Have you wondered why your teams are not working on the right things? Or why their improvement actions are not increasing performance?
As a leader maybe, you struggle with the constant question of what you need to do differently to meet month end goals and deliver what the customer needs?
If so, the answer my friends is in the Eyes.
Yes, seriously the Eyes
No, I'm not talking about whether you believe your team are giving you a vacant stare or telling you the truth.
What I'm talking about here is rapid eye movement.
Just go along to one of your organisations team boards (team boards or visual management help the whole team quickly understand performance and how they can help contribute to the team's success).
Stand with your back towards the visual management board and just aside of the information.
And then ask a team member who is not dedicated to that team if they could stand in front of you and answer a couple of questions:
Then just ask them:
1. What's the performance?
- Can they tell you if the team are winning or losing /and ahead or behind?
2. What's hindering that performance?
3. What the team are doing about it, and do they need help?
Before they open their mouths, you will have the answer, as it will first come from their eyes.
When their eyes jump around the board searching for the answer
It will be clear and you will know that the linkages are fractured or broken
When the linkages are clear for all to see and know, you get the answer within a nanosecond (a second or two later the mouth will confirm it and tell you)
You see exactly the same from digital boards, but instead of rapid eye and head movement you see hand and finger movement on the track pad and hear multiple clicks.
Without clear linkages, team members and management will struggle to understand performance, work on the right things, and make good decisions.
This is the fundamental reason why the majority of visual management is fractured and why firefighting still exists in most businesses.
Just look at the posts on LinkedIn and you'll see random selection of kpi's and solutions. Record yourself trying to understand them and answer the questions above and you'll see your own eye movement - and what confuses the eyes confuses the brain.
When lean thinking is effectively built into visual management and our daily routines - we see logical linkages connecting Performance - Problem & Action together
Or if you like improvement actions that actually increase performance
We surface problems that we never knew existed
And learn about the business at a much deeper level than ever before
For example, Paul the MD of a medical device business discovered that over 40% of customer orders enquiries could not be processed first time because of 2 main reasons. And critically nobody in the business was working on the problem.
As well as building lean thinking into an organisation’s visual management, it’s also essential that it’s supported by the right management routines otherwise leaders and managers will jump to solutions, look for the wrong things and drive the wrong actions
And eventually people will give up and accept the firefighting and inefficient processes.
Let me know what you find when you try this
Ps: If you don't have visual management your ears will give you the answer. You will get a different answer from different people, you'll get vague statements, long winded explanations and the default - I'll need to check (code for I don't know).
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If you want to learn more about improving team performance, eliminating inconsistency and firefighting let me know.
Or if you would like to build an effective culture of continuous improvement that drives consistency and improvement through the business then you can Download my 1 page Ultimate Lean Management System Here
And join my 5 Star Business Fundamentals masterclass at our Lean Summit UK, here we’ll help you get best foundation for improvement and help you correct the fractures in your business system.
#Lean Summit 2023, #Lean Eyes Don’t Lie, #5Star Business Fundamentals #Lean Enterprise Academy, #MakingLeanWork