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Sparking Confidence Across Your Organization

Monday, July 18th, 2011

Blog Article by Ray Attiyah, Chief Innovation Officer

My last post discussed how a lack of confidence can creep into an organization.  It poses as an overabundance of oversight, checks and balances or controls. While review is vital, it can become counterproductive if it steals from your front-line workers their ability to independently solve problems, try improvements and own their success.

Confidence may be the most important improvement you can bring to your organization. It is the foundation of every sustainable continuous improvement initiative, and it is essential to leadership development.  The following five solutions are proven ways to spark confidence.

  1. Communicate external objectives – Workers become much more confident and engaged when they understand the connection between their task and adding value for the customer.
  2. Try-storm – Try-storming is a word we use for quickly giving an improvement idea a test drive. When a worker has an idea and a supervisor not only listens, but is willing to try it, even as a temporary experiment, the worker feels valued and becomes more confident.
  3. Reward top performers – It is common to find yourself spending too much time fighting fires with new or under-performing workers. When we ignore our top performers, they disengage and lose confidence in their ability to make a difference. Make time for your best people and keep them challenged.
  4. Find quick win projects – Quick wins are the surest way to prove to non-believers that improvement can happen. When your workers see change, they are more likely to want to be part of it.
  5. Update management systems – Make changes that reflect the progress made by front-line individuals and teams. Re-balance work and responsibilities and set new goals.

When workers are motivated to contribute to improvements, supervisors gain confidence in their front line.  With confidence in the daily run, comes time to focus on big picture improvements and growth.  It’s a winning strategy with long-tail benefits that are felt all the way to the top of the organization.

Executives often tell me this kind of confidence reduced stress, gave them time to focus on transformational changes that grew the business and allowed them to leave work at work, improving family life.  It’s a win for everyone.

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5 Signs a Lack of Confidence is Holding Back Your Organization

Thursday, July 7th, 2011

Blog Article by Ray Attiyah, Chief Innovation Officer, Definity Partners

A common complaint we hear from business owners is that their operation seems to be bogged down, not able to get to the next level.  When we examine the root cause of the problem it often comes down to a lack of confidence.

Good business requires layers of review, but all too often we see companies that use checks and balances to cover up a lack of confidence in their workers.  Rather than develop the goals, standards and training that enable front-line workers to excel at solving problems and make smart improvements, there are approval processes, meetings, reviews and layers of documentation.  This high level of oversight keeps an organization from being nimble and it deflates employee engagement. Even small ideas that could improve the process or product become regarded as, “not worth the trouble.”

Here are some signs that a lack of confidence has crept into your organization and is holding back progress.

  1. Too many Meetings with too many people that drag on too long – Meetings are a fact of life, but unless meetings provide collaboration with a result that moves the issue forward with someone in charge, they become a crutch to keep any one person from taking responsibility.
  2. You find yourself un-delegating - As a leader you only have so much time in a day.  You have a duty to your organization to delegate work and decisions.  Delegating allows your management team to take on more responsibility and grow their skills but it also frees you to focus on the things that add the most value to your organization.  My rule of thumb is that if someone can do the job 80% as well as you would, you need to delegate that job.
  3. You add a new position to provide more oversight - Much like un-delegating, creating another level of oversight for routine processes is a sign that you don’t have confidence in your people and processes.  It’s a far better use of your resources to develop the standards, training and trust that encourages and rewards your front line and middle managers for making good decisions about daily business.
  4. You generate reports that never seem to be discussed - Reports are important when they are used to benchmark progress, identify problems and find opportunities.  If you create reports as a security blanket to prove what you already know, the only thing they prove is that you lack confidence.
  5. You back off your goals or lower your standards – You have to have confidence in your organization to maintain or raise your standards.  When workers sense you don’t have confidence in them they hold back and become disengaged.  They lose interest in trying to do a better job or make a better product. It’s a downhill spiral that will lead to more errors, missed work time, high turnover and will in turn consume your time or the time of your managers.

