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INTRODUCTION
“One does not manage people – the task is to lead people. And the goal is to make
productive the specific strengths and knowledge of each individual.”
Peter F. Drucker
Whether you’re trying to make adjustments within a small business unit that only
involves a handful of people or whether you’re trying to roll out process
standardization across several global offices in a change that affects the working lives
of thousands, a very small part of your success is contingent on successfully mapping,
modelling, and optimizing processes.
Any initiative or project you undertake involves leading and facilitating groups of
people. As PEX Network contributor Dennis Narlock says in the first article in this
compilation “continuous improvement is something that you do WITH people, not
something that you do TO people.”
So just what combination of skills and approaches do you need to lead process
excellence successfully?
This compilation of articles – a selection of some of the top rated articles on
leadership published on PEXNetwork.com over the last few years – looks at effective
leadership attributes and skills for leading process excellence.
What are the top personal qualities you need to be effective in your job? What are
the strategies and questions you should employ in the pursuit of process
improvement and operational excellence? Experienced practitioners share their
thoughts on what it really takes.
All of the articles have been authored by experienced process practitioners to help
bridge that gap between what the business books on leadership say and what you
really need to do to lead successful process improvement.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................... 0
SUPERHERO PROCESS IMPROVEMENT? THE FIVE ESSENTIALS QUALITIES OF LEADERSHIP....... 4
SEVEN QUESTIONS LEADERS SHOULD ASK BEFORE STARTING PROCESS IMPROVEMENT ....... 11
EQUIPPING PROCESS PROFESSIONALS WITH LEADERSHIP SKILLS: INTERVIEW WITH HAZEL
CANNON, LEADER OF UK’S DEMING FORUM ........................................................................... 16
THE EIGHT HABITS OF EFFECTIVE PROCESS EXCELLENCE LEADERS .......................................... 24
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If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do
more and become more, you are a leader.
John Quincy Adams
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SUPERHERO PROCESS IMPROVEMENT? THE
FIVE ESSENTIALS QUALITIES OF
LEADERSHIP
BY DENNIS NARLOCK, FIRST PUBLISHED 21 NOVEMBER 2011
Process improvement has been
around for a long time; the
name and methodologies have
changed either through
assimilation or reinvention.
However, whatever banner
your process improvement
program flies under, you can
expect one constant: the
challenge of delivering your
results.
There are many different reasons why an improvement team might fail to deliver
expected results, but the determining factor, in my opinion, is the approach used by
the person leading the team. The leader of an improvement team has many
responsibilities including keeping the team motivated, on task and ultimately
delivering positive results. What the leader is not responsible for is accomplishing all
that they have been charged with by themselves.
Think that your role as leader of process improvement involves being a super hero?
Think again!
Whether newly trained in a continuous improvement methodology or a seasoned
professional the success of your team depends on how you approach your leadership
role. While there have been countless books, seminars, webinars etc. on team
leadership, success depends on the leader’s ability to create an environment where
their team can flourish and achieve success. From my personal experience there are
five things to remember when leading teams focused on delivering operational
excellence. They are: Perspective, Respect, Humility, Active Listening, and avoiding
the “Last Place” syndrome.
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Quality #1: Perspective
As an improvement team leader it is imperative to identify the ideas and facts behind
your perspective at the onset of an event or project – these are the ideas and facts
known to you regarding a specific location, situation, process, person or team. When
coalesced these ideas and facts will form the viewpoint that you adopt prior to,
during and following the completion of an improvement event or project. It is
possible for your 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.
Quality #2: Respect
As an outsider to the process you will see opportunity for improvement that has
been missed by those working within the current process. What will not be as readily
apparent to you will be all of the improvements that have already been made to an
existing process. Those people that have been with the organization have a vested
interest in that organization and its continued success. In some cases they were part
of the group who initially founded the organization and have helped it grow into its
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current structure and market position. While the processes they created may not be
the most efficient in your eyes, remember all of the blood, sweat and tears that has
gone into creating them. They will be understandably proud of their
accomplishments and appearing on scene as a superhero to save them from their
wasteful process will establish a barrier between yourself and those who live and
operate in the process everyday. When you look in the mirror you will see yourself
as a hero, they will see you as the villain. This reputation will become more and more
engrained in your colleagues eyes the longer you operate in this manner, ensuring
that you will be fighting and uphill battle with each subsequent process that you try
to improve.
