and utilize miniscule centralised resource. The model is
much more reliant on enthusiasm being generated within the operational
departments, with part-time improvers achieving their badges and fitting their improvement
initiatives alongside other priorities. The central teams manage reporting,
training, coaching, mentoring, and standardisation. However both companies are
fully endorsing this approach, and expect leaders throughout the company to
respond to the improvement pressures within their respective industries.
At the other end of the spectrum you have the example
of more, what I will call, organic programmes that develop as smaller ventures.
The sort of programmes that spread like a contagion as the successes become
part of the water cooler gossip. Companies like those mentioned by Lean
Thinking; Wiremold, Lantech, etc. But also you could stretch the definition of organic
to the origins of Toyota’s TPS; being that Ohno was spreading his approaches
through trial, error, success, word of mouth, and not through corporate
fanfare.
So big or small? The advantages of going big are
fairly obvious economies of scale, coverage of large swaths of the
organisation, the resources to do it right, the sense of it being an
unstoppable juggernaut increasing engagement and adoption, return on investment
(big costs with a big payoff).Typically these programmes are swift, with the
first repayments being made within 3 months of kicking off. However perhaps the
biggest disadvantage is that organisations are set up to manage such efforts as
programmes, which of course are expected to end or complete; subconsciously you’re
letting people know it is short term and not a cultural adjustment.
What about small. Well there is not as much pressure
because there is very little cost, mistakes can be made at this scale, it is
without fanfare and so isn’t typically labelled a corporate initiative, the
successes will speak for themselves, people can also sharing in the joy of
discovering improvement without it being foisted on them. The biggest advantage
is flexibility, something we’re discovering at Open Text, you can choose to
approach projects in a way that suits the client needs, you can have the same
resources working on more than one project at once, and there is flexibility in
the learning as well; choosing what is appropriate at that time.
But forgive me for a thousand word distraction,
because the debate shouldn’t be about big or small, but about your improvement
philosophy or vision. In a previous post I talked about the Investment banking
team that wasn’t clear on their purpose and so produced a muddled Lean approach
that confused customers and practitioners alike. Why are you choosing to
improve? What is your burning platform?
Here are some examples of burning platforms or visions
that could shape your improvement philosophy (they are not exhaustive):
Costs- reduce them, reassign them. The best cost rationale
I’ve come across is when people link it to the customer; Unit costs or cost of
production being too high, rather than workforce reduction- it rarely gets
people whooping!
Quality- TQM and Six sigma focus on producing high
quality through processes and service interactions, devilishly difficult to
measure. Is your company in a position to make quality it’s USP?
Delivery- this platform is all about reducing delays,
and becoming a more responsive organisation. How much more quickly can we
deliver this to a customer?
Engagement- It could be that you want staff to be more
engaged with the work they do, and by giving them the autonomy and authority to
change; you might just achieve this
You could also add customer and safety (especially in
heavy manufacturing industries) to these examples, again they are not exhaustive.
They should frame the goals you’re going to pursue, the way you go about
improving an area, what success looks like, and what processes or areas you
look to improve. That clarity will influence the training you develop, and the
type of people you want on the team.
Big or small? I don’t know which is best; I’m going to
find out more about small as I continue my journey at Open Text. What I do know
is that you need to understand why you’re doing it.
Tonight i'll be speaking for just 6 minutes on this topic at a Pecha Kutcha evening of the "Place for Luxembourg Improvers" I'll be one of many speakers, but i hope to be able to add something insightful and spark a bit of a debate.
6 minutes (as i found out writing the following text) is a very short amount of time, try it some time and you'll realise how precise and structured you have to be. Unfortunately i wont get the opportunity to say all i had to say, or use all of the resources i had hoped too. But the beauty of blogs is i can put the Directors cut in here. So below i've included the Full text of what i believe the improver behaviours to be, and also included the material i will use this evening as well as some extra goodies!
Hello my name is Luke, and I’m a process
and business improvement specialist at Open Text in Luxembourg. Open Text is a global software company with over 100million users in 114 countries, some of the products we sell include; clould technology, document management, BPS and many more.