In our next post, we will look at some of the strategies that allow you to find a new level of confidence in your organization.

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Posted in Continuous Improvement Efforts, Cultural Evolution, Definity Solutions: Thought Leadership Articles, Developing People, Improvement Tools, Management Insights, Sustainable Improvement Tip, Transforming Your Business, Uncategorized | Make a Comment »

Is the Gap Between China and the U.S. Shrinking

Wednesday, May 25th, 2011

Blog article by Ray Attiyah, Chief Innovation Officer

Manufacturing in China or using Chinese suppliers is not the bargain it once was.  Chinese wages are rising at a rate of about 17% per year and a new study by Boston Consulting Group predicts wage rates in China and the United States will converge in 2015. There’s more to the story than labor costs.

There are changes happening here in the U.S. that are contributing to the decisions more and more companies are making to manufacture a higher volume of products and components on U.S. soil.  Productivity in America is going up.  Companies that embrace a culture of employee led, continuous improvement are finding that they are driving out waste, improving quality and competing globally.  They are also putting more emphasis on innovation.

Our friends at PDI communications in Springboro, Ohio saw this first hand.  The changes they made in 2010 in their TV assembly area created capacity for a new production line that was cost competitive with manufacturing anywhere.

Not far away in Enon, Ohio, Seepex is preparing for seven million dollar plant expansion.   The expansion will allow Seepex, a worldwide manufacturer of industrial progressive cavity pumps and systems, to increase capacity and add capability as a research and development center of excellence.

Of course, China will always be a force in manufacturing and we recognize savvy business leaders need to evaluate their options very closely and come to their own conclusions about how to best meet their manufacturing and supply chain needs.

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Posted in Cultural Evolution, Definity Solutions: Thought Leadership Articles, Management Insights, Performance Measurements, Transforming Your Business | Make a Comment »

How to Scale Up Without Repeating the Mistakes of the Past

Monday, May 9th, 2011

By Ed Robinson, Regional Managing Partner, Atlanta

It’s been a hard few years; you don’t need me to tell you that.  For those of us in manufacturing, we have seen our customers become more demanding and we’ve all had to work harder to manage growing complexity.  Despite these challenges our industry has managed to improve.  We saw productivity increase over the past two years, and profitability increased in many cases as well.

Now, the news is telling us that we are recovering.  Orders are increasing and many of us are poised to expand.  The pendulum appears to be swinging back in our direction and the concern of many business leaders has changed from survival to scalability.  We’ve gone from cutting costs to making the right investments; from work force reduction to growth without adding unnecessary labor, and from riding it out to needed improvements.  The landscape has changed for our industry again and we need to adjust to stay ahead.

From my conversations with other manufacturing leaders, I have compiled fundamental action items needed to keep the fat off as your top line recovers.

#1 – Stay Ahead of the Changes – Develop the Baseline & Monitor Your Metrics:

Identify the key metrics in your business; especially the ones that you have improved during the downturn. Watch these metrics like a hawk. Have a plan to react if you see them trending back in the wrong direction. You should have timely metrics in place for labor costs, material costs, quality performance, and delivery performance. Finally, don’t make excuses for poor metrics. Yes, your business is changing, but you don’t have to change your standards.

#2 – Focus on the Improvements Before You Need Them:

Your tendency will be to avoid adding cost and overhead, which is understandable. But as your top line comes back, you will need to invest in your business. The key will be to make the right improvements and add the right people at the right times. If you wait too long to make these investments, your decisions will be reactive, driven by crisis which never turns out well. Create a plan with trigger points for your overhead additions and stick to it. Be honest when assessing your performance; you should focus on having solid processes in place before making these additions or you will lose productivity and, in turn, profitability. Consequently, you also need to create a plan for what improvements will be needed to hit certain business levels.