Some of the negative consequences of this approach to continuous improvement
are:
Information Quality
Information Quantity
Data Integrity
Improvement Implementation
Improvement Sustainment
Continuous Improvement Program Viability
Personal Growth and Advancement
Quality #3: Humility
While many would prefer a leader who is humble enough to recognize the potential
in their colleagues, peers and subordinates; there is also as desire to have a leader
who is confident and strong and conveys an ability to truly ‘lead’ an organization to
success. In the case of a person who is leading an improvement team, the humility
that is important is in reference to terminology, tools and skills.
As an improvement team leader your approach should be such that when you
communicate with your team you are utilizing terminology, tools, and explanations in
such a manner that they can clearly understand what is being stated.
Terminology – Every profession has its own unique language that sets it apart from
other professions. Continuous improvement is no different. The words and phrases
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used in Lean, Six Sigma, Theory of Constraints, TRIZ, etc. have means that are unique
to the process improvement environment. Every Green and Black belt knows this to
be true based on the number of times that they have been required to explain that
their ‘belt’ referred to a level of process improvement training and not to a new
martial arts program that was being started by the organization.
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 SME’s. 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
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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
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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 you’re 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 person’s
continual reference to their last organization had resulted in significant change within
the office.
Subordinates began to complete this person’s 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
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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.
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SEVEN QUESTIONS LEADERS SHOULD ASK
BEFORE STARTING PROCESS
IMPROVEMENT
BY PHIL BROWN, FIRST PUBLISHED 16 MAY 2011, PEX NETWORK
Over the years I have led,
reviewed, analyzed or taken part
in many improvement programs,
both in my roles for companies
and as an EFQM (European
Foundation for Quality
Management) Assessor. Looking
back on my time I have tried to
think of the crucial questions
that I would suggest leaders ask
themselves before starting on
their journey (first hint!)
I am not offering this as a
panacea for preventing all
problems but I do believe in the
carpenters idiom ‘measure
twice, cut once’ and therefore propose these as some ‘measuring time’ before you
start cutting!
Question 1: Do I really think that I can change the world in 3
months?
‘Of course I do, how do you think I came to be in charge of this facility, business etc? I
make things happen and this initiative will be no different!’
History tells us that whilst short term actions can lead to some gains, in the world of
sustained continuous improvement then it is the long term strategies that keep
delivering.
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Reviewing failed change initiatives (and there are thousands to choose from!) will all
show that unrealistic expectations of what can be delivered in a short time leads to
lack of continued focus and active participation. It seems more to be ‘well that didn’t
work – what quick fix can we try next?
Reviewing successful change programs (and they are out there if you look!), shows
that If you truly want to develop and embed continuous sustainable improvement
then stop thinking of weeks or months and start thinking about how you will support
and sustain it over the coming years.
Question 2: Do I really have the time/interest/determination to
see this through in the long term?
‘What do you mean do I have the time interest and determination to see this
through? I will tell my team what is expected, delegate to them and sit back and wait
for the improvements or benefits to flow’.
Any serious review of failed change initiatives shows that the number 1 cause of
failure is a lack of focused and active support from senior management. With all of
the other pressures on leaders/managers from day to day pressures there is a
constant threat of putting improvement on the back burner.
Using the quadrants of time from Stephen Covey’s excellent book, the 7 Habits of
Highly Effective People, it is clear that continuous sustainable improvement is firmly
in quadrant 2 – important but not urgent. Therefore, unless it is constantly reviewed,
nurtured and proactively supported then your improvement initiative will quickly
fade into the background as you continue to focus on quadrant 1 – urgent and
important (fire fighting)
Question 3: Have I got the right people with the right skills,
tenacity and time to lead this activity across the business?
‘Of course I have, they have all been hand picked to ensure that they can deliver to
tight deadlines and do as they have been told’
Another one of the crucial elements of effective implementation of change is
ensuring that you have the right blend of skills and abilities in your team to meet all
of the required needs. Thinking about the skills set out by Belbin, it is clear that
having only one set of characteristics in your team is a recipe for real problems. As
someone who has had the experience of working with a senior management team (in
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a previous company) where 6 out of the 7 team members were Shapers (highly
motivated – and opinionated – task leaders) then I can tell you that is a real eye
opener in how not to get things followed through!
