Securing the Elusive Lean Buy-In March 29, 2012
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in change management, lean.Tags: change management, lean
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Jamie Flinchbaugh, writing over at IndustryWeek, presents a four-step process for a successful lean buy-in. Among those steps are treating those you are seeking to buy into not as enemies, but as customers; and overcoming the valid “no” by responding to questions and concerns about the buy-in.
Check out Jamie’s IndustryWeek article here.
ThedaCare’s “Business Performance System” – and a 10% Target February 27, 2012
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in change management, healthcare, lean.Tags: change management, healthcare, lean
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Mark Graban speaks about the book On the Mend: Revolutionizing Healthcare to Save Lives and Transform the Industry by John Toussaint in a blog post at Lean Blog. Mark highlights the lean efforts of ThedaCare in a blog post by Toussaint as well, including the failure of achieving their goal of increasing productivity by 10% annually. This caused a period of intense self-reflection, and importantly, ThedaCare did not blame its employees but rather their system of management.
To read Mark’s post, head on over here.
The Failure of “Don’t Bring Me Problems, Bring Me Solutions!” February 27, 2012
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in change management, leadership, workforce.Tags: change management, leadership, workforce
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Jamie Flinchbaugh writes about the management line that solutions, not problems, should be brought to the management’s attention, saying this is wrong. Oftentimes, bringing attention to problems is conflated with whining. Rather, talking openly about problems and identifying problems is the only way to begin to solve them. And that takes courage.
Check out Jamie’s excellent post here.
How to Design a Lean Implementation so Failure is Guaranteed June 2, 2011
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in change management, lean.Tags: change management, lean
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Lonnie Wilson, founder of Quality Consultants, provides three characteristics that will help those implementing lean determine their rate of success. In her IndustryWeek article, she talks about these characteristics –such as whether or not a company’s culture change has been integrated into everyday activities. The associated error with this characteristic is giving people tools, and the theory of the tools, but leaving them without the proper capacity to actually apply them.
Read Ms. Wilson’s article here.
13 Ways of Looking at a Story June 2, 2011
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in change management, culture.Tags: change management, culture
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Mark McGuinness, writing at Lateral Action, provides a list of thirteen ways of looking at a story. A story is a shortcut to the emotional brain, for example, by using passionate language and relating personal experiences to have a profound impact on an audience. A story is like the Trojan Horse –it gets an audience to lower their defense to get a point across. And stories can also be rallying cries for greater causes and action.
This post is especially important for leaders and change agents!
For these and other ways of looking at a story, check out Mr. McGuinnesses’s post here.
Six Questions for Company Transformation April 20, 2011
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in change management, culture, workforce.Tags: change management, culture, workforce
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The difference between businesses that have and have not been able to handle the recession of 2008 has been their ability – or inability – to evolve. David Shaner, writing at IndustryWeek, says if you have one last shot at change, do it. If you are going to change, you must first answer six questions. For example, you must be able to answer the question of just whose culture it is that is changing. You must be able to make your people believe that their culture is theirs to own.
Check out Mr. Shaner’s article here.
Making Change Happen, and Making it Stick February 4, 2011
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in change management, leadership, workforce.Tags: change management, leadership, workforce
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In an extensive article at Strategy+Business, a trio of authors explain that global transitions and technological innovations have reshaped entire industries and how they operate. Making changes depends on the people in the companies themselves –from management on down. And the authors present five factors for successful change. Among them are making the emotional and rational case for change, and ensuring that leadership is an example for the rest of the organization.
Check out the Strategy+Business article here. (registration required)
John Shook to Replace Jim Womack as CEO of Lean Enterprise Institute September 14, 2010
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in change management, leadership, lean.Tags: change management, leadership, lean
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Jim Womack, co-author of Lean Thinking and long-time founder and CEO of the non-profit Lean Enterprise Institute, recently announced his pending retirement. Mark Graban over at Lean Blog has posted some thoughts on the Womack’s retirement from LEI. Mr. Graban notes how Mr. Womack has had a very important role in sharing and promoting lean around the world. Mr. Womack’s replacement will be John Shook, LEI’s senior advisor and former Toyota manager.
Check out Mr. Graban’s thought on the switch here.
The End of Management September 14, 2010
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in change management, Lean Thinking.Tags: change management, Lean Thinking
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Alan Murray’s Wall Street Journal article examines the idea that 20th Century management methods will not survive in the 21st. Yes, Mr. Murray elaborates, modern management fueled the prosperity and luxury available to massive numbers of people. Management has become bureaucratized. They are attuned to self-perpetuation, says Mr. Murray, which makes them change-resistant. The new corporations, it is explained, must be like the modern market: fast, agile, and receptive and adaptable to market changes.
