Why We Need to Love, Learn, and Let Go to Have a Successful Lean Journey

In my last article, I introduced my guest for episode #273 of my Lean Podcast series, David Veech, author of the new book Leadersights. Wanting to delve deeper into the idea of self-efficacy, I asked David about balancing performance and systems.

David explained the data shows a “satisfied” employee is not necessarily the most productive employee. Anecdotally, many leaders also know employees who are happy with their jobs, but when they are asked to complete tasks, never seem to get around to them. On the other hand, employees who seem to hate being at work can sometimes be the ones management can rely on to complete tasks on time. With that said, David pointed out that building a proper Lean system will lead to the productivity a company needs.

“So why then should we focus on satisfaction? Because the things we do get from a satisfied employee that we don’t necessarily get from a dis-satisfied employee are things like loyalty, things like presence – they turn up to work, and they stick around longer. The biggest thing is they are more willing to share a problem with you, understanding that they’re surfacing a problem so that the problem can be solved, and they’re more willing to share an idea with you,” David said. “We’ve got Lean tools to build those key elements that contribute to satisfaction as well.”

He outlined the three key elements of satisfaction as: significance, variety of work, and identity.

Speaking to the element of significance, David explained, “Standardized work is designed to build that mastery, which is designed to make people feel like the work they are doing is significant, which is one of the key elements of meaningfulness, which drives satisfaction more than anything else.”

For variety of work, David mentioned how Toyota has its employees rotate through several jobs throughout the day. He also pointed to the team structure that has been promoted at Toyota discussing the key element of identity.

On the topic of identity, David said, “That small team structure that Toyota has promoted forever, really gives you a bonding experience with a group of folks."

"So it’s not like you’re coming to work because the company says ‘you’re coming to work’, and it’s not like you’re coming to work just to get a paycheck, you’re coming to work because you don’t want to let your team down.”

I asked David about the term “Leadersights” in his book and the three key elements under that term. He explained that love, learn, and let go are things a leader really needs to be able to act on.

Love

David admitted that talking about love and workplace can raise eyebrows, but it is not about being mushy or about inappropriate romance in the workplace, it is about decision.

“Love is a decision that we make. It is very much an option for us, even in terms of parents and children, and husbands and wives,” David said.

“But it’s really more of the love we have for our kids that motivated [my] thinking on this, because when we think about the things we want to do for our kids, we want to challenge them to do things, to try things that they’ve never done before, and we want to challenge them to continue to get better. And we want to know enough about them to know what is an appropriate challenge and what isn’t. I don’t want a child who is not particularly athletic to get into this really hard-core athletic regime. So I as the parent, knowing what I know about my child, I’m going to set an appropriate challenge for them.”

David explained that for leaders, one of the most important things is to get to know their employees as people so they can know what will excite each person. This knowledge will allow a leader to tailor each challenge to each employee so that challenge becomes an expression of that love and attention in the workplace.

 “In the Army, I had the privilege to work with a great many very good leaders, and when those leaders leave to take a new position, move up higher, or maybe they retired, the thing that they all speak about was how much they loved working with the people; the soldiers that they had. And they honestly spoke about love when they were leaving,” David said.

“A leader that’s really engaged with his or her workforce really feels a huge heartbreak when they leave. So it’s very much that love is there. We just want to call it out and say what it is because I think we’ve got an obligation to love our people.”

In addition to getting to know employees personally, another part of having love in the workplace is also having the courage to stand up and correct employees when they don’t get it right. David explained that this correction is needed to get them back on track so that you continue to have the tools to help them improve.

Finally, this loving leads leaders to make the decision to learn each day. Leaders can learn the most from everyone in the organization because they have more contact with more things than one leader will ever get a chance to, so there’s always something to learn.

Learning

“The learning piece really focuses on developing robust problem solving systems that teach people how to do the analysis, creation, and evaluation,” David said.

“Practical, rigorous problem solving is really a practical, rigorous learning system.”

Letting Go

In regards to letting go, David explained that leaders have a broad range of responsibilities and most organizations are so complex there’s no way they can control everything and doing so can appear as micromanagement.

“So you’re frustrated because you can’t control the things that you need, your folks are frustrated because you won’t let them do anything because you’re trying to control everything, and so the workplace just gets darker and darker. And so if we don’t learn as leaders to build a system that’s going to allow us to let go, then we’re not going to be able to promote a healthy workplace that contributes to the economy and drives our society to a better place.”

David admits that letting go is difficult, but that it’s not about ignoring things, it’s about creating systems that enable rapid assessment, diagnoses and analyzation, and ultimately the solution of any issues that may arise.

Connecting

David ended our conversation by adding a fourth element, connecting.

“I want you to be confident, I want you to be capable, I want you to be outgoing as a leader, and I want you to tell the world about the great things that your folks are doing."

David continued, "I want you to convince the world that this is the best place to come to work, that these are the best people, that this is the best company, this is the best support, these are the best products, this is the best healthcare; everything about it is best. And I want you to have the confidence and the assuredness to go out and tell people that."

"I think that connecting people from the outside world allows you to really put the needs of your inside people way above your own, and to create the right kind of work environment,” David said. 

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?Mark Graban (@MarkGraban) is a consultant, author, and speaker in the “Lean healthcare” methodology. Mark is author of the Shingo Award-winning books Lean Hospitals (the 3rd edition was released in 2016)  and Healthcare Kaizen. He is also theVP of improvement and innovation services for the technology company KaiNexus and is a board member for the Louise M. Batz Patient Safety Foundation. Mark blogs most days at www.LeanBlog.org.