Boss vs. Leader !!

Why Are There So Many Crazy People In Charge? by Lynne Viccaro O'Leary

 

Everyone has a horror story about a manager from hell they were forced to deal with. You cannot be in the working world for any amount of time without running into at least one. This phenomenon has been the basis of some great books, tv shows and movies. But it is not so entertaining when one of these yahoos is in charge of your day to day livelihood. The bigger question is how did they get there? Were they always that way or did the "system" turn them into a power-hungry megalomaniac? Here are some insights and observations as to why this may be:

 

1. It's not always the cream that rises to the top. The more aggressive personalities always make themselves known and have more than their fair share of ruthlessness about them. They are willing to do things to get ahead that would cost most of us a few nights' sleep. Others are blatant cases of nepotism or knowing someone to get that coveted position. Many times once they get there, they feel overwhelmed, but refuse to admit that they need help. As a friend once told me, "never underestimate someone's insecurity." This is where the micromanagement and bullying comes in -- because if THEY don't fully understand what needs to be done, there is no way that their staff could possibly know. They are also the type of managers who take credit for others' ideas and keep their best people under cover for fear they will outshine them.

2. You're looking lovely today Mrs. Cleaver. For years, the traditional hierarchical model has rewarded those who manage up well -- those who kiss up and charm their bosses right into the corner office. There was a great interview in the Corner Office section of the New York Times on April 6 with Kim Bowers, CEO of CST Brands. When asked about leadership lessons she learned, Bowers explained that she puts people in two categories: those who manage up really well and those who manage down really well. To paraphrase, if she finds someone who has a team who will walk across hot coals for them, that's the truly effective leader because they inspire loyalty and respect. She cast a wary eye on those manage up very well because their priority is only impressing those above them, i.e. those who can do something for them career-wise. They usually treat their peers and staff very differently, and rarely cultivate the kind of loyalty base to propel their team forward.

 

3. We don't need no stinkin' training. Just because someone is great at their particular job does not mean they will be great at managing a team. Traditionally, an employee's potential for a promotion is based on their performance in their current job. Many companies don't invest in management training programs like they used to - the grace period is frighteningly short and one is expected to learn on the job. So by the time it's discovered that the manager lacks the interpersonal and team-building skills required to be effective,they have already been in a position to do some real-time damage.

 

4. It's like the Roach Motel. Companies are slow to dismiss managers. Once someone is in a position, it takes months or even years to fully appreciate their abilities -- or lack thereof. I've found that it takes 3-5 years before the full effects of someone's poor management becomes a company-wide problem. And by then, the damage is done in the form of lost productivity, lost customers and the loss of your best people, who just couldn't take anymore.

Ten Pitfalls of Pitiful Meetings and How to Fix Them by Kimberly Douglas

If your team members (or you) hear “Meeting at 3:00” and think, “Here comes another waste of my time,” then it’s time for a meeting overhaul at your organization. While meetings can be important team-building and idea-generating opportunities for your employees, the key is knowing how to do them the right way.

It’s Friday afternoon, and your team is filing into the conference room, mumbling and grumbling as they take their seats for yet another meeting. An hour passes and the meeting comes to a much anticipated end, leaving everyone involved wondering why the meeting was held in the first place. After all, the usual suspects dominated the discussion, and the same ideas that came up in last week’s meeting were once again batted around. No one seemed to write anything down, and no one agreed to put anything discussed into action. If this kind of ineffective meeting sounds familiar, you’re not alone. It’s a problem that plagues many organizations—but it’s also one, she adds, that can be remedied.

In these tough economic times, every second of the work day is valuable. None of it should be wasted in meetings that seem to go nowhere or that are plagued by conflict or lack of participation. I have sat through countless meetings myself—some great, and some not-so-great. But those that weren’t so great could have been so much better with just a little more effort. If leaders know how to conduct better meetings, those meetings can actually become time well-spent—time that increases employee productivity, participation, and innovation.

The question of productivity is a huge issue when it comes to meetings. According to a Microsoft survey of more than 38,000 employees, almost 70 percent felt that the average 5.6 hours they spend each week in meetings are unproductive. Another survey conducted by OfficeTeam had 28 percent of its 150 senior executives responding that meetings are a waste of time. Furthermore, 45 percent of respondents said they believed their employees could be more productive if meetings were banned at least one day a week.