I’ve been
working to improve the processes and business practices that impact customers
in a variety of companies for over a decade now. My current role focuses on
working across the R&D function; deploying my improvement expertise to
solve problems that stop Open Text from serving its customers better, imparting
my knowledge to build comfort and capability with improvement methodologies in
our staff, to work with senior leaders to understand how Lean Six Sigma can
help them achieve, and develop a strategy to make Lean Six Sigma part of the
way we work in R&D globally, but especially Europe.
We’re in the very early stages of our
improvement journey, and I hope that I will be able to come back and talk about
our progress at a later date. But today I want to talk about something I am
deeply passionate about, something that when it hit me allowed me to become a
more effective Improvement practitioner, and an easier person to work with!
But first let me start with a question. How
did you find Improvement? What courses did you attend? What was your first
introduction to the wide field of improvement?
(Audience Participation)
Do you know I’m not surprised by those
answers, because they mirror my experience and the typical experience of most
Improvers. The foundation of our introduction to improvement is through tools,
models, methodology, sometimes strange languages like Japanese, German or
Americanised business speak! Think about it, Six Sigma talks about Voice of the
Customer, Lean about the 8 wastes, BPM talks about elegantly designed
processes, Operational Excellence is about process efficiency and productivity
models. All of which are tools and techniques that build up a science around
improvement, barriers to entry; do you speak the language? Do you know the
difference between a VSM and a Process Map? Where did you get your badge?
A fantastic industry has been built up
around determining and delivering the tools to improvement professionals;
whether it be through training, consultancy, or the myriad of books cluttering
bookshelves. The orthodoxy is tools, specialist knowledge, language, methods….
I’m not against any of these; I think they’ve given credibility to a skill set
that only existed in manufacturing up until the early 90’s. They’ve opened up
the potential to make massive changes to the customer experience, and from a
purely selfish perspective they’ve kept me in employment!
But I’m concerned. Because despite the
volume of training and models, we are still contending with this statistic….
Thousands of words have been written on the
subject, and I can tell you, very few of the conclusions blame the failure on
the paucity of training or the ineffectiveness of tools used. So if we all
acknowledge that improvement is influenced by the human aspect and less about
the tools, can we start to turn away from tools and start a dialogue around
improvement behaviours?
I’m not claiming to be the first to realise
this. The excellent people at the Lean Enterprise Institute are making
Collaborative learning a focus of their summits this year. Having worked with
McKinsey & Co. whilst at the Royal Bank of Scotland I am aware of their
laser like focus on “Mindsets and behaviours” to enhance the likelihood changes
and improvements stick. I’m sure you’ve got other examples of where the people
aspect has been explored as part of your improvement work….From my experience a
lot of this focus on people is more about influencing, coercing, cajoling them
into changing their behaviours. Rather than taking the time to explore the
behaviour you as a change agent exhibit and understanding the impact that has
on others and their behaviour.
A quick question; who here thinks people
are naturally resistant to change? (show of hands), and who is on the other
side of the fence? (respond to show of hands) There is an excellent video on
youtube, which unfortunately I don’t have the time to show that explains the
behavioural reasons behind resistance to change.
Successful improvement efforts are
conducted by people, who know how to engage other people, and typically we, as
improvers, have to rely on those people bring ideas and new ways of thinking as
we ourselves are not the experts in their job. How can you create the right
atmosphere for successful improvement? Lets talk about behaviours.
Negative ones first! I’m sure that some of
these will be familiar to you, and that you yourselves may have fallen into
some of these behaviours…. My first 5 years as an improver looked a little bit
like this!
Are you an improvement
fundamentalist?
Where are you on the continuum? At one end you have the
adaptors, they have very little conviction for their tools and techniques, they
sense the mood of the company or the department they are working in and adapt,
conform, or as a Fundamentalist would say “they go native!” At the other end of
the continuum you have the Fundamentalists; this is where improvement can start
to feel like religion, you’ll know a fundamentalist by how much they love 5s
(typically they’ll have upset their partners by Sorting, Setting in order,
Shining, Standardising and sustain auditing the kitchen at home!). They’ll also
be the person that when standing in a queue at the shop is not moaning at how
long it is taking, but instead be drawing a process map in their mind and
seeing how Takt can be introduced to ease the flow. What I’m advocating is a
middle ground, an adaptable flexible improver that has a toolkit they can use,
but is humble and respects all of those involved.