In your team you will need a senior champion who has the vision, character and
abilities to support the initiative through all stages/phases of the program. It is highly
likely that they will need to be full time on this program if you really mean to
succeed. They will not be someone who it will be comfortable to spare but is likely to
be one of your key players.
Many organizations delegate this key role to someone who is ‘spare’ at the moment
or just add this role to their already full work life. Either way, don’t expect much
success – again, history tells us that this is a clear path to failure.
Underneath this champion will be several other roles, experts, trainers, facilitators
etc – all of whom will need to be identified, trained, released from other tasks and
supported. However, without the Champion they will be rudderless and likely to
expend lots of energy, enthusiasm and resources in delivering little.
Question 4: How will I ‘sell’ this to both the leadership team and
the troops?
‘All the leadership team wants to hear is how fast we can deliver benefits so that is
what I will tell them. If I start trying to explain how long this is going to take and how
much investment we will need to make then they will just switch off’
‘All the ‘troops’ want to hear is what they will get out of it so I will exaggerate the
benefits and play down the hard work that will be needed – they will be happy then’
Hopefully from the previous questions it is really sinking in just how hard it is to make
sustained continuous improvement work. There is little point in setting out with false
expectations – both for the leadership team and the troops. The initiative needs to
be openly and honestly discussed:
What will the journey will look like?
What sorts of time scales are involved?
What issues can be expected along the way?
What is the level of commitment from the organization?
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What is expected from everyone?
What benefits can be expected – and when in the program?
Does the organisation really mean business or is this just another ‘quick fix’?
What will the organisation and its people look like at the end of each phase
(remembering that there is no end to this journey)?
Question 5: What happens when the going gets tough and I have
other priorities to deliver on?
‘It must be understood that our first priority is to get our deliveries out of the door –
if we have to cancel or postpone some meetings or activities then that is just what
happens’ or ‘Yes this initiative is important but it cannot be allowed to interfere with
our ‘normal’ business. Our people will need to understand that the
leadership/management team have other priorities and will therefore not always be
able to make these meetings/sessions’.
There is a reason that the EFQM Excellence Model has Leadership as its first criteria.
Again, countless improvement initiatives have failed because the organization sets
out to do them ‘when we have time’, or are just bolt them onto the back of
everyone’s other day to day duties.
Back to point 4 – realistic and sustainable expectations supported by real plans,
programs and active involvement from the management/leadership
Question 6: Have I properly researched why 98% of improvement
initiatives fail (lack of focused and consistent leadership)?
‘I’m a busy person; I don’t have time to read/review this type of material – that’s
what I employ a Quality Manager to do and then just tell me the important bits’
Hopefully we have covered this in the above questions – if it isn’t clear then I haven’t
done my job very well!
Question 7: Have I thought through the daily behaviours
necessary from myself and the leadership team to make sure that
the initiative succeeds?
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‘We really mean business this time. We will have kick off sessions, presentations. I
have ordered lots of banners, posters and mugs so that nobody is in any doubt that
we mean business.
People believe what they see on an on-going basis. People will only be convinced
when they see sustained good behaviours and active involvement from the
management/leadership team.
Many organizations have visions, values and stated positive behaviors to follow. As
an EFQM Award Assessor for many years I always run focus groups in the
organizations that I am assessing. I have yet to meet with any groups that are
impressed by banners, mugs or banners – positive feedback is always about what
they have seen or heard from their managers/leaders to actively support the
initiative/programs.
I have a little phrase that sums up what I have seen in many organizations over the
years with regards to the role out of improvement initiatives:
“Here comes another one. Keep your head down for the next few months and it will
all go away just like all the previous initiatives as the leaders lose interest.”
So the message here is make sure you are prepared to walk the walk and not just talk
the talk.
As I said at the beginning of this article, I offer no panacea for successful
improvement initiatives but hopefully what I have shared is some of my experiences
of the questions you should ask before starting (and believe it or not many of the
statements I have included I have heard along the way!).
I wish you good luck with your improvement journey.
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EQUIPPING PROCESS PROFESSIONALS
WITH LEADERSHIP SKILLS: INTERVIEW
WITH HAZEL CANNON, LEADER OF UK’S
DEMING FORUM
PUBLISHED, 23 APRIL 2012
“The principle aim [of
leadership] is to help people
do a better job, improving
quality in everything,” says
Hazel Cannon of the UK-
based Deming Forum. In this
interview, Hazel Cannon
discusses the importance of
treating leadership as a skill
or capability to be developed
and recommends steps that process professionals can take do right now in their jobs
to be more effective leaders.