In too many companies, meetings have become a way for leaders and their employees to simply go through the motions. If a new initiative is being implemented or new product ideas are needed, the feeling from management is often, ‘Well, let’s have a meeting. At least it will seem like we are doing something.’ Unfortunately, not enough thought goes into how to conduct those meetings. Having a meeting, in and of itself, is not a bad idea. In fact, meetings can be the most engaging and thought-provoking times of the day for leaders and team members alike. The key is avoiding those pitfalls that sink a meeting’s productivity.

If it’s time for a meetings overhaul at your organization, read on for 10 common meeting pitfalls and how you can fix them:

What’s the point?

A common problem with many meetings is that they’re scheduled with seemingly no clear objective in mind. I suggest that you run through a premeeting checklist before putting it on everyone’s schedule. First, ask yourself whether the meeting is even necessary. Could the information you want to provide be just as easily presented in an e-mail? What do you want to accomplish with the meeting? Will reaching that accomplishment really require a group decision? If you ask yourself these questions and decide that you do need to have the meeting, next consider who should attend. Design an agenda for the meeting and clearly communicate any prep work that needs to be done by the participants beforehand.

Where’s the agenda?

Remember the last time you actually received an agenda in advance of a meeting? Likely, you immediately had a higher perception of whether that meeting was going to be a waste of time or not. Once you know who will be attending the meeting, you need to finalize the agenda. A quality meeting agenda includes:

• The date, time, and location of the meeting
• The meeting’s objectives
• Three to six agenda items, accompanied by how long they’ll take to discuss and who the discussion leaders will be
• A clear explanation of the prep work that should be completed before the meeting

When putting together the agenda for your meeting, consider using the individual Hermann Brain Dominance Instrument profiles of your team members. Before you begin your meetings overhaul, have an HBDI-certified specialist come in to profile your team. The HBDI is an assessment instrument that measures people’s specific thinking preferences. Your team members will be divided based on the HBDI quadrants: Analyze (the blue quadrant), Organize (the green quadrant), Strategize (the yellow quadrant), and Personalize (the red quadrant). Once you know how your team members think, you can design a meeting agenda that better suits each one of them. It is a great way to design your meetings so that there is something for everyone, and you can even color code your agenda based on the quadrant colors to indicate which parts of the meeting your team members will find the most engaging.

Conference room overcrowding

Would you attend a meeting if you didn’t know why the meeting was being held and why you, in particular, were invited? Often, too many people who don’t have a clear understanding of what role they are supposed to play are invited to meetings. Those in attendance need to know if you want them to be an expert, an influencer, or a decider.

When you’re creating your meeting participant list, think about the meeting’s purpose. Make sure everyone who is attending the meeting knows exactly why they were invited. If critical members can’t attend, consider postponing the meeting until they can. Having a meeting without all of the right brains present can cause just as many delays and productivity problems as postponing the meeting a couple of days. Finally, use the following litmus test. 

Once you do get all of the right team members assembled, you might also consider having them use a meeting cost calculator, which allows them to privately enter in their salaries and the meeting length to calculate how much it is costing the company for them to be in a given meeting. It is a powerful tool that can promote individual productivity, because it reminds everyone involved of the financial significance of the time spent in the meeting.

Big talkers eat up all the time

Every meeting has them: those people who love to let everyone know they are the most important people in the room, have the best ideas, and have a comment to make on every subject. Your conversational ground rules should help keep your big talkers (or big-headed) in line, but there are other ways to ensure that one person doesn’t dominate. First, don’t let big talkers sit at the front of the room or the back center of a U-shape. This definitely gives them a feeling of being on stage. In fact, you may even want to use assigned seating for the meeting. (If you decide to use assigned seating, change the assignments for each meeting, and if you are the leader, change where you sit each meeting.) Doing so will also prevent big talkers from sitting next to a buddy. Big talkers tend to feed off of one another, and separating them will help reduce their excessive input.

Conflict kills productivity

An important thing to keep in mind is that effective meetings aren’t necessarily free of conflict. In fact, conflict can be a good thing, and it should be valued by those attending any given meeting. The key is not letting it get out of hand. View conflict as “creative abrasion,” a phrase coined by the president of Nissan Design International, Jerry Hirshberg. Here’s a metaphorical explanation of how it works: Picture two tectonic plates on the earth’s surface—your way and my way, perhaps—grating against each other. Many people know that when this kind of friction occurs between plates, earthquakes often ensue. But what happens when these two plates—or viewpoints—come together? If the environment is right, they create a mountain—a third viewpoint that is a product of the first two approaches and that is grander, loftier, and more powerful than either one was on its own. In other words, conflict is turned into synergy.

