Vision

“Among the map makers of each generation are the risk takers, those who see the opportunities, seize the moment and expand man’s vision of the future.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

There are several types of organizational visions (TPM, VOP, etc.) provided by many of the great leaders of our time and before our time. These visions have helped organizations come together and work towards one goal by providing the direction they are headed in. Organizations want to have a compelling vision because it gets employees to buy in to what the organization is about and what is expected from them. Lean is no different, as Lean practitioners want to have a compelling vision for all the people to follow and be on board and part of.

When we start implementing the Lean journey into our organization, we as leaders must have a vision. This vision gets people to buy into the program and understand that they are not just doing things for not. Often, people are afraid to buy in to things because they have been through so many processes that have been don; they are not looking for the next flavor of the month. Most of the time this is because the leadership isn’t in it to benefit the people, but rather to benefit themselves. And through the self-centeredness of the so-called leaders they are not serving the best interest of the people, but only serving their own interests.

How do we get employees to see that leaders are there to serve them?  One way is to have a vision up front, so employees understand what direction the company is going in. This will be the start, but it won’t be where you finish at. The vision is just the beginning of the journey that sets the goal for a Lean journey into place. Once we have the vision, direction, set up we can then come up with the tactics that we will use to reach the vision that we have.

There have been many tactics that have been used to reach the goal of what the vision is for the organization. Some have been successful, and some not so much. There are many reasons tactics do and do not work; there is not right or wrong way to reach your goals. The two biggest things you can do is as a leader or team is get started and learn from your mistakes as you go.

So why do I mention get started first? Many times, we are guilty of having a great idea that we end up talking ourselves out of never get a start on it. This is really the hardest part, especially if we keep thinking other things are more important than the ideas we have. Many a Lean journey has been stymied because we think there are more important than staying the course and getting the system in to place. We must realize every time we stop this demoralizes our people who were so willing to follow us in the first place. Starting and stopping prevents reaching our goals and achieving the vision we have of our company. We must stay the course and not stop every time there is something that comes up.

Next, we must learn from our mistakes. Too many times we stop when we make a mistake and do not continue our journey because we think we are doing the wrong thing and not able to continue. A mistake is the best thing to happen because it teaches us many things. First, it teaches what we shouldn’t do in order to move forward. This stops us from wasting time on things that we already know won’t work for what we are trying to accomplish. Remember mistakes are created for learning.

Additionally, mistakes help us to inspire other people. One big thing when we are leading a new group of people, or training a new group, is that we can teach them through the mistakes we have made in the past. It helps provides input on things that shouldn’t be done in a certain situation and what should be done instead. Furthermore, these same people will make mistakes of their own to be able to train future people. When we teach people on our vision, we want to make sure they are comfortable and if we show them the mistakes we made in the past it will be easier to put them at ease. This also gets your employees to buy into what the organization is trying to accomplish.

Another thing that mistakes help is to learn about ourselves and what we can and cannot do. Many athletes learn from their mistakes and apply the solutions to help them advance in their field. When I was younger and still playing sports, I learned that I was more valuable in the outfield than as an infielder. I learned this through trials and tribulations of making mistakes while playing in the infield, such as overthrowing the first baseman, that I realized that was better suited for the outfield. I also realized this would suit my team better to accomplish our mission and pushed us towards becoming a dominate team in our conference for a decade.

The last thing that mistakes helps leaders with is to see if we need to adjust our vision. Notice I say adjust and not change. If we are to constantly change our vision it makes employees disenchanted and wanting to give up and move on. This leads to learning what our organization can do and how we perform in certain situations. Our bandwidth and what we need in order to move the company in the direction to reach our goals, vision. Adjustments are part of life and how we make the proper changes that allow us to be better at what we are doing.

Leaders should always seek to have a vision for themselves and their people because it provides a true north. Whether it is for our family, organization, or our own life we need to have a vision. When we don’t, we find chaos and no real direction. No one wants nothing to live for.

Helping grow your business through process improvement!!