#3 – Grow Your Greatest Asset – Your People:

The past few years have been tough for your employees, as well. You’ve asked them to do more than ever and likely have not been able to reward them for it. I have read that as much as 50 percent of the workforce will be looking to change jobs, so how can you prevent that in your business? While compensation may be the obvious answer, it is a short-term solution. Your people are likely craving success. So how can you provide that to them? Get them involved and provide them the platform, tools, resources, and opportunities to be a part of improving the business.

There is no sure-fire method to scalability, but shoring up your people and processes needs to be at the foundation of any solution you pursue.

 

Read more: http://www.bizactions.com/n.cfm/page/e105/key/162739739G926J3820018P0P10170549T0/#ixzz1LsDCEeSY

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Posted in Definity Solutions: Thought Leadership Articles, Developing People, Improvement Tools, Sustainable Improvement Tip, Transforming Your Business | Make a Comment »

What Would Give You Confidence to Add Complexity?

Friday, April 8th, 2011

Blog Article Written By: Ray Attiyah, Chief Innovation Officer

Several years ago, Nike embarked on a journey to build a massive ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system. I recommend ERP systems to any growing business, but what made Nike’s effort so significant was its intention to combine ERP with supply chain optimization and CRM (Customer Relationship Management) functions. For those that are unfamiliar with the size and scope of this kind of project, trust me, it is a massive undertaking.

Anyway, Nike’s $400 million investment ended up costing the sporting goods brand $100 million in lost sales and a 20% drop in their stock price, not to mention a bevy of class action lawsuits. The company’s VP of Global Operations (at the time) openly admitted, “For the people that follow this sort of thing, we became a poster child (for failed implementations).”  

What happened that caused such a disruption? The answer is unreliable systems and processes – our fifth obstacle that prevents organizational growth (in our series of seven).

ERP systems are only as good as the systems and processes that support its functionality. The same goes for an organization’s employees. While a failed ERP implementation is a symptom of system and process problems, so too are inflated lead times, poor on-time delivery, employee turnover and chronic miscommunication.

Systems and processes are an organization’s DNA; but unlike our own genetic makeup, we have the ability to strategize and select how we want our operations to function. I believe that every employee wants to succeed, but they need appropriate systems and processes that will allow them to do so.

Think about it like a mind-body connection. When systems and processes are streamlined, the organization doesn’t have to compromise between the health of the mind (strategy and objectives) and the body (day to day operations). When systems and processes are inefficient, there is a misalignment between the mind and body causing sluggishness and turmoil. Only when an organization’s mind and body are aligned through efficient systems and processes can top-leaders seize opportunities in the market with confidence that their front-line will handle the complexity that comes with growth. Without the most efficient systems and processes in place, growth is only in size, not sustainability.

So, keeping in mind the importance of having the most efficient systems and processes, let me leave you with a couple of questions to ponder:

  • Is your organization prepared to truly grow?
  • How would you personally handle a new customer and/or new market if it/they were added tomorrow?
  • What would it take to give you confidence to add complexity?  
  • What functions do you wish could be more efficient? What solutions can you provide?

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Posted in Continuous Improvement Efforts, Improvement Tools, Management Insights, Sustainable Improvement Tip, Transforming People, Transforming Your Business | Make a Comment »

Playing it Safe is Dangerous

Wednesday, March 30th, 2011

Blog Article Written By: Ray Attiyah, Chief Innovation Officer

Obstacle #4: Safe Change Mode

Last month I started blogging about the seven mistakes leaders make that prevent them from implementing transformational changes.  After a few worthy interruptions, it’s time to continue that theme.

Is it better to try to do one thing at a time or several things at once?  When it comes to transforming your organization, I have seen companies try to play it safe by making changes in sequence, but I have never seen it work.  Here’s what typically happens and why it doesn’t work.

A company will start the transformation with a process improvement effort and hire a consultant or use internal resources to score some quick wins.  Once that is complete they turn to leadership training, only to find their process improvement wins dwindling as they shift focus to personnel.

