Where do I Start? SECOND of Series

There could be many 'first' items you may want to know.  Yet there are only a few you really need to know to get started.  Over time you will want to learn as many of the process tools as you can.  You should consider looking at and learning something new every week until you are comfortable with a path to follow.  Do not try to learn and apply too many things all at once.  You want to gradually move into the realm of lean leadership principles and processes.  Taking on too many things will only confuse your teams and cost money and resources without achieving the expected results.  Focus is always the best approach.

So what are a few things that are on the "What do I need to know?" list? 

1. Read all the material in this blog.
2. Keep in mind that all organizations supporting and promoting Lean Leadership, Six Sigma, TQM, etc. are in business to make money.  Some are better at making money than actually helping you to succeed.  Individuals and groups that have a vested interest in you are the ones to seek out for support. If you are not seeing results discuss this with your team and move on.  Some organizations will give you guarantees and/or base a portion of their fees on results you achieve. 
3. You need to decide if this lean leadership process is something you want to do. Once you have made the decision to pursue this process then you must get fully committed, but remember to take a slow methodical approach to implementation until everyone is comfortable with the process and you build up momentum.
4. Determine if there are real opportunities for improvement.  (There are always opportunities, but are they necessary to your current success?)  There are few, if any, organizations that will not benefit significantly from process changes.  For example almost everyone has some 'quality' issue that needs to be addressed.  This is an area where there are usually many opportunities to expand the lean leadership principles and processes into many of your organizations while addressing a fundamental issue.
5. Discuss your ideas with your team(s) and solicit input.
6. Look over the material in this blog to get an understanding of the path to follow.
7. See the process tools section for ideas on which tools may fit your current need.
8. Find someone in your organization that has project management skills and is preferably a certified PMP (Project Management Professional) from the Project Management Institute (PMI).  If you are starting small (recommended) then find someone with good people skills that you can train to be your  Project Manager.

See also:
Where do I Start?  FIRST
Where do I Start?  THIRD

Meaningful Success Factors

Call Me!

What are those things in your business (company, division, unit) that you believe will help you achieve a successful outcome to your business strategy?  They may be related to cost reduction, corporate objectives, new technology, process changes, etc.  What will help ensure your success?  They may be unique to your business or new products for your customers.  The standard things for a successful business are adequate capital, cash flow, good employees, and customers.  These are not the success factors for your business - they are the result of your success factors.  Again, you need to establish the key success factors that will complement your business strategy. What gets the customer to choose your product and - call you; browse your  web site; meet and buy from your sales person; or come into your store?

Business Success Factors fall into several categories:

• Set realistic business objectives and goals
• Understand your unique value proposition
• Evaluate your competition
• Articulate your value proposition
• Focused marketing and sales teams - everyone is in sales
• Invest in the future
• Knowledgeable work force

These categories will help you establish the key success factors you need today.  Keep in mind that these factors will change over time and must be constantly evaluated.  What is successful today may not be successful tomorrow!  Staying focused, compassionate execution, and speed are critical. 

The ABC's, DEF's and G's of Success Factors:

Success Factor A: Your vision, mission, objectives, and goals must stretch the organization utilizing reasonable milestones and performance indicators that fall within company investment and budget plans.

Success Factor B: Clearly establish your value proposition that identifies your target customers and why your product/service is better than anyone else in the market.

Success Factor C: Do a SWOT analysis on your competition.  Then do yours and compare yourself against the results.  Once done you will have differentiation points for your marketing programs.

Success Factor D: Invest in marketing! Your marketing strategy is very important to articulate your value proposition. Once you have your marketing strategy and approach defined along with the product message and, points of differentiation you are ready for an "everyone involved" program to integrate this market strategy into your product development, manufacturing, and sales organizations.

Success Factor E: Everyone in your company is in 'sales'.  Everyone must understand this, it has been said over and over - Nothing Happens Without Customers. A very critical factor is a symbiotic relationship between marketing and sales - one cannot exist without the other.  Goals, milestones and objectives must match.