For creative abrasion to work, leaders have to view conflict as a good thing. When a conflict arises, maybe someone disagrees with an idea that’s been thrown out or how a certain issue was handled. Defuse the disagreement with collaboration. Openly discuss solutions and compromises that everyone can get behind. Remember, conflict is a group issue. Don’t single anyone out when a conflict arises. Handle it as a group. Create and reinforce a common set of group conflict norms. Similar to the ground rules you use to make your meeting more effective, conflict norms can be used to beget productive discussions that will lead to decisions to which everyone can—and will—commit. Have each member of your team write down three to five norms that would lead the group as a whole to a more productive conflict and allow for better decision making. Examples include: "Establish a common goal that the group fully understands;" "Provide an opportunity for every voice to be heard;" "Speak so others can hear your message;" "Clarify pros, cons, and risks of options or potential solutions," etc.

Who is making the decisions?

So your meeting is nearly over, you’ve discussed everything on the agenda, and you’re ready to send everyone on their way. Unfortunately, no one is quite clear about what they’re supposed to be doing or who is going to make that decision. As the leader, you don’t have to be the one making all of the decisions, but you do have to make sure the decision-making process is clear to everyone. Decide what the best decision-making process is at the beginning of the meeting based on the criticality of the decision, time constraints, and the need for buy-in. Will a group compromise be necessary? Should everyone vote and defer to the majority’s decision? Will it be better to build a consensus and go from there? Or should you, the leader, make the call? The best method is going to depend on what exactly the meeting’s goal is.

The Vroom-Yetton Decision Making Model can be used to help you decide which approach to take. It is a powerful tool for determining and making explicit how groups will make decisions. As the leader, use this framework to help you think through which level of input you want from the team before you even engage them in discussion on the issue. The levels of the Vroom-Yetton are as follows: Autocratic, consultative, and group-based (more information about these levels can be found in my book The Firefly Effect: Build Teams That Capture Creativity and Catapult Results (Wiley, 2009). With those levels in mind, a leader must also consider such factors as the need for complete buy-in from the team, timing, complexity of the problem, breadth of impact of the decision, etc. Basically, the more critical the decision and the more buy-in you need for the execution of the decision to be effective, the more consensus you need to build.

No decisions, commitments, or steps captured

Too often, meetings end and everyone simply goes back to business as usual without putting anything that was discussed into action or even knowing what they personally should do. To capture what went on during the meeting, keep the format simple; the task is much more likely to be done and the information distributed. There is no simpler way to record what went on than by writing on a flip chart the who, what, and by when of the directives discussed in the meeting.

Do a round robin with everyone recapping what they are accountable for delivering. Good questions for the leader to ask to get people thinking about the impact of the meeting include, "Who wasn’t in today’s meeting who needs to know what we decided today?" and, "How are we going to communicate this to them?" Once decisions have been made and everyone knows how they will be communicated, set the date, time, and location for next meeting, making it clear that all will be responsible for reporting on the results of this meeting’s action items at the next meeting. Always distribute a brief meeting summary within 24 hours of the meeting. The meeting summary will reinforce to everyone that results are expected.

I believe wholeheartedly that a team meeting can be the most productive and exciting time in that team’s life. Unfortunately, too many organizations meet for the wrong reasons or have simply fallen into a going-through-the-motions meeting style. By implementing a few simple tools, you can breathe life back into your meetings. Give these strategies time to take hold, and you’ll find that your meetings can become times of trust building, problem solving, and collaboration that will energize your employees and give way to innovation that will greatly benefit the organization as a whole.

How to Give a Meaningful "Thank You" by Mark Goulston

Forget the empty platitudes; your star employee is not a "godsend." They are a person deserving of your not infrequent acknowledgment and worthy of appreciation and respect. When was the last time you thanked them — really thanked them?

In my line of work, I frequently communicate with CEOs and their executive assistants, and nowhere is the need for gratitude more clear.

After one CEO's assistant had been particularly helpful, I replied to her email with a grateful, "I hope your company and your boss know and let you know how valuable and special you are."

She emailed back, "You don't know how much your email meant to me." It made me wonder — when was the last time her boss had thanked her?

This happens frequently. For instance, a few years ago, I was trying to get in touch with one of the world's most well-known CEOs about an article. His assistant had done a great and friendly job of gatekeeping. So when I wrote to her boss, I included this: "When I get to be rich, I'm going to hire someone like your assistant — to protect me from people like me. She was helpful, friendly, feisty vs. boring and yet guarded access to you like a loyal pit bull. If she doesn't know how valuable she is to you, you are making a big managerial mistake and YOU should know better."