The Emperors new clothes
This is where you delight in finding faults in the
company processes or operations. Where everyday is a series of conversations
where you expose (hence the Emperors new clothes reference) the area you are
working in. I mean, that is why they brought you in right? To be an
insufferable know it all to tell them everything that is going wrong in their
organisation? However the part of the fable that people forget is that someone
convinced the Emperor of the merits of his new line of clothing, he agreed and
went ahead with this wardrobe malfunction. Those people that convinced him are
still around, and they don’t appreciate being told they were wrong on a daily
basis. In fact they’ll come back to haunt you later when you need to convince
the Emperor to put some clothes on! What I’m saying is, be humble, be conscious
of your impact, be interested in the history and how the company came to work
in this way as it may help you put what you’re seeing in context.
Hiding behind the language
We’re rightly very proud of the training we’ve received, the hours
spent reading the wise words of our improvement forefathers. It also feels like
we really have been accepted into the secret society of improvement when we
know the difference between Heijunka and Kaizen, or between Takt time and cycle
time. Take Musa Faisal of Emirates Group talking about his role and the
improvement work that is happening in his company:
“In my capacity I operate as a corporate advisor to senior leadership teams on business performance excellence, hence, along with my team we partner with leadership teams in the business to identify and initiate business transformation programs and initiatives necessary to successfully manage profitable growth. These are then enabled through our tool kit of which lean six sigma is a part.
Within my division, I am the only Black Belt and we currently have over 10 team members trained to a Green Belt level. We are planning to train more people up to Green Belt level during this financial year.
The thinking behind the DMAIC approach as well as the agility that lean thinking and tools bring has helped us in enhancing our problem solving approach and speed in addressing some of the growth challenges.
When we scope an engagement around Lean Six Sigma, for instance, we are capable to turn around a project up to the recommendation stage within 3 weeks. The business would highly favour this approach as they are able to see what the future state looks like in a quick manner as opposed to spending significant time in stakeholders meetings/ interviews and extensive analysis. A typical Six Sigma project would typically take from 3-6months based on complexity of the problem on hand and the availability of data. “
I mean it’s perfectly understandable to me and you,
because we know the secret handshake… but most of the people we collaborate
with on improvements don’t. So let’s keep it simple, after all improvement and
simplification is what we’re trying to achieve right?Focusing on objectives, goals,
and adopting a checklist mentalityNot a bad thing, right? Providing a measurable focus makes it easier
to prove success. Having a goal is an excellent way to ensure consistency
across improvement efforts. What I have a problem with is the checklist
mentality that sometimes comes with an obsession with goals and objectives. It
links a little bit with the first point around where you sit on the continuum.
Being adaptable to changing priorities and customer requirements is a fact of
life these days. The typical improvement effort varies in duration from a
couple of weeks to 6 months; during that time many things can change and so
adopting a checklist mentality or being too focused on objectives lends the
impression that you are not interested in what is happening around you. I was
recently undertaking an engagement in an Investment Banking unit, assisting
their local improvement teams with the programme of activity they had laid out
for the next 2 years. They had a laser like focus on the cost goals and the
ticking off of items from their checklist of mandatory activities- again I’m
not against this. But it distracted them from improving the situation in the
processes and also the customer experience, because everything centred on how
to reduce cost and ensuring that the inflexible checklist was completed. What I
tried to get them to figure out was what philosophy they were following in
pursuit of their improvement goals? I asked them this question because if it
were cost they were interested in controlling they could’ve conducted a “slash
and burn” exercise, but they had chosen Lean Six Sigma, and so it seemed apt to
get them to think about why? And what they were really hoping to achieve from
their programme of work?
So lets talk about positive improvers
behaviours
Firstly make it clear in
actions words that you are here to help and not to hack away at their area.
This involves the simple act of taking an interest in what they do, how they do
it, what frustrations they suffer on a daily basis. Understand the history of
previous attempts at improving, talk to as many people as possible, regardless
of position, and show curiosity.