Read the well-written and very thought provoking article for Lean Thinkers here.
Innovation and Change: What Are You Afraid Of? July 16, 2010
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in change management, culture.Tags: change management, culture
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Mark Swiecichowski over at Innovation Weblog relates how the biggest fear people have is having to change. Self-interestedness in doing things a certain way and responsibilities for specific tasks can lead those needing to change to resent having to change things. Yet Mr. Swiecichowski lays out a brief list of things to keep in mind when overseeing change. Among them, expect resistance, and demonstrate to people why the change needed is better.
Check out Mr. Swiecichowski’s article here.
Want Your Organization to Change? Put Feelings First June 18, 2010
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in change management, workforce.Tags: change management, workforce
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Dan Heath observes that knowledge rarely leads to change (knowing that smoking is dangerous won’t necessarily make you quit). GM had long known that it was too dependent upon SUVs and large vehicles, but it didn’t change up its lineup. Rather, an appeal to emotions must be made. “Smoking kills” doesn’t strike quite the same chord as yellow teeth or the knowledge that “smoking causes impotence.” To get employees to change, put them in touch with underserved customers, Mr. Heath suggests. Or get them fired up about a competitor.
Check out Mr. Heath’s article here.
Why Change Is So Hard: Self-Control Is Exhaustible June 18, 2010
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in change management, personal productivity, work-life balance, workforce.Tags: change management, personal productivity, work-life balance, workforce
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Failure to change is written off as laziness. But Dan Heath at Fast Company says it isn’t laziness, but rather exhaustion. A study claims to prove it. Subjects left in a room with cookies and radishes were told to eat one or the other, and not both; and then were asked to solve a problem that had no solution. After an average of 8 minutes, the radish-eaters gave up; after an average of 19 minutes, the cookie-eaters gave up. Self-control is demonstrably exhaustible, which helps explain why one might snap at a spouse or have another drink after a long day at work.
Check out the FastCompany article here.
The Fine Print About Lean Transformations June 18, 2010
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in change management, Lean Thinking.Tags: change management, Lean Thinking
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Jon Miller, in creative fashion over at Gemba Panta Rei, highlights the difficulty of the lean transformation process. People want positive results fast, yet when the going gets difficult, they abandon the process. In other words, as Mr. Miller explains, they haven’t read the fine print –they were simply attracted to the large, bold print.
Check out the article, and the fine print, here.
The New Plan for Project Plans: Less Planning June 18, 2010
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in change management, strategy.Tags: change management, strategy
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Sometimes companies will focus too much on planning, and will miss out on some excellent opportunities because the conditions for those opportunities aren’t programmed into the plans. Seth Kahan in his new book “Getting Change Right: How Leaders Transform Organizations from the Inside Out” contends that the planning phase often becomes the focus, rather than actual action. Involvement and engagement are the main event, he says, and planning is merely supportive. We congratulate Mr. Kahan on his book!
Check out Seth Kahan’s post at FastCompany here.
Stop Trying to Reinvent the Wheel June 18, 2010
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in change management, Creativity & Innovation, culture.Tags: change management, creativity
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Getting problems solved becomes unnecessarily difficult when “Not Invented Here” syndrome takes effect, according to Scott Berkun over at Bloomsburg Businessweek. This occurs when people choose not to use a particular problem-solving method because they didn’t invent it, or they simply don’t know it’s already been done. Brukun notes that if unnecessary reinvention is rewarded, then reuse will not be.
For Mr. Berkun’s article, and solutions to “Not Invented Here” syndrome, go here.
Metrics: Overmeasuring Our Way to Management February 17, 2010
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in change management, leadership.Tags: change management, leadership
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Lately, it seems as if companies are more concerned about measuring performance indicators than just what it is that is being measured. This means depersonalization, less trust, and the false sense that costs and risks are being managed. Overmeasurement creates the illusion to customers that performance indicators are all that matter –and not the business relationship. Customer loyalty, popularized in the 1980s, has reduced itself to “price-based promotions to encourage repeat business.” “Human capital” has led to focus on “capital” rather than the adjective “human”. Reducing business to “behavioral indicators and money has a way of reducing intrinsic motivations such as obligation or ethics.” Such actions are problematic.
For corrective ideas and the Business Week article, go here.