Success Factor F: Prudently invest in the future.  Invest in productivity tools, people, ideas.  Strategic investments should be made in people, marketing, and sales to build a solid business infrastructure.  Look for learning everywhere in the organization. Closely manage your cash-flow.  Be open to creative hiring practices that have a win-win outcome for your company and the individuals. 

Success Factor G: Keep in mind your competitors are looking for weaknesses.  Never underestimate the speed at which a competitor can overtake you.  Execution of your strategy is everything. You must stay focused and lead your organization to success through enlightened execution.  Everyone in the organization must be on-board, trained and knowledgeable about the business plans and objectives.  Only through wide-spread adoption of the vision by the organization can the company (division or unit) ensure success in the marketplace. Invest in training and education.

Success Factor Examples:

• Restructure to create customer focus
• Establish strategic business centers
• Create programs to meet division objects
• Implement new delivery methods
• Develop market theme for product 'x'
• Invest in new supply chain for fresh produce
• Sales force has access to latest market analysis
• Establish presence in India for product 'y' 
• Define new hire strategy for software development

Castles, Customers, & Leaders

Building castles and business leadership are similar!

Building castles in the middle ages was big business.  Seems like everyone had to have one! Designs and capabilities were constantly changing to meet new challenges.  At the time they protected your "business and customers" from "outsiders". (Your throne, peasants, merchants, subjects - users of your kingdom - from invading hordes.) Not much different than today.  Today your company is constantly being "bombarded" by competitors.  They move quickly, they scale the walls that you built up over the years with your customers through great customer relations, great products and services you thought could not be duplicated. You thought you had twenty meter thick walls around your customers. What happened?  The walls are breached and all your hard work is gone in the blink of an eye.

Unless your "troops" are ready and waiting to take corrective action your castle could be lost!  Maybe your competitors are utilizing some tools and processes that you need to acquire. Hopefully your customers are not unhappy with you - they just want to obtain the best return possible for each purchase they make.  They expect total quality, knowledge support, and a fair price. That is why you must be the one to supply them with these things and the solution to their problems or needs before they know they have a problem or need! You must deliver the highest quality product to exacting customer expectations.  You must be a lean, mean machine that is ever changing to meet the expectations of your customers in the shortest possible time at the most competitive price and at the highest quality. The only way to do this is to be flexible, understanding, motivated, lean, leading, competitive, cost aware, creative, trained, knowledgeable, quick to respond, and - by the way - very good at selling. You need an organization based on Lean Leadership principles.

Instead of stone walls 20 meters thick you need to build walls with The 10 Customer Facing Characteristics of 21st Century Businesses*:

1. Highly trained work force - focused on continuous learning to quickly respond to customer needs
2. Knowledgeable sales people who understand the customer's business
3. Lean manufacturing programs to produce high quality products at competitive prices 
4. Leaders focused on leading, coaching, and praising to ensure a customer-centric business
5. Managers focused on ensuring the business goals are met so customer expectations can be met
6. Employees empowered to make informed decisions that lead to customer satisfaction
7. Vision, Mission, Objectives, and Goals aligned to meet customer requirements
8. An enlightened, diverse work environment with personnel representing all generations to better understand the wide variety of customer types and expectations. 
9. Business principals based on sustainable qualities that meet all stakeholder expectations equally to ensure the business is there to serve it's customers, not the expectations of outside investors looking for short term gains.
10. Long term thinking led by senior management that maintains a close relationship with key customer personnel.

Once you put these walls in place they are going to be more difficult, if not impossible, to scale by outsiders.  Even if your competitors "lob a few" at you, you will be positioned to move quickly and counter attack! Throughout this blog are ideas and tools to help you become more competitive, cost effective, and focused.

* Trade Mark of Hibbard Associates LLC

Leading vs. Managing

Both Leaders and Managers are needed.  Often a combination of the two skill sets are needed to effectively handle a job function.  Project Managers routinely use both sets of skills.  This is one of the reasons why superior Project Managers are hard to find.  The balance between the skills and when to apply each skill requires excellent judgement.  Project Management is a key resource in the execution of your corporate or unit's Vision.  Senior management positions should always be held by people with a Leadership skill set.  Operations Managers can be more effective with an extensive Manager skill set.