DO YOU THINK THAT SOMETIMES THOSE WHO ARE SUPPOSED TO BE
LEADING BUSINESS CHANGE REALLY AREN'T EQUIPPED WITH THE
LEADERSHIP SKILLS THAT ARE NECESSARY TO LEAD IT?
Hazel Cannon: Yes, I think that's true in some cases. People will have been trained in
process skills or be experts in a particular discipline like Six Sigma, but not necessarily
in the leadership and management skills or attributes. It's an interesting
phenomenon to me that many people are promoted because of their abilities in a
previous job or project that they worked on. Somehow between the promotion
letter on the Friday and sitting at the leader's desk on the Monday, we expect them
to understand the key issues and have developed the appropriate management skills
to deal with their new position. That's one of the first things that I think that we
need to consider.
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I also believe there's a myth around the definition of true leaders and the belief that
they're born rather than made. That may be accurate when you think of some great
historical characters, but while I believe the leaders of changing organisations do
need some innate characteristics, I also believe that they need training and
development in management skills and given guidance and mentoring in the
necessary leadership attributes. I see that skills and attributes are slightly different
things. The issue for me is that some organisations don't even see leadership as a
specific discipline or attribute that needs to be taught, developed and honed.
WHY DO YOU THINK THAT IS? PICKING UP ON YOUR LAST POINT, WHY DO
SOME ORGANISATIONS NOT EVEN UNDERSTAND LEADERSHIP AS A SPECIFIC
DISCIPLINE?
Hazel Cannon: Firstly, we need to recognise the difference between being involved in
change and leading change. I think that many organisations involved in change or
transformation provide process skills and models training, but they don't see the
need for leadership development in that particular skill set. In fact, in some
organisations leadership selection and development is often handled in a different
stream. Leadership is a skill that needs to be learned.
Secondly, many business skills are not teaching the leadership skills that are
necessary for an organisation. Rather, they teach how to manage by the visible
numbers. It's interesting to stop for a moment and look at how the business school
model developed.
In the brilliant book THE PURITAN GIFT, Will and Kenneth Hopper tell the history of
how the chairman of General Electric in the late 50s, Ralph Cordiner, scoured the
business schools looking for those that would provide him with so-called
management experts. These were flexible managers who could present and argue
the right numbers. Cordiner published a book called The New Frontiers in
Professional Management, which, in fact, was an early manifesto for the business
school counter-culture. This was the concept that wonderfully mobile “professional
managers” trained in the classroom could manage any kind of business without really
knowing very much about it.
Later, Dr Deming, the management guru who helped transform Japan, he described
those business degrees as a cruel hoax. He said, quite curtly, that an MBA teaches
managers how to take over companies and NOT how to run them.
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In their book, the Hopper brothers stress the importance of domain knowledge – i.e.
understanding the industry that you're in. And they also talk about the essential
components of effective leadership. They describe managers and leaders using three
headings. The first one is a generalist, the person who genuinely possesses skills of
general management. They are skilled in handling people – they’re the so-called
“people persons” - who are required in any organisation. The second is a well
rounded person who has a profound understanding of the sector they work in, and
that gives them a sound foundation on which to develop and build their leadership
skills. And the third is the “professional” who's neither generalist nor rounded and
lacks the domain knowledge and who principally sees the world of business in
statistical and financial terms.
The fallacy that's taught by many business schools is that management can still be
learned in theory or abstract in almost an academic setting and then practised in any
organisation. So, in fact, process professionals who understand the industry they're
in are really well placed to become effective leaders of organisations in the future.
WHAT'S LACKING NOW? WHAT ARE THE SKILLS THAT PROCESS
PROFESSIONALS NEED TO BETTER LEAD CHANGE WITHIN THEIR
ORGANISATIONS?
Hazel Cannon: Well, there's a wonderful educator and author, Peter Scholtes, and he
uses a great example in his book, THE LEADER'S HANDBOOK. He talks about the
magic eye art, I don't know if you remember it. Initially, you see an array of colours
and patterns. However, you can learn to focus your eyes in a special way that allows
a three dimensional image to emerge from the array of colours. And suddenly, you'll
hear some people saying "look, it's a car or it's a giraffe" or whatever the photograph
has hidden. And it depends on how you focus, but you need to learn to focus
differently. So two people can look at the same picture and only one will see the
colours on the surface, but the other will see something entirely different; the 3-D
image that's hidden deeper underneath the surface. And I think the same is true of
leadership; you need to see different things, depending on which lens you focus
through.