Five Change Management Errors that Make You Wish You’d Read this Article Sooner February 3, 2010
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in change management, leadership.Tags: change management, leadership
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Jon Miller, over at Gemba Panta Rei, has written an interesting piece on five common errors made in change management. This is especially important when Mr. Miller reveals that Harvard professor and writer John Kotter has found that one-third of all change management efforts fail. Mr. Miller also quotes a 2005 study that reveals a scant 5% of companies are happy with their changes. So what are the common errors? They involve “stakeholder maps”, methods versus principles focus, overlooking passive resistance, leaving people “in the trough”, and humility.
This is a great article for all change leaders. Read the details in Mr. Miller’s excellent article here.
Behavior Modification: Making it Fun November 18, 2009
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in change management, Creativity & Innovation, Lean Thinking.Tags: change management, creativity, Lean Thinking
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One of the biggest problems with process improvement is sustainment. One way to help make change stick is to make the new method rewarding and…well…FUN!
In these two videos, watch what happens when a set of stairs was converted to a giant piano keyboard. If your goal was to increase people’s level of exercise and discourage the use of the escalator right next to the stairs, you’ve succeeded. In the second clip, a sound effect machine was placed in a trashcan giving the effect of the sound of a freefalling object into the world’s deepest garbage receptacle. In one day, 72kg of garbage was collected in the outfitted trashcan, while normal trashcans nearby collected 41kg less.
As one comment points out, your interpretation of this concept need not be as quirky, but the idea is key: How can you make the new method of doing business more rewarding and fun than the old one?
Videos of both innovations were collected by Kevin Meyer here.
Why So Many Minds Think Alike January 26, 2009
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in change management, Creativity & Innovation.Tags: change management, creativity
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Decades of research show people tend to go along with the majority view, even if that view is objectively incorrect. Now, scientists are supporting those theories with brain images.
Read the details here
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Building Cultural Acceptance Key to Lean Transformation January 6, 2009
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in change management, Lean Thinking.Tags: change management, Lean Thinking
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Tom Cluley, a veteran of Wiremold’s lean transformation, observes that most organizations are addicted to quick fixes and immediate results. If they don’t get the immediate gratification they seek, they may abandon the team, partner or program in search of the next best thing. This need for immediate results has caused the demise, or limited success, of many improvement programs.
Why does Lean work in some organizations and not in others? In short, says Cluley, the difference between success and failure is in cultural acceptance and the ability of an organization to accept change, not just Lean change, but change in general.
He offers observations and tips on changing an organization’s culture in a posting on the iSix Sigma website, here.
Change Management: Who’s in Charge? December 14, 2008
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in change management, leadership.Tags: change management, leadership
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Often in the past, senior managers have given the people side of business change short shrift. They have dismissed change management – the process of engaging people at all levels in the design and implementation of an organization’s transition to a desired future – as soft and quirky and have inevitably blamed the activity itself for implementation failures.But today an increasing number of top teams in the C-suite understand the importance of change management and give it board-level attention. They recognize that no transformation gains traction without the buy-in and commitment of employees at all levels, particularly line managers. According to a recent Booz & Company survey of more than 350 senior executives who have led major transformation initiatives at large organizations around the world, four out of five transformation programs (82 percent) now have dedicated “people” work streams designed to engender changes to employees’ skills, behaviors, and attitudes. And 59 percent of supervising executives agree with this statement: “A successful transformation is due more to the people initiatives than to other elements of the program.”
Read the full Strategy + Business article here.
56 Reasons Why Most Corporate Innovation Initiatives Fail December 14, 2008
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in change management, Creativity & Innovation.Tags: change management, Creativity & Innovation
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Blogger Mitch Ditkoff ticks off 56 reasons that, quite honestly, apply not only to innovation initiatives, but to change initiatives in general. Seriously, how many of these have you seen in the past? More importantly, how many are guilty of RIGHT NOW?
See the list here. Print them out. Now go stand in front of the mirror. How many did you check off? Leave a comment and ‘fess up.
Author John Kotter on Why Urgency Matters During Change November 30, 2008
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in change management.Tags: change management
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Kotter’s new book, A Sense of Urgency (Harvard Business School Press, 2008), attempts to deconstruct change by focusing on what he believes to be the first step: driving an organizational culture built on the belief that change is not only desirable but must be pursued relentlessly. This alone can eliminate the risks of complacency, he argues. In his book, Kotter explores what it takes to maintain an urgent atmosphere in a corporation. First, allowing outside influences in; second, encouraging change consistently, on a daily basis, not just when it appears necessary; third, looking for the opportunities that arise in a crisis, no matter how dire; and fourth, adeptly managing the “no-nos” — employees who insist that change efforts just won’t work.
Read the discussion with Kotter in business+strategy magazine here.