Leading involves establishing direction.
Managing is about producing key results.

Here we have some descriptors for each:

LEADING PEOPLE	MANAGING PEOPLE
team-building	reporting
taking responsibility	monitoring
identifying the need for action	budgeting
having courage	measuring
consulting with team	applying rules and policies
giving responsibility to others	discipline
determining direction	running meetings
explaining decisions	interviewing
making painful decisions	recruiting
defining aims and objectives	counseling
being honest with people	coaching
developing strategy	problem-solving
keeping promises	decision-making
working alongside team members	mentoring
motivating others	negotiating
doing the right thing	selling and persuading
taking people with you	doing things right
developing successors	using systems
inspiring others	communicating instructions
resolving conflict	assessing performance
allowing the team to make mistakes	appraising people
taking responsibility for mistakes	getting people to do things
nurturing and growing people	formal team briefing
giving praise	responding to emails
thanking people	planning schedules
giving constructive feedback	delegating
accepting criticism and suggestions	reacting to requests
being determined	reviewing performance
acting with integrity	time management
listening	organizing resources
sharing vision with team members	implementing tactics

Leader?

What is a Leader?  (In other posts we will discuss a Lean Leader and Lean Leadership.)  Here we want to look at the idea of a Leader and make some comparisons to a Manager and why do we need both?  You can then take a look at how you perform your work function to see which position fits your style.

Definition of Leader: (from Dictionary.com)

 

lead·er/ˈlēdər/

Noun:	The person who leads or commands a group, organization, or country. A person followed by others.
Synonyms:	chief - head - conductor - guide - director - captain

The Leader is the focal point of any organization.  The person is responsible for a specific set of actionable items.  These items are generally different for leaders and managers.  Think about people you know... are they leaders or managers?  Do you want to be a leader or a manager?  Generally speaking there are many more managers than leaders and some people exibit characteristics of both.  Organizations need both skills to be successful.  Leaders do not function well as managers and managers are not able to lead as well as leaders.  So what are the characteristics of a leader?

Leaders are innovative, creative and collaborative.

See Leading vs. Managing for additional information.

Where do I start? FIRST of Series

How can I implement Lean Leadership principals and programs with limited or no consulting services?

So many great ideas fail because of execution, not because the idea was bad.  It is the same with Lean Leadership principals and programs.  There are many opportunities for success - pushing your business to new heights with record profits.  There are also opportunities to add cost without seeing a return. I have seen how six-sigma programs, TQM, Leadership Programs and other processes have both helped and hindered companies. As the leader of your organization you must be sure you understand and internalize your path to success.  This blog is intended to help you understand the areas to focus on, the tools needed, where to find help, and to recognize when you really do need to seek expert advise.  This blog and its many posts can help you follow a path to understanding.  Along the way you will learn many things, however be ever aware that few can go it alone!  We can always learn from the experts and often they are the only ones who can push us along to achieve our goals. The path to "Lean Leadership" is not a walk in the park.  However there are many opportunities to take advantage of principals and tools which can be implemented in a logical order over a period of time.  Keep in mind that Lean Leadership is a process, not a single action.  You need to start somewhere, why not here.

Training and continuous Learning are the keys to success.  Everyone in the organization must be challenged constantly.  Training and Learning opportunities must be made available to encourage new thinking.  Implementing the ideas in this blog along with support and training where needed will get you on your way to success with limited costs.  Try for some small successes before taking on a complete culture or organization change.  Look for some 'quick fixes' to use as learning opportunities.

The main thing is not to take on too much until you and your organization have a solid foundation in the process tools you will use.  There are so many "tools" out there that you can get lost in the process.  Be careful when hiring consultants to help you.  Many of them are great and are really there to help... because they enjoy seeing people and companies succeed.  However, others are there to just generate cash flow for themselves or their company.  There are many one or two person consultation groups out there at very reasonable costs to work with you.  These individuals will have a personal, vested interest in your success.  Give the 'new guy or the lone consultant' a chance to provide you with the services you need.  These folks often have very reasonable daily/hourly rates that can be one half of the big guys rates and will provide focused results. They will not have all the fancy 'glossies' but will have the knowledge.

