Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Superhero Process Improvement - The Five Essential Qualities of Leadership
Superhero Process Improvement - The Five Essential Qualities of Leadership
perspective to change based on new facts or ideas which were unavailable or unrecognized when the earlier perspective was formed. Then take it a step further and ask yourself Does my team have the same perspective? If you cannot honestly answer that question with a resounding Yes; then you are missing some key facts and ideas around the task that has been assigned your team. Here are a few tips to ensure that you maintain the proper perspective as a Green, Black or Master Black belt leading an improvement team.
Remember that it is a team effort and requires collaboration. Continuous improvement is something that you do WITH people, not something that you do TO people. Maintain an open mind about the process being evaluated, the people operating in the process and your team members. Ask questions, more specifically ask open ended questions that lead to a sharing of knowledge. This will sow the seeds for successful brainstorming sessions down the road. A second goal of asking questions is to gather additional facts and ideas which you will use to validate and/or adjust your perspective. Facilitate and guide your team towards achieving the objective. Leadership is not about doing the tasks for them; it is about developing their process knowledge and leadership skills.
Information Quality Information Quantity Data Integrity Improvement Implementation Improvement Sustainment Continuous Improvement Program Viability Personal Growth and Advancement
An example from my personal experiences occurred while I was learning to use Minitab for statistical analysis. I was having some difficulty in transferring the data from Microsoft Excel into Minitab when my Master Black belt showed me how to concatenate the data so that it would be easier and much faster to load the data into Minitab. I was very excited by what I had learned and was quick to begin using Concatenate while talking with my team regarding the project that we were working on. I was also a little dumbfounded the next day when only half my team members showed up again for our meeting. I learned a lesson that day not just in communication, but in humility as I worked to recruit additional team members for the vacancies that I had created. Be confident and knowledgeable enough to lead your team without alienating them by acting like you are above them based on your personal knowledge, terminology and skills. Quality #4: Active Listening Learning to interpret and understand non-verbal communications, seeking and achieving clarification of what you heard and engaging in an exchange of information are the foundation of active listening. It means you hear more than what another person or group of people is saying verbally. While you may feel that your training and/or experience with process improvement establishes you as the expert, it does not mean that you are a subject matter expert in the process that is being evaluated and improved. Those people who live and operate within that process on a daily basis, along with the managers who have supervised the process are the SMEs. If you do not hear what is being communicated and seek to ensure that you understand the implications of what is being said and not said you are likely to make a mistake in evaluating the process. This means that any improvement which is made will not have been built on a solid foundation and could ultimately lead to an improved process that is worse than the one you started with on day one of your event/project. When your situation is such that you are a new hire or an external consultant working with an organization for the first time it is imperative that you engage in active listening. The people that you will be working with not only have more in-depth knowledge regarding the process or processes being evaluated, they also possess a lot of valuable
information regarding the organization. Their experience and longevity will be extremely valuable and in most cases they are willing to share all that they know with you, provided that you take the time to listen to what they have to say. The following is a partial list of some methods that you can use to engage in active listening with your team members.
Repeat back what you hear in a conversation. It is important to remember that you do not need to repeat what was said to you word for word. Instead look to summarize it in terms that you are comfortable with in conversation. Pay attention to the non-verbal as well as the verbal communication. Studies have shown that the greatest percentage of information is communicated using non-verbal means. Start each meeting with a short review of the team charter and goals, what has been accomplished to date and what the objectives are for the meeting. This gets everyone on the same page with a solid baseline moving forward. Understand cultural differences. Whether the differences derive from a specific industry or they are based on geographic location, it is essential to understand the nuances of communicating in different cultural environments. Do the research using any number of websites available.