The ability to look at things differently is essential for leadership. Another way to
describe how leaders can view an organisation is the way Dr Deming describes it. He
says that when you work in a department, you need to be able to see your
customers' and suppliers' perspective. But if you're the manager, you maybe need to
have the perspective that you see from a helicopter. And if you're a chief executive
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in an international corporation, you may need the perspective that you might see
from, say, a spacecraft.
So the skills and attributes for leading change in an organisation includes those
developed and researched by Scholtes, whom I mentioned, Dr Deming, definitely the
Toyota Corporation and those outlined by Ken and Will Hopper. Those methods have
stood the test of time and they give you a sense of constancy of purpose. And that's
the one leadership commodity that I think is fairly scarce at the moment.
The need to search for the latest fad or quick fix is a huge industry and it's highly
distracting. But real process professionals recognise that it's only through discipline,
involvement, development and rigorous process that you're going to achieve
sustainable achievement. So constancy of purpose is essential to provide your long-
range needs rather than short-term profitability, because that's going to allow you to
become competitive and to stay in business and provide jobs.
COULD YOU ELABORATE ON EXACTLY WHAT THOSE SKILLS AND ATTRIBUTES
WOULD BE?
Hazel Cannon: I think there are probably six principle areas of competency that
leaders can develop. I'll outline them and then give you some more detail. The first
is the ability to think in terms of systems. Then the second is you need to understand
the variability of work and planning and problem solving. The third is to understand
how people learn and develop and improve, so that leaders can ensure there's true
learning and sustainable improvement. Then we need to understand the psychology
of change; why people behave the way they do. The fifth is to understand
interactions and interdependencies. And then, finally, I think leaders need to give
vision, meaning, direction and some kind of overall focus to the organisation.
So the principle aim is to help people do a better job, improving quality in everything:
your product, your services, your employees, stakeholders, customers, suppliers. In
fact, quality in all parts of your system. Leaders need to have the ability to think in
terms of the big system and view the organisation as a flow diagram, flowing towards
the customer rather than what you normally see, which is a hierarchical diagram. It's
important that they not only improve the system, but they learn to innovate. You
need to be able to break down barriers between the departments and functions and
maybe create opportunities where different areas work together to design and
improve, not just to tackle problems. And one of the things that's not really
discussed very much, but which I think is very important, is that leaders need to be
able to drive out the fear and anxiety that is rife in many organisations, especially
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today. They need to encourage effective multi-level communication, so everyone is
informed and they can work cooperatively and optimise their efforts in the
organisation. So helping people do a better job means that leaders need to
understand the business that they're in and what goes on in their organisations.
Good leaders need to use their power or authority and their knowledge and their
persuasive power to streamline flows and remove the things that genuinely frustrate
people and take the pride and the joy out of their jobs. I said they need to have the
knowledge to help understand variability. It's not just in things like parts and
processes, it's understanding that people learn in different ways and that people are
different, so you have that profound understanding, then you can stop ranking and
rating individuals in departments. You can ditch arbitrary targets and, quite frankly,
meaningless statements like zero defect.
Process professionals who are leaders can then have that freedom to use their
knowledge to ensure the systems and processes are in control - your objective then
becomes to continuously reduce variation.
That's what the Japanese car and electronic firms did. Once you understand that,
you can move away from things like annual performance appraisal and have regular
conversations with people, not to judge them, but to listen. And that gives you the
agenda for the barriers that you need to remove. One of the big mistakes that
General Electric made was to start ranking their people and then get rid of the
bottom 10%. The trouble is that nobody knew if the bottom 10% were better or
worse than people in other organisations. They lost all those employees. Cooperation
must have gone right out of the window. So process professionals are well skilled in
leading and teaching skills and methods for improvement and if we add some deeper
knowledge of the psychology of people and the psychology of change, then we've got
flexible learning organisations that are able to continually adapt and improve.