People learn through experiences and what this approach fails to capture is the opportunity for managers and supervisors to learn how to lead through the experience of putting process improvements into place.  When you integrate the leadership development and the improvement effort, change happens much more quickly and becomes sustainable.

I often compare it to a golf swing.  A quality swing demands attention to club set up, stance, grip, wrists, hips, shoulders, head, swing plane, and follow through.  You can’t do one at a time and expect to hit a long straight ball.  You have to put them all together.

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Posted in Continuous Improvement Efforts, Cultural Evolution, Definity Solutions: Thought Leadership Articles, Developing People, Improvement Tools, Management Insights, Transforming Your Business | 1 Comment »

What Does It Look Like?

Monday, March 21st, 2011

Blog Article Written By:  Ray Attiyah, Chief Innovation Officer

When I talk to business leaders about Run, Improve, Grow® they often see the benefit for themselves of forming the discipline of getting out of the daily run and spending more time on work that produces growth.  What they sometimes can’t see is what it would mean to their organization if their middle managers and supervisors spent less time fighting fires. “I don’t know what that looks like,” they tell me.

There seems to be an acceptance that good managers are good fire fighters. True to some degree, but wouldn’t it make more sense if what they did best was work with the operators to keep the fires from starting in the first place?   What does that look like?  Now I can show you.

At PDi Communication Systems in Springboro, Ohio, we recently had a chance to document, in video form, what employee led improvement looks like.  I hope you will take a moment to see for yourself. Clicking on the thumbnail will open a new window where you will click to play.  Enjoy, and please share with others.

PDi, Tuning in Success

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Posted in Client Recognition, Continuous Improvement Efforts, Cultural Evolution, Developing People, Sustainable Improvement Tip, Transforming People, Transforming Your Business, Uncategorized | Make a Comment »

7 Obstacles that Prevent Companies from Growing

Friday, February 25th, 2011

Blog Article Written By: Ray Attiyah, Chief Innovation Officer

Obstacle #3: Management Questions and Metrics

How are the operations running? Did you send that mailer out on time? Did you talk to the customer?

When you ask questions, you are setting a standard. In the case of the three above examples, you are setting a low standard. As our good friends at Generally Speaking say, “90% of questions are really statements.” The tone of the question is often more important than the question itself. If all you want is for the operations to be run, then, “How are the operations running?” is a good question. But if you want to create a higher standard of excellence, you need to position that with the questions that you ask.

Now, let’s try again:

What three areas are performing better than they did yesterday? After the mailer went out, what did you learn from the people you followed up with? What did your conversation with the customer reveal about our service improvement initiatives?

By positioning your questions with intended outcomes, you have raised the bar. Then the person on the other end of the question begins to think in terms of outcomes, not tasks.

The same concept applies to metrics. Metrics are just another organizational tool that people use to make sense of data. So use them to your advantage. There is no hard and fast rule for what a metric should look like. We have grown so accustomed to the typical productivity, profitability and inventory metrics that we rarely think of coming up with new ones.

Metrics can be created to improve organizational gaps. For instance, if lead times are lagging because material handoffs are sloppy, you could create a daily material turnover metric that will help the employees see the area of improvement upon which they need to focus. Another example: if customer service is poor, you could create a customer touch rate metric that highlights the quickness through which a customer’s problem is being handled.

I encourage you to what happens when you ask yourself the following: What three business metrics can I create that will raise the standard of excellence in my organization?”

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Posted in Continuous Improvement Efforts, Cultural Evolution, Definity Solutions: Thought Leadership Articles, Developing People, Improvement Tools, Management Insights, Performance Measurements, Sustainable Improvement Tip, Transforming People, Transforming Your Business | Make a Comment »

Q&A with Mark Hartings, Plant Manager of PDi Communications

Thursday, February 10th, 2011

Blog Article Written by Todd Eppert, Executive Project Manager

In the latter half of 2010, we teamed with PDi Communications on a focused effort to transform the way the company worked. Before the engagement with Definity Partners, the plant manager, Mark Hartings, was bogged down in the day to day running of the operations. His time was especially consumed with scheduling tasks. After gaining trust in his front-line supervisors and operators, Hartings’ time spent on transformational improvements doubled. The confidence he developed in his front line also reduced the stress in his life at work and at home. This Q&A blog article is his reflection of the experience:

Todd: Could you explain to me what your job was like before the transformation in 2010?

