"HOW ARE YOU HANDLING THINGS?" | Handling the Storm | 1.04
LISTEN TO LEARN | Handling the storm | LBFF 1.04
What does it mean to Handle the storm? We all can relate to storms and dealing with storms in our personal and professional lives. Why is this something that I find important in a continuous improvement process? listen to find out why!
WATCH TO TRY | Handling the Storm with Duffy Randolph | LBTT 1.04
How important is Handling the Storm in our personal and professional lives? Does it really impact people the way Leanbrella claims that it does? Watch our latest interview with Duffy Randolph, an experienced Aerospace professional with over 30 years of experience in Leadership, Engineering, and Continuous Improvement. He discusses how to lead continuous improvement (Lean) efforts during the most difficult of storms.
READ TO APPLY | Handling the Storm | LBCC 1.04
My years as a facilitator for change taught me both good and bad practices. I watched good leaders struggle in getting the buy-In from their teams while the bad leaders succeeded by instilling fear. I saw the Lean journey be abandoned by good people because the change was too great for them to accept. It is true that people leave bad managers or leadership, but sometimes the abandonment was because the change came too fast, too early, was too great, or too hard. In my experience, Humans always choose the path of least resistance where possible.
From these experiences, I realized that the Lean Journey can be over-Complicated. If you have been involved in Industry for any length of time, you’ve more than likely been introduced to the concept of “Continuous Improvement” or the “Toyota Production System”. You may have been certified as a “Green Belt” or some other color of the rainbow. I always felt that this idea was too harsh, complicated, or bureaucratized for most individuals to relate to. Making it more of a status or elitist concept rather than a human concept. That doesn’t mean that none of us have gone through a Karate program, many of us have. But I would venture to say that the majority of individuals have not. From this realization, I decided to focus on what most people relate to…STORMS or BAD WEATHER. As a practice, I strive to include all perspectives into a Continuous Improvement or Lean Journey. This is something anyone can do. it is not limited to one specific group or industry. Many of these principles or concepts can be utilized in our personal lives also.
Leanbrella’s three phased approach to continuous improvement has been simplified to:
Once we understand “what problems we are trying to solve?”, we can start to prepare for the storm’s arrival. Thus making it more possible to Handle the storm once it has made landfall. Handling the Storm is the final phase of a continuous improvement or lean journey. Notice that i did not refer to it as the third stage? That was deliberate. This phase of our journey is never-ending and continuous in nature. we may discover that we need to return to the first two phases because we learned something new and uncovered a storm we did not anticipate…
More than likely, this phase will be led by experienced lean Leadership or trained and experienced Leanierologists who can predict the tossing of the waves and the forces of the winds. Helping us recognize where we need to change course so we can handle the storm more successfully. Even a Storm Chaser can recognize these ebbs and flows, they may not know fully how to direct the team, but they certainly play a significant role in resolving problems and issues.
Regardless of whether or not you have been involved in a formal Continuous Improvement Journey, the practices of handling the storm can be performed by any individual or family. When being led by an experienced Storm Chaser or Leanierologist, the better chance we have at overcoming or diminishing the storm’s impact. Thus having an increased chance at survival. If a storm has been properly identified and prepared for, the experienced leader or leanierologist can be deliberate in the direction we need to be headed to overcome or withstand the oncoming winds. Listen or watch this month’s Five Minute Forecast or Tempest Talk to learn more…Next month we will review how to facilitate the storm.