It's not easy to create the levels of trust in an environment that will encourage
freedom and innovation. You've got to allow for the possibility of failure. You have to
understand the need for small-scale trials. And that's another benefit that process
professionals bring to the party - they understand some of the pointlessness of
exhortations and poster campaigns and demanding zero defects or increased
productivity without providing processes and methods to achieve what you want.
I also think the sign of a good leader is someone who can provide a compelling vision
for the organisation that gives meaning and direction, so that people know where to
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focus. That way, they can enable the levels of cooperation and value added activity
that I think is going to ensure success for the long-term, not just the short-term.
DO YOU THINK THAT THE SKILLS NECESSARY TO LEAD CHANGE IN
ORGANISATIONS ARE THE SAME AS THEY WERE, SAY, TEN OR 20 YEARS
AGO?
Hazel Cannon: I think if you're talking about the skills are necessary, then probably
many of them are still the same. However, the skills that are practised today have
lost a lot of the tried and tested management skills that were around in the middle of
the last century where leaders then rose through the ranks of organisations. They
were developing their craft and they were being mentored by leaders.
If you read THE PURITAN GIFT by the Hoppers, many examples of this style can be
found. For example, in the late 40s and early 50s, Procter & Gamble, introduced a
preferred supplier policy, and that helped them reduce the variation in incoming
products and ensured that the quality level of components delivered to the
manufacturing department was good. They had an extensive training on the job
programme, and encouraged people from research, design, sales, production to work
together, as had many other companies during that era.
Counter that with the mid 80s when the American phone giant, AT&T totally failed to
appreciate the potential of wireless technology. They'd hired a major consultancy to
report on wireless communication prospects and the firm famously estimated that
they reckoned that there would be fewer than a million cellular phones by the year
2000. I understand that by the time 2000 rolled around there 741 million cellular
phones!
Of course, it's really difficult for anyone to predict what will happen in the future, but
in a company like AT&T, their employees would know more about the technology of
communication than anyone else in the world. Why did the company's new masters
seek the advice of a firm of consultants? I think apart from indulging in what was,
then, the latest managerial fad of outsourcing strategic decision making, the basic
thing was that the company's new masters were ignorant of the technology because
they didn't have the domain knowledge or a history in telecommunications.
Another thing that's holding companies back is I think that people are often keen to
introduce new systems but forget to cancel the old ones. The brilliant thinker,
Russell Ackoff in his book ACKOFF'S FABLES, talks about how your people, your
employees and your customers, actually, use their creativity to beat a system that's
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no longer appropriate. And he cites Robert Townsend author of UP THE
ORGANISATION, which recounts the story of how the British created a civil service
job in 1803 that called for some poor soul to stand on the cliffs of Dover. He was
supposed to ring a bell if he saw Napoleon coming. And you know when the job was
abolished? In 1945!
So to be nimble and ready for the future, I think we need to identify three areas of
activity. First, I think we need to identify the things that we do that were appropriate
once but aren't necessarily appropriate now, a bit like the example I've just given.
And the second is the things that we do now that we need to continue. And the third
is the things that we need to develop and do in the future. So discontinue the first,
build on the second and introduce the third.
WHAT COULD SOMEONE OUT THERE READING THIS INTERVIEW DO
DIFFERENTLY RIGHT NOW IN ORDER TO INCORPORATE SOME OF THESE
PRINCIPLES INTO THEIR WORK?
Hazel Cannon: Well, the first thing I'd suggest is the example of the magic eye
pictures. Focus on the situation, not just looking at the surface, but using your
knowledge as a lens to see past the surface in order to understand the potential
patterns underneath. When you're looking at improvements in specific areas, you'll
stop and consider the wider system. Understand that the changes you're going to
make will cause issues elsewhere. As every process professional knows, a system is
made up of inter-related components and parts and you can't change something in
one place without understanding the potential implications.
A good example for me in the news right now is the proposal to increase, once again,
the tax on fuel. Now, I know of several local small businesses whose employees are
on basic wages and they have to travel maybe 40 or 50 miles a day to their place of
work here. Even at the current price of fuel, several of them can't afford to work
here any more and have, in agreement with their employers, had to give up their
jobs. And the reason they were travelling long distances is because there wasn't
suitable employment near where they lived. Now several of them are claiming
unemployment benefit. So while the fuel tax is going to bring in additional revenue,
significantly more revenue is possibly being paid out in unemployment benefit. So
whilst one part of the system may take a win, another is taking a loss.