Lean teaches Go, See,
Understand and show respect. Go with an open mind, open your eyes to see how
work is completed (leave your assumptions at the door, and show curiosity),
make an effort to understand how and why things are done the way they are, and
most importantly show respect, listen, ask open questions, challenge
assumptions and absorb their frustrations. Go and See is not about showing how
much you know about the process, but saying I don’t know how this works and am
keen to learn
On that last point, be
comfortable saying “I don’t know the answer”. This doesn’t reduce your power,
it isn’t improver kryptonite, it is reasserting the fact you are here to help
facilitate the improvement, and not to channel the dark arts to come up with a
perfect solution. It positions you as having no pre-agreed agenda, it empowers
the experts you’re working with to share their experiences and also admit there
are things they don’t know.
Teach by coaching. Every
interaction with people should be an opportunity to coach them in some of the
skills you’ve learnt as an improver. Most people learn best by doing, and so
coaching on the improvement itself can be a very powerful way of getting the
concepts across.
Finally, be a conscious problem
solver. Use the challenges that occur during improvement projects as
opportunities to use structured problem solving techniques from your toolkit.
If you impart one piece of knowledge to those you are working with, let it be
conscious problem solving, as this will create a lasting continuous improvement
attitude.
So in summary; turn away from the tools.
Consider how you exhibit the positive and negative behaviours, and finally how
you can improve the success of your projects by switching on the people aspect
of improvement
The following is a summary/play by play/sneak peak of a working group discussion I’ll be holding at the Citizens Bank Lean Away Day on Friday 30th September:
Amongst all the hullabaloo that surrounds Lean methodology; that being the more efficient processes, increased utilization of employees, capacity creation, removing barrier to flow etc. We’ve lost sight of the essentials of managing change, and this becomes clearer each time I visit a transformation. We get caught up in being change leaders, we use the terminology of forward progress “drive towards” “take people on a journey”, we start to make lazy assumptions about those that show even the slightest resistance to the changes we are seeking to make. At our worst this comes off as arrogance, at its most subtle you might characterise it as an over zealousness and a visible lack of flexibility in our approach. The next challenges to us becoming better Lean Change agents is to simplify the language of what we do, but most importantly to re-focus our energies on forging better relationships with our key stakeholders.
When facing resistance to the changes we seek to make, we often brush them off casually claiming that “Bill isn’t showing good leadership behaviour” “Sally is not on board” “They just don’t get it”. These comments feed into what Thomas A. Harris calls the “Aint it awful game”- whereby excuses are offered up, responsibility is abdicated and others are encouraged to support the claim that nothing can be done to change this situation. These comments don’t allow us to reflect on some critical questions; What has caused Bill to behave in this way, What did we do to get Sally on board? And what strategies are we using to understand why “they don’t get it”. This is where a more analytical approach to stakeholders pays dividends.
I believer stakeholders can be explored along three dimensions; Personality, Politics and Power. The first dimension can be examined through understanding more about their personal preferences, of which there are many tools you can use; Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), Colour Energies, NEO, Belbin, Strengthsfinder to name just a few. You can observe the behaviours of your key stakeholders and make educated guesses on their “types”, as getting them to complete a test or survey maybe over stepping your mandate. Understanding their personality better will help refine your communication, influencing, decision making and collaboration strategies that you hope to use to engage them in the transformation.
The second dimension is Politics, by which I mean history. A stakeholder I worked with previously was refusing to sign off any process changes, adopted a hostile attitude to running improvement workshops and would delight at embarrassing me in front of my boss by revealing new information I had not been privy too. Had I done my homework by looking into her history and that of her team, I would’ve realised that everything we were suggesting, she had already tried (and failed) to get done… 5 years ago. That frustration at having failed to get agreement from her seniors was fuelling her resentment of our change effort. Knowing this information (after much probing) I was able to draw her in by getting her to share her full wish list with me so that we could work on getting all of her previously rejected ideas implemented. Invoking history is a defensive tactic from a stakeholder, but ignoring or not appreciating that history falls into their carefully laid trap. This is especially true of high performing teams, or teams that already have a long history of adapting and improving; harnessing the narrative of “building upon past success” is more effective in engaging stakeholders, than all other methods I’ve tried!
The final aspect of understanding stakeholders is power; a dirty but all pervading word in business. Here the words of Winstanley (stakeholder power matrix, 1995) seem appropriate, essentially he advocates understanding whether the stakeholder has power over the success of individual tasks and initiatives in the transformation, or whether they have strategic power; the power to take your project in completely different direction.
