You arrive at work only to find the department was not prepped for the upcoming surge in new business. When you ask your manager what happened, you hear something about the night shift not following through on the plan. As they are talking you can feel yourself getting angry, tuning out the list of excuses that keep coming…
Sound familiar? Lack of follow through, not having anything “stick,” and other examples of complacency and conflict can bring down any management approach. That is why I teach and coach leaders in the agile change management process. I want to share a system with you that will produce consistent results.
This month’s theme is “Simplify,” and the system I want to share will indeed make the feedback loop between your staff more robust, avoiding breakdowns, like the one described above. Before I describe this system, let’s talk about why keeping it simple when managing a team or a department is so important.
We are living with an 8 second attention span. (A goldfish has the attention span of 9 seconds.)
Virtual forms of communication like texting, email and social media have pushed face to face communication to the bottom of the list. Some may find virtual communication “easier,” because it avoids any opportunity for emotional displays. What is unfortunate is that face to face communication is where a leader builds trust and understands more about how their staff perceives an issue.
Communication is definitely one of the challenges my clients talk about. Poor communication is also a major source of errors and quality issues. How would you like a feedback loop that is built into your workflow, integrates quality monitoring and organically engages your staff?
Resilient Leader Change Management System
The change management system I developed creates a culture of continuous quality and includes elements from lean sigma and the kaizen/ scrum process based on incremental change. Let’s look at the 3 essential elements of the Resilient Leader Change System.
- Leadership Disciplines.
- Work Flow Standards.
- Resilient Mindset
Leadership Disciplines
This is the management structure that will guarantee success. Most employees come to work wanting to do their best. With these disciplines in place, you will help them do that!
4 Leadership Disciplines:
- Best practice (standardized workflows)
- Visible communication (transparency in the process)
- Process audits (stop assuming and monitor actual vs planned activity).
- Daily Ownership (Huddles, Reports)
Workflow Standards
Standards are the outcome of continuous improvement; without a change management system, new standards will regress back to the status quo. Efforts to continually improve the same problems are frustrating, costly and truly a waste of precious resources.
This element represents a standardized work flow – even for managers – that reveals those work activities that will deliver the desired outcomes – consistently.
Using the structure of the disciplines above, the leader has a roadmap to deliver consistent results.
Resilient mindset
This is the foundation of this change process and the most significant aspect. You have to have the internal stability to keep focused on your goal (and to be able to set the goal in the first place). Are you prone to overwhelm, drama, distractions? This translates into staff confusion and performance disruption.
We are experts at performance management and I want to help you transform your workflow and your culture to a consistently performing unit! Contact me, Dr. Cynthia Howard and let’s talk about getting it right so you finally get the results you want.
