Creating ‘Champions of Change’ Will Transform Your Organization
Organizational change to secure greater business results is never easy. Even when you are willing to create a culture that encourages it, you may worry that it cannot be sustained in the long run.
The biggest concern executives have as they invest resources in developing people and streamlining processes is, “Am I confident that these changes are going to last?” To ensure that you as a leader have confidence in your operational results, you must devote considerable time and money towards building the organization’s collective knowledge base so improvements can be sustained.
It is best to build an organization that persistently challenges the status quo and create a culture that continuously breeds ‘Champions of Change.’
Role of Front-Line Personnel in Achieving Sustainable Operational Improvements
Front-line personnel have the biggest impact on achieving higher productivity. These are the individuals who directly make the product or provide the service for the customer. Therefore, they have the biggest impact on identifying wastes, eliminating costs and exceeding customer requirements. They are your most valuable resource; it is imperative to tap into your associates on the front-lines of your business.
At many organizations, management struggles with trying to figure out how to eliminate waste, but they are talking about it at a high level. Instead, you need to go to the people who have the information, but are sometimes not empowered to act. Often front-line personnel do not have the confidence to talk to management, or they think their ideas are not valued. You must create the environment to unleash their creativity in order to create ‘Champions of Change.’
Creating ‘Champions of Change’
You have to empower employees and give them the authority and ability to go out and make change – and the latitude to make mistakes.
People worry about their jobs, thinking, ‘What if I mess up? Am I going to get fired?’ You must remove that fear. People need to have the ability to go out and do something to try to make improvements, and if it does not work, to then try something else. Even if they come up with only a 50 percent solution, that’s still a lot better than a zero percent solution, you can continue to build even off the smallest of improvements.
You also need to give people who are higher up in your organization the tools to constantly reinforce, praise, mentor and give positive feedback to employees.
Leaders Should Encourage Sustainable Change
Offer benchmarking opportunities by taking employees to visit world-class organizations to look at other production floors or service centers. Learn directly by interacting with people responsible for running, highly efficient and effective operations. This will give everyone a better idea of your performance expectations.
Mentorship programs can also provide an opportunity to learn and create change. Because change must be driven from within the organization, providing mentors to develop ‘Champions of Change’ is critical as they go into new situations and face unanticipated roadblocks. This gives them an extra layer of support while they are implementing their first lean project so that they can succeed. You want your budding Champions to face roadblocks so they can learn from them, but you also want to make sure that when they are hit with one of these roadblocks, they know how to go around them.
Finally, offer continuing education to those who show initiative, promise and the desire to learn, and give these Champions additional tools and leadership development opportunities. They can then take those tools back to work, where they can implement them and influence others.
Education Develops People
Continuous reinforcement through training gives front-line personnel a knowledge base, increased confidence and an understanding of proven lean principles and tools. It also keeps them thinking of what is possible and keeps them motivated to achieve additional improvements.
In addition, Champions act as hands-on teachers in the workplace, conveying those tools and leadership skills on to their peers. They are taking the tools they have learned and are demonstrating desired behaviors. A lean mindset takes hold among the collective employees when they have someone they work with on a daily basis to model their actions.
Incorporating Lean Principles into Employees’ Daily Production Habits
First, you must implement a system of measuring and rewarding success. You can measure success by reviewing the continuous improvements employees are making and looking at how they are sharing their training and lean mentality with their co-workers. Employees who consistently perform well must be rewarded in various ways, from public praise to an increase in responsibilities to monetary rewards. Invest your corporate resources in your ‘performers’ to raise the performance bar for the remainder of your employees.
Management support and buy-in is critical in order to cultivate these ‘Champions of Change.’ Management can unintentionally quell operational improvements by not listening to their front-line personnel, or if they feel that they need to ‘get involved’ due to their lack of confidence in the system and people responsible for managing it.
You can give people the opportunity to improve, and they can have all the desire in the world, but if you do not have the support of your management at the executive level, change will not sustain. Management has to monitor results, but front-line personnel have to own sustainable change for greater performance.