Guest Post: What to Do when there is More than One Boss to Please

Connecting People to Projects through Social Authority

Dean’s note: This guest post is written by Craig Henderson, President of Systemental and a Thought Leader that blogs about Hoshin Kanri/Policy Deployment

You just took the handoff from the boss to start a new project.  You know you’ll need cooperation from a key stakeholder outside your function area who has already expressed a key concern.   How can you approach your conversation with the stakeholder to ensure you get the cooperation you need?

1. Leverage the boss’s connection to the stakeholder in the right way:
   • If their relationship is good, start by saying so
   • If the relationship is neutral or rocky, start by saying you want to make this work for the stakeholder (note: you should sincerely want to do this)
2. Get straight to the “heart of the matter,” don’t beat around the bush
3. Discover the stakeholder’s point of view by asking questions and listening closely
4. Tailor the description of how you can solve the problem to stakeholder’s preference
5. Explain a high value, low risk, and low hassle first step to get off to a good start
6. Assure the stake holder that it won’t be difficult, expensive, or time consuming to deliver the project so it meets the stakeholder’s needs

If you are naturally good at this kind of thing, then the above can serve as a guideline to keep your thoughts straight. On the other hand, if you feel uncomfortable, seek the advice of someone who will be friendly to you and also knows the stakeholder in question well. They should be able to help you think of objections the stakeholder may raise so you can think and plan ahead of time.

Lastly, make sure you keep your boss informed of what you are doing, whether it’s going well or not. Bosses like to know you are diligently working on their behalf and they don’t like surprises.

For a technique used to manage this same situation with an entire group, see Nemawashi

“Executizing” Academic Sounding Terms – Gaining Social Authority is a short story demonstrating how the language you use impacts your ability to gain social authority.

Photo attribution http://www.flickr.com/photos/kwl/4493219149/in/set-72157623544311963 / CC BY 2.0

Open and Honest Feedback after a Scolding

A friend, Jaime*, recently sold his successful business to a similar, but larger corporation, ACME*. During the transition, he is helping them transfer and integrate the assets and processes into their existing business and support the retention of Jaime’s previous customers.

During a periodic review with ACME’s management, Jaime noted several practices that their employees were using that he offered to help them improve. A manager at ACME proceeded to scold the employees about their lack of process adherence and mistakes (mischaracterizing the suggestion). Jaime was disappointed about the way ACME handled the interaction. Jaime and I were reflecting on his frustration about the damage that behavior does to employee motivation, cooperation, and morale. After that incident, Jaime will get very little open and honest feedback from the front line workers about their challenges and opportunities when he visits.

Jaime isn’t continuing to help for his financial benefit; he wants the same thing the employees want. His interest is to see them take a previously successful business that was built over years of hard work and incorporate it smoothly and painlessly into their operation.

 

*Names have been changed to protect their identities.

photo attribution http://www.flickr.com/photos/tambako/4221228933/ / CC BY-ND 2.0

Resistance to Change – Inevitable or Preventable?

I hear and read about resistance to change frequently. Most of the time it is referred to in a negative light or as an inherent human weakness. Wouldn't it be more productive if we focused on the “Change” itself rather than the “Resistance”?

We have all been on the receiving end of change that didn’t work out well for us, so it is natural to be apprehensive. If we think back to one of those “bad” changes, can we think of ways the change could have been approached that would have made it a better experience for the both the leaders and the participants?

Resistance to change can often be prevented – and I don’t mean through the use of force, quite the opposite. Just a few ways to improve the adoption of change is through the application of:

• betas
• simplified learning tools
• prototypes
• pilot trials
• demonstration
• user experience observation and testing
• involvement

The general expectation is that change should be “good”. A common experience is that it isn’t. If change wasn’t actually “good”, we wouldn’t constantly be trying to introduce it. We should probably put more effort into making sure everyone that is impacted by the change understands the benefits and agrees that it actually is “good”. If they did, we probably wouldn’t be experiencing so much resistance.

Other posts about keys to successful change implementation

Right-sizing the Vacuum – a Lean Machine

Floors and carpets don’t wait to get dirty until the day you vacuum. They accumulate dirt, lint, and other debris every day at a reasonably constant rate. If you ran the vacuum daily the vacuum wouldn’t need to be as powerful or have a reservoir that holds a gallon of gunk.

But who has the time to vacuum every day? If the sweeping was automated by using a device like the Roomba, daily cleaning can become a reality.

Examples of Lean can be found in the most unusual places, like cleaning machines and processes.

5S Concepts

• keep the most frequently used tools closest to the work
• keep the area clean and free of slip and trip hazards – frequent sweeping and keeping wires and trip hazards off the floor
• everything has a place – the charging station is like a shadow board

Lean Concepts

• Quick changeover – traditional vacuums tend to be heavy and take up space so they are often put away in a closet or laundry room and require dragging out and winding/unwinding of long cords; smaller size can get in tight spaces without using optional attachments or moving furniture
• right-sizing: enclosure, motor, debris reservoir, power source (battery) sized for the more frequent, but lighter workload
• poka yoke – sensors to protect from injuring pets and children, tumbling off the stairs; virtual walls to restrict the cleaning area; works in the dark; dirt sensing; auto-charging of the battery
• standardized work – Roomba follows a navigational algorithm; standard method to determine the necessity of special spot cleaning mode; some models have automatic schedulers
• no defects passed to upstream processes – special spot cleaning mode enabled immediately when excessive dirt is detected

If the floors are vacuumed/swept daily, there is no worry about dust bunnies when a friend or neighbor stops by unannounced.