A week later I called his assistant, and said, "I don't know if you remember me, but I'm just following up on a letter and article I sent to your boss to see if he received it."

His assistant replied warmly, "Of course I remember you Dr. Mark. About your letter and article. I sent him the article, but not your cover letter."

I thought, "Uh, oh! I messed up." Haltingly, I asked why.

She responded with the delight of someone who had just served an ace in a tennis match: "I didn't send it to him, I read it to him over the phone."

Needless to say, that assistant and I have remained friends ever since.

Yes, CEOs are under pressure from all sides and executives have all sorts of people pushing and pulling at them. But too often, they begin to view and treat their teams, and especially their assistants, as appliances. And a good assistant knows that the last thing their boss wants to hear from them is a personal complaint about anything. Those assistants are often paid well, and most of their bosses — especially the executives to which numbers, results, ROI and money means everything — believe that great payment and benefits should be enough.

What these executives fail to realize is that many of those assistants are sacrificing their personal lives, intimate relationships, even their children (because the executive is often their biggest child).

There will always be people who think that money and benefits and even just having a job should be thanks enough. There are also those that think they do a great job without anyone having to thank them. But study after study has shown that no one is immune from the motivating effects of acknowledgement and thanks. In fact, research by Adam Grant and Francesca Gino has shown that saying thank you not only results in reciprocal generosity — where the thanked person is more likely to help the thanker — but stimulates prosocial behavior in general. In other words, saying "thanks" increases the likelihood your employee will not only help you, but help someone else.

Here's a case in point: at one national law firm, the Los Angeles office instilled the routine of Partners earnestly and specifically saying, "Thank you," to staff and associates and even each other. Everyone in the firm began to work longer hours for less money — and burnout all but disappeared.

Whether it's your executive assistant, the workhorse on your team, or — they exist! — a boss who always goes the extra mile for you, the hardest working people in your life almost certainly don't hear "thank you" enough. Or when they do, it's a too-brief "Tks!" via email.

So take action now. Give that person what I call a Power Thank You. This has three parts:

1. Thank them for something they specifically did that was above the call of duty. For instance, "Joe, thanks for working over that three-day weekend to make our presentation deck perfect. Because of it, we won the client."
2. Acknowledge to them the effort (or personal sacrifice) that they made in doing the above. "I realize how important your family is to you, and that working on this cost you the time you'd planned to spend with your daughters. And yet you did it without griping or complaining. Your dedication motivated everyone else on the team to make the presentation excellent."
3. Tell them what it personally meant to you. "You know that, rightly or wrongly, we are very much judged on our results and you were largely responsible for helping me achieve one that will cause my next performance review to be 'over the moon,' just like yours is going to be. You're the best!"

If the person you're thanking looks shocked or even a little misty-eyed, don't be surprised. It just means that your gratitude has been a tad overdue.

Management Commitment: It’s not all about delegating by Bretta Kelly

ISO 9001 says in subclause 5.1, "Executive management shall provide evidence of its commitment to the development and implementation of the quality management system and continually improving its effectiveness by:

a) Communicating to the organization the importance of meeting customer as well as statutory and regulatory requirements 

b) Establishing the quality policy 

c) Ensuring that quality objectives are established 

d) Conducting management reviews 

e) Ensuring the availability of resources"

The standard also says in subclause 5.5.2, “Executive management shall appoint a member of management who, irrespective of other responsibilities, shall have responsibility and authority that includes:

a) Ensuring that processes needed for the QMS are established, implemented, and maintained, b) Reporting to executive management on the performance of the QMS and any need for improvement, and c) Ensuring the promotion of awareness of customer requirements throughout the organization."

The above section of the standard is where executive management often gets confused and is under the perception that the extent of their participation is to pick a person to be a management representative for their ISO system. Every paragraph in section ISO 9001 clause 5 of the standard begins with, “Executive management” and not with “the management representative.” Management commitment refers to all of the executive management (management team) and not to an individual or department.

There are many reasons why executive management needs to be continually committed and involved in implementation and maintenance of the business management system besides it being a requirement of clause 5 of ISO 9001. The main reason is that if commitment isn’t evident to the employees then the system will never truly be implemented throughout the organization. Employees at all levels of an organization won’t be committed to a system that’s not driven, supported, and believed-in by upper management.