In addition I would encourage you to evaluate your listening style; one method available for this is Learning to Listen from the HRDQ Research & Development Team. (www.hrdq.com). Take the time to evaluate your listening skills, develop a plan to improve on them, as needed, to ensure that you are maximizing your communications as a process improvement team leader. Quality #5: Last Place Each of us has been somewhere else before starting our current role. It may have been another position within the same organization; or it could be the same position with additional responsibilities that are a result of recent training (i.e. Lean Six Sigma Green Belt). We may be changing from one region of the world to another, changing organizations, career paths or simply starting our careers following school. As you begin to lead your process improvement team it is imperative that your references to your Last Place are limited to those instances when they will truly add value to the subject matter being discussed/applied. Continual references to how your last place operated will have a negative effect on your relationship with your colleagues and with your team members. No one that I have ever meet enjoys continually hearing about how your last organization accomplished value stream mapping, 5S, barrier removal, presentations, training, etc. They want to have the discussion focused on the organization of which they are all members. The focus needs to be on the here and now with a smattering of historical experiences used for emphasis, benchmarking, case studies, etc. Again, the key is a smattering such that when you refer to a previous experience, everyone youre a communicating with continues to listen vice tuning you out. Working in an office of professionals it was interesting to watch as a new mid-level manager began work with the organization. In less than a week, this persons continual reference to their last organization had resulted in significant change within the office.
Subordinates began to complete this persons sentence when they would start out with When I was at__________ we would do..
Some members of the office would keep tic marks on a white board tracking how often their new manager made a Last Place reference. Members of the office would get up to leave for a meeting or appointment that may or may not exist.
Information flow upstream to the manager decreased on a daily basis as more often than not a subordinate would avoid speaking with them simply to avoid another story about the managers last place. For many of us we have had great experiences in other positions and organizations; hold on to them for what they are and what they represent. However, remember as you move forward that you are in your current position and/or current organization for a reason, use references to your last place sparingly as a means of emphasis or to covey clarity on a difficult subject. Always conclude the reference by bringing it back to the current situation and as time moves on develop new experiences from your current position/organization to replace those from the last place. Process Improvement is an exciting time for many people within an organization; we have new knowledge and are energized to tackle the challenges facing our organization. We want to demonstrate our abilities and reward the leadership decision that resulted in our training. However, for others within the organization the process of changing will be difficult, their workplace will be going through upheaval and they may experience frustration in their day-to-day efforts. The process improvement experts are an easy target for these frustrations and need to be mindful of how their approach to their supervisors, peers and colleagues will affect the organizations overall goals. Remembering to maintain perspective, respect those whom you are interacting with, demonstrating humility, engaging in active listening and limiting Last Place references will go along way to a successful outcome from leading your first improvement team as a newly trained Green or Black Belt. About Dennis Narlock: Dennis Narlock is the Continuous Improvement Leader for Catalent Pharma Solutions in Middleton, Wisconsin. He is an ASQ certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt and a Theory of Constraints Jonah with more than six years of experience in continuous process improvement. He has held positions as a Black Belt and Deployment director within the U.S. Navy where he served for 24 years prior to transitioning to the private sector. He earned a Master of Science degree in Global Leadership from the University of San Diego. His work with the Process Excellence group at IQPC has been recognized with project awards in the Best New Start-up and Innovation categories; in addition he has been a conference presenter and judge. Dennis can be reached at dennis.narlock@gmail.com I invite you to join as a member of the PEX Network Group http://tinyurl.com/3hwakem, you will have access to Key Leaders Globally, Events, Webinars, Presentations, Articles, Case Studies, Blog Discussions, White Papers, and Tools and Templates. To access this free content please take 2 minutes for a 1 time FREE registration at http://tiny.cc/tpkd0 PEX Network, a division of IQPC, facilitates access to a wealth of relevant content for Process Excellence, Lean, and Six Sigma practitioners. Further enhanced with an online community of your peers, we will provide you with the tools and resources to help you perform more effective and efficiently, while enhancing the quality operations within your
organization. As our industry becomes more and more dependent on the Web for information, PEXNetwork.com has been developed to provide Six Sigma professionals with instant access to information. Leveraging our strength and foundation in education, IQPC and the Process Excellence Network are uniquely positioned to provide a comprehensive library of webcasts gathered from our events, as well as exclusive content from leaders in the industry.