Regardless of the politics, I’m trying to demonstrate the system perspective. The
fundamental question is; has the bigger system been optimised or not? Just think of
the potential in your organisational systems; are the changes that you're about to
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adopt optimising the whole system or are they creating a win in your area but an
overall loss to the organisation?
Another great thing you could do is to generate some simple run-charts of your daily
or weekly or monthly results and when you go to the next management meeting,
don't get involved in excuses and justifications as to why this month is 2% better or
worse than last month or the same month last year. Why not produce your run-chart
and show whether or not the results was reasonably predictable. You could also
learn a lesson from AT&T's mistake and listen to the people immersed in your work
for ideas and opportunities rather than employing outsiders. And by listening and
involving more people in the processes, you're likely to delve deeper, understand
more and have the added benefit of their involvement and support for the change.
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THE EIGHT HABITS OF EFFECTIVE PROCESS
EXCELLENCE LEADERS
BY DEBASHIS SARKAR, FIRST PUBISHED 10 MAY 2012
For many of us being a process
excellence leader is about
mastering the tools and attaining
certifications in the domain of six
sigma (belts), lean (master), TOC
(Jonah) etc. While these skills are
required, what makes a successful
process excellence leader is
demonstrating skills and
behaviours beyond the methods. It’s not the technical skills but the adaptive skills
that makes a PEX Leader successful.
Here are what I consider to be the eight habits of effective Process Excellence
leadership:
Habit #1: Ability to Zoom-in and Zoom-Out
Leaders need the ability to zoom-in and zoom-out: zoom-in to get into the core of an
issue and zoom-out to see the larger picture. It’s essential to have this focus so that
when looking at a problem (or an opportunity, as I like to call them), to understand
the strategic imperatives of business and which processes need to change to make an
improvement. You need to be able to quickly see how the details of individual
processes connect up with the big-picture of the business. In everything that they do,
PEX Leaders need to be system thinkers who see problem solving in the context of
the larger business system and how this affects other parts of the business. This not
only helps ensure that improvements in one area aren’t negatively affecting another,
but also ensures that all process improvement work is supporting the strategic
objectives of the business.
Ultimately, as I wrote in an earlier column - How to tell if you're a process centric
organization - leaders of process excellence should be able ascertain how the
strategic and tactical efforts in process improvement will impact the overall
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performance of the company. A key deliverable of a PEX Leader is to script a holistic
improvement roadmap for the next couple of years that enables a company to
achieve its strategic vision.
Habit #2: Ability to engage
Process improvement is as much about convincing people to change as it is going
around and changing processes. The ability to engage other people, therefore, is
essential. Process Excellence Leaders must be able to persuade the CEO and other
senior leaders to adopt process excellence practices for business improvement. This
is about being able to sell performance-enhancement ideas to leaders based on the
explicit & implicit needs of the business, and then being able to support them start-
to-finish to catalyze the changes necessary.
The key word here is “catalyze” which is about the business leader owning the
deployment while the PEX Leader acts as a coach. Leaders of process improvement
need to be comfortable both with C-level executives as well as teams at middle &
junior management. Senior leaders look at him as a trusted partner while people at
junior and middle management look at him as an inspirational leader who is able to
motivate them to adopt process-practices for eliminating some of the deep chronic
issues that they could be facing. The PEX Leader should be able to provide visibility to
teams on how their efforts impact the strategic objectives of the company.
Habit #3: Ability to manage change
This is about treating a process excellence rollout as a change program and doing
everything to make sure it sticks in the firm. It includes getting the organizations’
attention to the process excellence agenda, catalyzing the required sense of urgency
and gaining true buy-in by winning over the hearts and minds of people.
The Process Excellence Leader does not keep the people who oppose the process
agenda out of his way but proactively gets them to the table to understand their
concern and even allows them to find holes in the way he is proposing the
deployment. PEX Leaders need to treat those who attack us with respect and engage
with them to allay their concerns. We are able to successfully manage a wide-range
of behaviours that oppose / raise doubts about the process agenda. One of
endeavours of the PEX Leader should be to work with the CEO to build a change-
ready company that is able to wade through the changes in the environment.
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Habit #4: Ability to understand financials
Process Excellence leaders need to demonstrate to the business the financial value of
the work the team is undertaking but also understand how process improvement
work affects the financial of the company.