Once you’ve got this clarity over who your stakeholders are (in more than just structure chart and title) you can conduct some very simple stakeholder analysis. How engaged are they on a scale of 1-5, 1 being actively disruptive and 5- being active advocate. Consider where you need them to be or would like them to be. Not everybody should be active advocates, mainly because they are time consuming, eating up more resources in keeping them appraised of the changes than you have available to make the changes! Once you’ve charted this, then attention needs to be paid to the WIIFM or “What’s in it for me”. Place yourself in their shoes, use the politics and personality research you’ve conducted to back up your assertions, and detail what agenda they have. Finally consider a range of strategies for how you will engage them; do they prefer email? Are they a morning person? How would you communicate a difficult message? How closely do you want them involved in the day to day activity of the team? What behaviours of theirs will you seek to challenge and how?
The final part of this puzzle is setting aside time to challenge your analysis, as and when new information about your stakeholder becomes available. Also challenge yourself to review the success of your chosen strategies, forcing yourself beyond the “aint it awful” games we play.
In conclusion, no stakeholder should be left behind, they should be better understood.
So as promised here are the values that i constructed with Tom Cassidy (@tomcassidy10 on twitter) an Interpersonal Communications Consultant. We worked together on these during two sessions, and they have been updated since through feedback and reflection with my Open University Tutors.
Problem Solving and Making a Difference- These two values came as no surprise to me, and work in synch. It came into focus again when i was in conversation with some McKinsey colleagues, and they mentioned that the goal of the firm is to use their problem solving skills to make a difference to the client. I strongly believe in finding the best fit, regardless of convention or past experience, and finding solutions to problems rather than finding workarounds or sticking plasters!
Sense of Achievement- means that it isn't about what it does for me personally, but it is seeing the look on people's faces when you get them to a place they never thought they'd see. It also means that i get motivated by activity that is important, or moves initiatives forward. I left a previous company because the work I was doing was mere paper pushing, administrative work that kept the bureaucratic cogs turning.
Equity/Egalite- A sense of equality, fairness and a rejection of patronage or favouritism. This also refers to a sense of gaining rewards on merit, rather than faces fitting or social relationships.
Thinking Space- Being an introvert I value time alone to reflect and to think. I do my best thinking when out running; many a hair-brained scheme has been concocted out on the road. It is also recognition that sometimes i need to move away from the confines of the office to do some real thinking. Sitting at a desk often forces productivity, and so any chance i get to flee my desk for a white board is seized upon!
Broadening Knowledge- a thirst for learning, it is the motivation i need to get up at 5am to hit my Open Uni books, it is the investment in the HBR subscription, and is one of the reasons I'm doing this blog and trying out twitter!
Strange this should appear on HBR on the same day i had a conversation around the value of constructive feedback! Person A was trying to improve the culture of the unit they were consulting in by using a ratio of 5 positive pieces of feedback to every one "developmental" piece. This was and still is proving particularly challenging as the area is full of analysts who thrive on picking holes in other people's work!
Classic interview question that you're never quite sure how to answer. Be ambitious (sometimes referred to as being cocky) and you can come across as arrogant, be loyal and it can be seen as disingenuous.
I once had video link interview with a business in Switzerland, and when asked the question i told the truth; That in 5 years time i hoped to be running my own business. Didn't realise it at the time, but the Swiss value loyalty, and in this particular company they prided themselves on the length of service of employees. Needless to say i didn't get the job, and now i do much more research into the company and industry/country culture.
However one thing hasn't changed, sometimes to my detriment, i still tell the truth.
So some of you may guess I'm actually sitting at the airport to blog reading through the Harvard business review and also just generally wasting time and what better place. My two tweets, on the left, caught my eye. The first seems like something we should all be looking into; a $300 house and the other about why my blog doesn't appear in Google searches.
Enjoy
A fascinating topic i feel. So often comms from up above can be very dry and functional. However one of my former directors would always liven up his emails to staff with personal stories and with unique ways of getting his point across.