Mark: Well, I was responsible for what products went out and when.  I got to the point where not only was I scheduling, but also dealing with the issues that came up in the departments such as, “We’re running short on this or I don’t think we’re going to be able to make this because of this part shortage here.” Then I would have to dig down into that and understand why the part couldn’t be supplied, then uncovering another layer and so on. As this happened in all of these departments, I was chasing a lot of stuff every day.

Todd: How did you get to the point you are at now?

Mark: With Definity’s help. They helped me realize how to prioritize my time, while being able to trust my front-line to hand off responsibilities. They call that the Run-Improve-Grow™ system.  When you put everything that you are doing down on a piece of paper, it’s like “Wow, that’s a waste of time. Or shoot, I should be doing that.”  As a result of that analysis, we created a scheduler position and the responsibility is totally on the supervisors to meet that schedule. I’ll get involved at a very top level and then let them run with the details.

Todd: So what are you doing now that you weren’t able to do in the past?

Mark: My capacity to make improvements has doubled from where it was. I spend a lot of my time improving our lean progression as we’re starting our new projects. One of those projects was building stock in the warehouse. I had the time to analyze the project which included moving the press room over in the machine shop and setting those machines up themselves and having more of a one piece flow. Then, taking the old press room and turning it into a warehouse so we can take a lot of the stock that we buy offshore like larger screen television sets and not have them at an offsite warehouse paying for the overhead, not to mention the transportation costs. So now we have all of that here. It’s a whole different way of doing business than we did six months ago.

Todd: That’s a great improvement in a very short period of time. How about for you personally? How did the transformation impact you?

Mark: I haven’t taken all of my vacation since I’ve been on salary which has been probably before I came in this building (which they moved to in 1989). It was always that I would schedule all of my time, or at least most of it, and I would end up cancelling days because this is going on or that is going on. There’s a situation here that needs attention. Now, since all of that has been pushed down to the supervisor level and them taking care of those problems, I can go away and I know that things are being run and I know things are getting done the way they are supposed to be done. This is the first year that I’ve taken every hour of vacation I had coming. I took the last one on December 22. I enjoyed every damn one of them because I wasn’t thinking to myself, “Crap, what’s going on at work? Geese, what about this? What about that?” Not focusing on all of the other things that are going on because I know they are under control. That has been huge for me.

Todd: Have the supervisors and front-line employees had similarly positive experiences?

Mark: I’ve got one fellow in Arm Assembly that was a supervisor that was actually working a (operator’s) position pretty much all the time. He would have to take care of problems and situations and he was having a hard time looking at the bigger picture to meet the scheduling demands. Him being on that line was a real issue because he couldn’t get the people that he needed trained and up to speed. He was more focused on making the day to day numbers as opposed to trying to improve the business long-term. That was a headache (for me) because I had to keep telling him he needed to remove himself from all of those issues and details because he had a second in command that can do anything that he can do (on the line). I told him he needed to push more responsibility down on her. We gave him the date of December 31 which would be the last time he would ever be able to work on the line again. Now he’s strictly a supervisor. He’s feeling what I’m feeling now which is all of those headaches and worrying about all of those details are gone so he can sit back and look at what he needs to do to run his portion of the business: get the people in, work with the temp agencies, spend time training people, look at the processes, and just the overall appearance of the facility, trying to get things working more efficiently.

Todd: How long did it take for your supervisors and front-line operators to buy into the improvements you wanted to make?

