Imagine the scene, you’re on your daily commute to work, you have a list of things that you plan to do today. All prepared, calm and relishing the day ahead.
Some 8 or 9 hours later, on your way home, you realise that not a single task you planned has been completed, you feel frustrated, stressed and before you know it, you’ll be doing the same thing tomorrow, only hoping it’s not as chaotic!
Sound familiar?
How is this? What are the root causes of such unstructured activity?
Often the leader is seen as the ‘problem solver’, therefore the Leader is nothing but a collector of problems and it’s at that point that the responsibility of other employees ends.
I refer to this simply, as working IN the process, rather than working ON the process.
Leader Standard Work (LSW) is a technique that provides a structure and routine that focuses the leader on helping their people do the right things. This is an enabler to great results. No matter how hard we focus on the result, its somewhat by chance when good things are achieved without the structured approach I describe.
Leader Standard Work is designed to support and grow the Lean processes we develop, for a simple example, let’s take 5S. Although perceived as easy to implement, and few could argue with its benefits, so many times I hear things like, ‘yeah we did 5S, it’s not worked’. It’s not magic folks, it takes effort to build a sustainable 5S system. That’s where the leader’s role is so important.
Leaders need to back up the actions when it comes to all things Lean. Delegating responsibility is destined to fail, the whole model of the inverted organisation is designed to change the leader’s role to one of a ‘coach’ who provides support for all the lean efforts.
In David Mann’s excellent book ‘Creating a Lean Culture’, Mann describes Leader Standard Work.
‘Imagine’ he suggests, ‘the Lean Management system as a kit of parts. Leader Standard Work provides the instruction for how they fit together’.
My starting point for developing LSW is very simple, review your daily, weekly and monthly diary. Delete anything that delivers no Value – no meeting should be attended unless it has specific Purpose, Objective and expected Outcomes. That’s a start isn’t it?
Implement a daily Gemba Walk – go to different places. Go with a specific purpose, but with an open mind (usually, our teams only see the leader when there’s a problem). Engage with the staff, ask them how is the process performing? If it’s not on plan, ask them what they think is preventing the plan being achieved? Ask them what their next step to resolve the issue is? Ask them if they need support to complete the task? If the plan is being achieved, set the team a challenge, create some positive tension and encourage them to improve performance.
Plan time to conduct Process Confirmation – a standardised way by which managers can see if the process is working as it should be and where it isn’t. Encourage team members to understand and act on the root causes.
Process Confirmation will positively confirm to management that the lean management system and processes are working as intended, reinforce the required behaviour of staff to meet safety, quality, cost and other standards, help to expose problems within the business before things go wrong, and set expectations at all levels of the organisation for the desired behaviours.
So back to our 5S example, the Leader should now be process confirming the weekly audits are being completed, ensuring everyone understands the ‘why 5S’ as well as the ‘how to 5S’ whilst ensuring the daily tasks and improvement actions are happening.
Subtle changes to one’s behaviour you may say, but Leaders need to take control of the process, work on the system and lead the tools. A lean leader should be spending 60-70% of their day using a Standard Work diary. But it’s better to start with a lower level of Standard Work, and stick to it, than to try and lock down everything first and suffer the frustration of your diary being blown away by the never-ending chaos. Gradually, a leader will start to see the benefits of the new structured approach, and the process will build
So, who would benefit from some further knowledge and understanding of the power of Leader Standard Work? Ask yourselves, can I improve the quality of my day and grow my teams’ capabilities by developing their thinking way through spending more proactive time coaching them? If the answer is yes, join us and find out more about LSW.
Our next 1-day introduction to Leader Standard Work workshop is scheduled to be Chester in May. It’s your first step in understanding more about doing the right things, managing your time more effectively and how to release time to lead. I hope to see you there!
Stuart