In a similar vein the new Nokia CEO has attempted to capture the imagination of his staff by posting the following (leaked by a technology blogger)
Hello there,
There is a pertinent story about a man who was working on an oil platform in the North Sea. He woke up one night from a loud explosion, which suddenly set his entire oil platform on fire. In mere moments, he was surrounded by flames. Through the smoke and heat, he barely made his way out of the chaos to the platform's edge. When he looked down over the edge, all he could see were the dark, cold, foreboding Atlantic waters.
As the fire approached him, the man had mere seconds to react. He could stand on the platform, and inevitably be consumed by the burning flames. Or, he could plunge 30 meters in to the freezing waters. The man was standing upon a "burning platform," and he needed to make a choice.
He decided to jump. It was unexpected. In ordinary circumstances, the man would never consider plunging into icy waters. But these were not ordinary times - his platform was on fire. The man survived the fall and the waters. After he was rescued, he noted that a "burning platform" caused a radical change in his behaviour.
We too, are standing on a "burning platform," and we must decide how we are going to change our behaviour.
Over the past few months, I've shared with you what I've heard from our shareholders, operators, developers, suppliers and from you. Today, I'm going to share what I've learned and what I have come to believe.
I have learned that we are standing on a burning platform.
And, we have more than one explosion - we have multiple points of scorching heat that are fuelling a blazing fire around us.
He then goes on to talk specifically about the challenges the company faces.
Is this the sort of communication we should aspire to have with staff? I mention this because a member of staff in Southend gave some very robust feedback about the language use as a lean function, and mentioned that a lot of the agents didn't want to speak up for fear of being seen as stupid. I worked on that presentation for the rest of the day, to remove complicated phrasing..... should it have even been there in the first place?
Avoid the term "change agent." The strange thing about Griffin's case is that he appears to have applied this "kick me" sign to himself. In most cases, it's the board that puts the word on the street that a change agent is coming. Try to keep that from happening. It's not as though the organization won't hear the news, and it's insulting. It casts veteran managers as part of the problem, not forces for positive change themselves. As one Time Inc. veteran complained to me, "it's not as though all of us had just been sitting on our thumbs." That is a classic, and predictable, response.
Gauge the internal hunger for change. It's one thing to be the agent of change in an organization that realizes it needs it; it's quite another when you're the only one in the room convinced of that. A big problem at Time, at least as far as Griffin was concerned, was that there was no such sense of a burning platform. People, therefore, would perceive any change as being done to them, not for them. It's not impossible to take a comfortable organization and get it excited about a quest, but it definitely affects how you should frame the mission.
Arrive without a vision. Reportedly, Griffin showed up on day one of his new job with a manifesto in hand. When I heard this, I couldn't help but recall some great advice from leadership gurus Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner. "Somehow, through all the talk over the years about the importance of vision," they observed, "many leaders have reached the unfortunate conclusion that they as individuals must be visionaries." They spell out for less incisive thinkers what the future holds and therefore how the enterprise must be transformed. "Bad idea!" say Kouzes and Posner. "Yes, leaders must ask, "What's new? What's next? What's better?" — but they can't present answers that are only theirs. Constituents want visions of the future that reflect their own aspirations."
Go directly to "us". As leadership expert Steve Reicher and his colleagues convincingly argue, great leadership involves tapping into the psychology of "us" versus "them." This means that job #1 for a leader is to go native, immediately taking the side of the organization, uniting it against a common enemy, and building consensus on what "we" should do. From this perspective, it's clear how the work of anyone fighting the status quo is fraught with the potential to be misread. Ask yourself honestly whose side you are on — and if it's not your organization's, don't blame them for hating you.
Act as catalyst not cattle prod. Chances are, there is change energy to be tapped in the organization at some level. To get at it, think first of what might be holding it back, and address those things. As in chemistry, a catalyst lowers a barrier to effect a transformation — it doesn't apply a shock.
Surround yourself with new friends. Of all the new-manager missteps Griffin is accused of, probably the worst is his decision to surround himself with cronies. It's an understandable temptation, when you don't yet know your new colleagues well enough to say who's brilliant and trustworthy, to just recruit some folks you already know to have those qualities from past experience working with them. But nothing — nothing — is more alienating to your inherited team than to suddenly be on the outside of the inner circle looking in. It doesn't help that, in Griffin's case, the cronies were also perceived to be carbon copies of himself.
