Why Courage Matters

Following the recent launch of a “book club” with one of my clients, I have found myself re-reading Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni.   Reading it several years ago, I thought it was pretty good.  Reading it now, I think that it should be required reading not only for teams but also for any individual seeking a leadership position.

While the book’s central focus is obviously directed at teams, I’m struck with implications for leadership in grappling with these concepts at a personal level.  I recently went through the first section of the book substituting every occurrence of “team” with “leader”.   Try it…the implications are not trivial.

Lencioni postulates that for teams, “no quality or characteristic is more important than trust” and further that “…trust is all about vulnerability.”  He goes on to reference vulnerability as being unafraid to admit the truth about oneself, and to do this one must have courage.

Okay, let’s test this out…

What kind of leader would you be if you had the courage:

• to honestly admit that you do not know the answer?
• to leave your office or conference room to go see, ask and learn from the front line staff?
• to admit that you made a mistake?
• to apologize?
• to teach others how to solve problems?
• to encourage your team in running an experiment even when you are confident that it’ll fail?
• to suspend your judgment and inquire deeply and honestly to understand?
• to test out new thinking and behaviors that are not consistent with and potentially not accepted by the current culture?

What kind of leader are we talking about here?  Is courage a requirement of leadership?   If your answer is “yes”, what are the implications?

 

 

The Keystone of Lean?

key·stone/ˈkēˌstōn/.  Noun.  1) A central stone at the summit of an arch, locking the whole together.  2) The central principle or part of a policy, system, etc., on which all else depends.

What is the keystone for a true lean organization?  Or at least an organization striving to transform itself on a foundation of continuous improvement and respect for individuals?

I think the keystone could be Genchi Genbutsu; aka gemba: the place where actual individuals and teams are doing the actual work.  If true, then we must not only strive but also actually ensure that we spend the majority of our time, as leaders, in gemba.  We must understand that practical experience is far more valuable than theoretical knowledge.  We must accept that we must see the problems in order to actually understand the problems.

Why gemba as the keystone?  It seems that regardless of your business, your customer’s experience and interaction with your company is in the gemba or closely connected to it.  Therefore all problems, all heroics, all profits, all losses have gemba at the root.  Seems to me that gemba is the central part of the system on which all else depends.

Let’s go see and ask…

Q: Why are we not getting the results we want?  A: I don’t know, we’d have to go and ask…

Q: What is it that our patients/customers/stakeholders really want?  A: Don’t know for sure, maybe we should ask them directly…

Q: Why does this problem keep coming up?  A: Not sure if anyone knows, we probably need to go see and ask some questions…

I could go on.  We have more problems than we know what do to with in the healthcare sector; and many of the nasty ones keep reoccurring.  Each of you reading this reflection is well aware of these repetitive challenges.

I would also propose that you have lead and/or have been on the receiving end of many a solution under the auspices of improving cost, quality, service, access, outcomes, safety, etc., etc.  And these have not been on a whim; these are typically robust initiatives sponsored by smart, passionate and dedicated health leaders.

So what’s the problem?

I think one the major contributions to the repetitive challenges is that we persist in jumping quickly to brilliant solutions without fully grasping and understanding the root causes that are resiliently sustaining these big gaps between where you are currently standing and where you aspire to be in the future.

I know of only one way in which to truly begin to understand these root causes: leave the email and meetings behind, put on my walking shoes, go see and ask questions of those closest to the work to better understand what’s not working in the processes that they live in each and every day.

Once I begin to understand, I can then start seeking their input and thinking on how best to improve.

From there, ask them to run some rapid PDSA experiments…then ask them to standardize the gains made…then ask them what’s next…

New Years Resolution: To Learn Again

From my innate perspective of continuous improvement, I struggled with the idea of discarding my current state as of Dec 31^st, and creating a formal set of fresh new and wildly aggressive year resolutions effective Jan 1^st!

My year-end reflections highlighted that I had a pretty darn good 2012.  And as expected there are many gaps/opportunities to address in 2013.   One of the biggest gaps was that I continue to let go of leadership practices that have proven successful for me in the past.

It’s that ever so gradual drift away from discipline of daily standard work or the skipped reflections on the day that are necessary to PDSA my way back on track.  These are the small yet critical and cumulative pieces of continuous improvement and standardization that are necessary to achieving the overall goals that have been set.

So I’m staring out this year, not with a new set of objectives and targets, but rather with the spirit of learning again in 2013 in the exploration of continuous improvement for my clients and myself.

[Thanks to Masaaki Imai, Gemba Kaizen for the inspiration.]

Lean Leadership at the North Pole

The following is compliments from an associate:

Defensive Santa: “It’s not MY fault so many elves have defected; it’s all because of the fancy outfits and airtime those irritating Keeblers got for their elves.”

Engaging Santa: “We have lost 2 elves to the Keeblers.  Why do you think they left?  How can I better support all of you?”
—–
Silo’ed Santa: “I don’t care one bit that the Easter Bunny needs stuffed bunnies too!  We need them for Christmas so just use them up and let him deal with it!”

Santa as Systems Thinker: “Let’s go and talk to the Easter Bunny and his team to see how we can partner since we both use stuffed bunnies.”
—-
Santa as Knower:  “How come you elves can’t keep up with the toy schedule?  Don’t you just push a button?  Can’t you just push it faster?!”

Santa as Learner:  “Elves, show me your process of making toys.”
—-
Command & Control Santa:  “Make those kids behave!  I don’t care how you do it, just do it . . . NOW!”

Santa as Coach:  “Elves, why do you think we have so many orders for lumps of coal?  What ideas do you have to reduce the demand for coal?”

Thank you to Jeani Tsukamoto-Jow!