PEX Leaders need to understand not just basic financial statements but also the
relationship between them and the derived ratios. For example, if a cost-income
ratio is a key metric tracked by top management in a bank, the PEX Leader works
towards finding which processes can improve this ratio.
Conversely, if there are financial measures that top management should be tracking,
but aren’t, the PEX Leader should be able to highlight this and argue why a particular
measure is important and what impact process improvement will have on the
measure.
Habit #5: Ability to Coach
The ability to help others become better is a key skill which PEX Leaders should
master. We are in the business of not only improving processes but also helping to
improve businesses. A key part of that is ensuring that we are building up capabilities
and skills in others in the business. PEX Leaders should be able to coach those in the
process improvement team but also those who are not direct reports as well as peers
and top management of the firm.
Habit #6:Ability to understand customers and spot trends
Ultimately, we’re in business because we have customers. When customers become
the centre-stage of a process excellence endeavour the undertaking gains a greater
magnitude of importance – everyone in the business can and should have a sense of
how their role serves the end customer. A process excellence initiative can die when
primarily targeted towards internally focused objectives such as cost cutting,
efficiency gains, etc. while a process excellence journey is long lasting when it is
designed around customers.
PEX Leaders work towards improving the value delivered to the customer. We must
work with other leaders in the company to design a suitable value proposition for the
customer and make sure that each part of the business works in tandem to deliver
the customer promise. We need to keep an eye on the emerging trends that impact
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customers and help the CEO to design a business-strategy with the customer at the
centre.
Habit #7: Ability to embed capability
The real power of process improvement starts when business units have the skills
necessary to make improvements and changes to their role.
Part of our role is to put ourselves out of a job by building capability and embedding
required skills within business units so that they can pursue the process
improvement efforts for enhancing the performance of the business. This includes
making sure that best and brightest employees are involved in process improvement,
teams get time to carry out improvement work and they get recognized for
accomplishing business outcomes by using the power of process. Excellence in
process excellence work needs to be made a criteria for career growth. Each of the
business units and functions should have adequate number of change agents in
improvement approaches such as Lean, Six Sigma, BPM, Triz, Small Group Activities,
JIT etc.
Habit #8: Ability to guide teams on tools and techniques
A PEX Leader should be adept in the key improvement approaches and should be in a
position to guide teams when required. While it helps to have deep knowledge in
process improvement practices, you shouldn’t worry if you’re not a master of any of
them. What is really required of PEX Leaders is the ability to ask the right questions
and understand the technical output of teams. Remember, when the job of a PEX
Leader is to engage and provide strategic inputs, it’s fine if the PEX Leader is a bit
“tool deficient”. You need deep experience in change management.
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LEARN MORE ABOUT LEADERSHIP STRATEGIES
If you’d like to continue your learning, this year’s PEX Masters online event has a
track dedicated to effective leadership strategies.
The series runs between 6-15 November and features over 12 hours of insight and
practical case studies delivered by some of the top-rated presenters from our events
and online community.
Delivered online the event blends personal, organizational and process tools to give
you inspiration and hands-on takeaways to reinvigorate your process excellence
program for 2013. For more information, please visit www.pexmasters.com
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ABOUT US
What is the Process Excellence Network?
PEX Network is an online, free to join, membership portal providing process
professionals with exclusive access to a library of multimedia resources from top
executives on Lean Six Sigma, BPM, Operational Excellence, Continuous
Improvement and other process excellence related topics.
The Process Excellence Network has a subscribed membership of 80,000+ with an
additional 20,000 connected to us via our social networks and a global contact
database of over 450,000.
In addition to online resources, PEX Network organizes 30+ targeted face-to-face
events globally per year with industry specific focuses on Financial Services, Telecoms
& Utilities, and Energy. We also hold major cross industry summits on process
excellence in Orlando, FL (PEX Week) and in London, England (PEX Week Europe)
every January and April.
Contact Us
Website: www.pexnetwork.com
General Inquiries: enquire@pexnetwork.com
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7368 9300
About the Editor
Diana Davis is editor of PEXNetwork.com and follows trends in process excellence
including Lean, Six Sigma, and BPM. She worked previously as a producer with
Associated Press Television News and she has also worked in marketing and business
development in the software industry. Davis holds a Master's in International
Journalism from City University, London and a BA in English from the University of
British Columbia, Vancouver. She can be reached on diana.davis@pexnetwork.com
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