Mark: Definity came in and turned their whole world upside down. They were pushed out of their comfort zones – everybody was, including me. I guess the buy in started to happen when they saw it was possible to do this. When they saw it was possible to have a multi-mix line and to make the changes with them involved in making the changes. And as the changes were made, the numbers just started going up and up. Finally, when we started hitting those numbers once, we would celebrate, but when we would hit those numbers more and more, we would give them the feedback and praise of how good of a job they were doing. On the days that they didn’t hit the numbers, we would focus on why and make improvements the following day. It was a process of momentum. As they saw things getting better, it became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Todd: Do you have any stories of their personal benefit from the transformation?

Mark: At the end of the year, they didn’t think they were going to have a bonus because of some repair problems and other things that were going on. But a lot of the bonus came from the fact that it was the product that we made in house with the margins that we make that provided that bonus. With Definity’s help, we were able to get more efficient to get better margins on those products so at the end of the year, they got the bonus check that we told them they weren’t going to get. They got a pretty damn good bonus check and everyone was just tickled to death. They got it on Christmas Eve and they had the time to spend it on what they wanted over Christmas. And that really drove it home. It’s like everybody came back after the break and thought, you know what, that made sense. We can see where all these improvements are going. This is for the bottom line, to make the company healthier, to provide profits, to provide bonuses, to provide raises, better raises, more opportunities, better environment to work, and make it easier for them. Produce more at the same time as making their job easier. We’re not trying to make them work harder, we just want them to work more efficiently and make it easier to produce more. It makes their life a lot more headache free – mine sure as heck is!

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Posted in Client Recognition, Continuous Improvement Efforts, Cultural Evolution, Developing People, Management Insights, Transforming Your Business | Make a Comment »

7 Obstacles that Prevent Companies from Growing

Friday, January 21st, 2011

Blog Article Written By: Ray Attiyah, Chief Innovation Officer

Obstacle #1: Spending Too Much Time with Draggers, Too Little Time with High Performers

One of the top seven mistakes leaders make is spending a disproportionate amount of time with the lowest performers.  At Definity Partners, we call these employees “draggers.” They represent about only 10% of the workforce.  The next employee tier is called “followers.” These individuals represent 80% of the workforce. Finally, the top-tier is called “performers” and they represent the final 10% of employees.

Performers are often complainers. They are frustrated that their efforts have gone un-noticed or under-appreciated. They are confused as to why they are being ignored. They’re mad at the level of performance of their peers and they can’t understand why low performance is being accepted.  While you may not always like their attitude, it can be a clue that the leaders in the company aren’t effectively doing their job. Frustrated performers usually traverse one of two paths. They either take their talents elsewhere or they give only what they need to give as opposed to what they are able to give.

Leaders distinguish themselves from managers by inspiring performers to a higher level. By spending more time developing top performers rather than correcting draggers, leaders can raise the organizational standard.  It’s a chain reaction. Performers improve, and as the name insinuates, the followers will move up the ladder to close the gap.  It then becomes apparent to the draggers that if they don’t improve, they will be forced to leave.

So why do so many managers get stuck with the draggers? It is because managers are trained problem solvers. This is one of the hardest behaviors to change on the way to becoming a leader, but they have to understand what they give up in their campaign to improve the draggers.  They sacrifice the opportunity to develop inspired talent that will raise the level of the entire group.

Here’s an exercise. Write down the names of all of your top performers. If you had to start a new organization and could only take 10% of your employees with you, who would they be? Have a conversation with these individuals and ask them what their frustrations are. Analyze what their answers say about the organization, about you. Then, go out and remove as many of those obstacles and frustrations as you can.

If they see you remove those frustrations and make improvements quickly, they will have confidence to bring new ideas that improve the organization. When you have a confident, talented group of individuals striving to reach higher levels, you have a stronger, more innovative company.  Instead of being down in the weeds with the draggers, your time will be freed to focus on improvements and growth opportunities that are more invigorating personally and more important to your company.

So, one more question to answer. Are you a manager or are you a leader? What do your daily interactions tell you?

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