Try out some of the principals and processes outlined in this blog such as those shown on pages:

1. Strategy Factors
2. Success Path
3. Process Tools
4. How to...?
5. Lean Leadership

These pages will link you to many other posts that will show you the path!  It is also important to review many of the archived posts and subscribe to this blog to get the latest posts on your path to success.

Also see:
Where do I Start? SECOND
Where do I Start? THIRD

Lean?

What do you think of when you hear the word lean?  Lean muscle? Lean meat? Lean protein? Lean cuisine? Lean manufacturing? Lean leadership?  Since this is a blog about Visions of Leadership you should have thought of Lean Leadership. A lean body and lean leadership have a lot in common.  Like the guy pictured, this is how you should visualize your business - lean, muscular, agile, strong ethics, handsome.  This picture represents your customer's expectations of your business - value, stability, flexible, integrity, great image.

So let's look at how lean is being applied.

1. What is the meaning of the word lean?
2. What is meant by this term in business?
3. Why is it in use today?
4. Why associate it with leadership?

The word lean has a number of meanings.  It can refer to 'moving toward', as in she is leaning toward this candidate.  It can refer to something which is tilted, like a tree or building is leaning.  However in the case of business processes it seems to refer to thin, sparse, to-the-point, minimum, no waste, only what is needed, pure, like lean muscle!

The word lean would seem to take on the meaning - that only the essential elements are to be considered and utilized, that there is no waste, no fat in the approach to manufacturing processes or recently in terms of leadership.

It has become fashionable today ( and essential to stay competitive)  to think in terms of lean methods, or to adapt many of the processes pioneered in Japan to your business. The lean process used by Toyota Motor Company focused on the customers needs and desires, which in turn required a re-think of how things were manufactured to allow for more variety, lower cost, and fast changeovers. As with everything in life... overindulgence can produce unpredicted outcomes such as Toyota recently faced.  The focus on the customer must be maintained. As Toyota moved from total customer focus to a focus on becoming the largest car manufacturer in the world they missed the point.  By staying focused on the customer they would still have achieved the 'world title' it just may have taken a little longer.  Most car buyers want zero failure, stylish cars that meet their transportation and/or psychological needs. If you provide cars with the customer's need in mind better than any other car manufacturer you will become the the number one car manufacturing company. Toyota only went a little bit astray but it cost them billions to correct.

The lean concept has moved from the manufacturing process to the management/leadership process over the years due to the need for a new kind of leadership approach to business.  Lean manufacturing requires 'out-of-the-box' thinking to be successful.  It requires managers with special skills to see and effectively lead  a lean organization's ongoing changes needed to stay competitive. Lean in terms of leadership refers to a focus on the key elements of personnel styles, traits, and needs to effectively motivate personnel and maintain the focus on the company's goals.  It is a - 'just what is needed'; 'just enough'; 'at just the right time'; and  an 'agile and flexible' approach.  In other words a to-the-point, consistent, and supportive approach to leading.

Look for additional posts that provide more insight into each of the areas outlined here.  Follow this blog to obtain the latest posts on the subjects you need to incorporate lean into your business operations. 

Mission Statement(s)

Your mission is the nuts and bolts of your vision.  A mission statement concerns what an organization is all about.

 It answers three questions:

1. What do we do?
2. For whom do we do it?
3. What is the benefit?

A mission statement gives the overall purpose of an organization, while a vision statement describes a picture of the desired future. Your mission statement explains what you do, for whom, and what is the benefit.  The vision statement describes how the future will look if the you achieve your mission!

An example:
"We build the finest castles for the world's billionaires.   Our castles are eco-friendly, made out of all natural materials and meet all local energy conservation standards. We strive to mazimize our client's return as much as possible while taking into account all possible threats ."

The differences:

1. Vision:  Defines where the organization wants to be in the future. It reflects the optimistic view of the organization's future.
2. Mission:  Defines where the organization is going now, basically describing the purpose, why this organization exits.
3. Values:  Main values protected by the organization during the progression, reflecting the organization's culture and priorities.
4. Strategic Planning: Saves wasted time, every minute spent in planning saves ten minutes in execution.