As the path highlighted in the above image shows, the Roomba might not be as efficient in the travelling path as a human operator, but the important thing is that all the surfaces are effortlessly covered at an acceptable quality within the Takt time.

Automated vacuum robots are not for everyone or everywhere, but they present a compelling argument for consideration. If nothing else, it might give you an excuse to justify buying that nifty robot you’ve had your eyes on.

Automated robots are gaining in popularity for other tasks as well:

• mopping
• garage sweeping
• gutter cleaning
• lawn mowing

Additional Benefit

They can keep the family pet company while you’re away.

Where do you see other interesting or unconventional examples of Lean concepts being applied? Comments welcome.

Disclaimer: I don’t own any iRobot products or receive any financial or other benefits from them.

Photo attribution

http://www.flickr.com/photos/13963375@N00 / CC BY-SA 2.0

Personal Kanban – More Done, Less Stress

Life used to be simple:

1. Get up
2. Go to school/work
3. Relax
4. Go to bed

It didn’t require much planning for effective time management. As a result of the increasing hustle and bustle of our society or just the result of getting older (which I’m not ready to admit yet), increasing responsibilities and extra-curricular activities place demands on our time.

• little league
• professional associations
• school functions
• home maintenance
• [insert your challenges here]

That is where a personal Kanban can help us work smarter and reduce our stress level by knowing we have a handle on our activities.

Anyone can do it

You can use a simple whiteboard (or even a sliding glass door) to help manage your time and activities visually and efficiently with a simple system of sticky notes in columns labeled similar to the following:

• to do
• in process
• done
• I find “awaiting decision” or some variation helpful also

How To

Jim Benson has a great Personal Kanban presentation that introduces, in detail, how you can improve your personal productivity using a personal kanban.

Home and Office

The process works equally well at the office for work activities/projects and at home. I use 24” X 36” whiteboards (Sam’s Club - $15) which has enough space for two types of projects being managed with separate spaces for each - and a little area left over for impromptu notes and sketches.

Addicting

If you are like me, once you try it out and realize the power of them, you start using them for everything... and try to convince everyone around you to use them also.

Technorati Tags: Personal Kanban,Personal Productivity,Lean,Visual Management,Lean Project Management

Teaching through Demonstration on Kitchen Nightmares

A frequent tactic for improving restaurant quality on the TV show Kitchen Nightmares is to reduce the number of items on the menu. On the Anna Vincenzo’s episode the restaurant had an overwhelming 180 items. It might seem obvious that if you simply explained that to the owner the the point would be made, but often that isn’t the case. Gordon Ramsey went to the effort of having the kitchen staff prepare just one order of each item on the menu before the owner arrived for the day. When she showed up, every table and flat surface in the restaurant was completely covered with different entrees on it. There were dishes with food from wall to wall. It became immediately apparent to her that they had too many choices on the menu to be able to do an exceptional job for every customer order. No explanation necessary.

Keys to the Kingdom? No Thank You

Who really wants the keys to the kingdom? Management often thinks the person that has them does so for the wrong reasons. That they want to hold the company hostage for selfish reasons. There are exceptions, but I generally believe they are victims of circumstance.

Why do they have the Keys in the first place?

It is not as common in processes that are widely understood. Typically it occurs in areas where one or more of the following are present:

• complicated processes
• process outputs have implications or dependencies in other areas or processes
• process is not well defined
• exception handling responses are non-existent or not well understood
• long duration between repeat occurrences of an issue
• many different issues - few obvious similarities
• minimal direct control over inputs
• lack appropriate preventative signals or controls

Sink or Swim Syndrome

One common reason a single person has all the information and control over a critical process is they were tasked with solving a complicated problem or cluster of problems in the area which required extensive research, experimentation, trials, and hard won learning.

Process Grandfathering

Some complicated processes are passed down from one person to the next via long term on-the-job training and mentoring that is time consuming and impractical to include multiple individuals.

If they are the experts, why don’t they fix the process?

The process roles people play can be generally characterized by the following:

• problem solvers
• designers
• operators
• protectors

All the roles are important to successful, repeatable processes, but might not be applied in the appropriate proportions. People often have the skills and play multiple roles, but depending on specifically which roles are in highest concentration, processes can lack the necessary detail and structure to prevent someone from having the Keys to the Kingdom.

High profile processes are frequently high profile because when a problem surfaces it has serious negative consequences that require quick resolution. The problem solvers are thrown at the problem to protect the organization. Problem solvers are valuable to the organization for their ability to root out causes and put interim corrective actions or workarounds in place. But, if the problem solvers are not also process designers, they may not have the skills or the time to put the necessary long term corrective actions, preventative process controls, and documentation in place.

How does your organization prevent Keys to the Kingdom? Thoughts?

Photo attribution: http://www.flickr.com/photos/memestate/ / CC BY-SA 2.0