Don’t confuse promotion, advertising, or mandating of a QMS with the “management commitment” of a QMS. Telling the company that you’re going to be registered to a standard and expecting them to do what they perceive is required is very different than executive management driving, participating, and flowing the QMS down to their employees through their actions and not just their words.

A company implements a business management system (ISO 9001, AS9100, ISO 14001, RC 14001, and others) to define how they do business, collect data from their activities, and analyze that data to improve their processes and ultimately become more profitable. The basic programs that all of these standards require is:

• Define a quality policy.
• Set measureable objectives at all levels of the organization with customer focus and requirements in mind.
• Conduct audits of your process.
• Conduct management reviews of your processes, programs, and data.
• Based on analysis of all of these topics, assign corrective and preventive action to continually improvement your processes/company.

Communication of these programs is the key to illustrating management commitment to a business management system. To accomplish this, commitment must be illustrated through action(s). When an employee submits a suggestion for improvement to management, management reviews the suggestion and chooses to take action or not. Either way, communicating to the employee the decision that was made and providing them with a clear explanation is how to illustrate commitment.

By providing continuous feedback to employees, management will ensure that suggestions will continue, even if a few aren’t accepted. Without clear communication from management, employees will eventually become discouraged and employee’s suggestions for improvement will decrease dramatically. Executive management must define all of the company’s measureable objectives. These objectives should be a unified goal that defines what is best for the company. Objectives cannot be unrealistic or standard (everyday) goals that the employees perceive they should track for quality improvement (such as SPC). Every company has customer requirements.

The management must define what processes and how best to conduct these processes to meet the customer requirements with the required quality at the lowest possible cost. It’s in this arena that the management must set measurable objectives for each process. When laid out clearly and accurately, management will illustrate their commitment to the employees. The objectives must be directed toward improvement of quality, performance, and cost reduction.

Cost reduction is included because it really is a catchall to every process. For example, accidents that happen during a process affect the overall cost and employee turnaround requires additional training and therefore affects costs. Hence, process cost reduction may encompass a wide variety of elements within a process. When audited by a third-party auditor (registrar), management commitment is measured in several ways. Executive management must be available, ready, prepared, and excited to participate in the opening and closing meetings.

This illustrates management’s commitment to the registrar and illustrates their total support for the management team. When the auditor audits clause 5 of the standard, they’re required to interview the executive management (many registrars require that the auditor document the names of executive management interviewed). If the auditor only speaks to the management representative (MR) and the MR shows them all of the records of audits and management review, it is difficult for the auditor to find evidence of management commitment.

This isn’t to say that executive management cannot delegate responsibilities and authorities of their management system. Executive management must define the objectives of the company, review the data/outputs of processes, and make decisions based on these reviews of what actions to take and what the extent of those actions should be. Actually collecting the data, summarizing the data, or reporting of the data can be delegated freely.

Executive managers are concerned with

• Profit margins and reducing expenses
• Increasing the company value
• Not becoming obsolete in their industry
• Opportunities for growth
• Not having to deal with personnel issues
• Not having to defend their company in legal battles (liability and personnel issues)
• Becoming the best in their industry
• Less stress and more golf

What tools are available to properly address executive management’s concerns?

• Management review meetings
• Departmental meetings
• Internal audits
• Strategic planning using quality objectives
• Training, seminars, and having the opportunity to share ideas with external experts in a similar career
• Having access to company information in a timely manner

Currently, executive management in companies often perceive that their QMS is costs money, causes personnel issues, and requires additional resources (commitment) that they feel is unnecessary to simply get the work done. These managers may say things like:

• "Why do we have to have these meetings?"
• "Why do we have to do audits?"
• "Why do we need to train so much?"
• "We fully understand our challenges, we have been in business forever…"

Very rarely do you hear …

“Our QMS system has saved us thousands of dollars a year—we love it!” We don’t hear this very often because we don’t communicate the results of our ISO standards programs effectively, or we don’t use our ISO standard in a way to clearly measure cost savings, risk management, and improvements.

The responsibility is with the management team

As managers in a company, we have the responsibility to recognize and understand the executive management’s concerns, focus, strategic plan, and objectives and to take actions to ensure that they’re realized. We may not always agree with the executive management’s focus, but as managers, we must ensure that we are all on the same page.

Communication is the key

When communicating audit results to executive management, we must consider their interests in the operation:

• Provide a summary of the audit.
• Highlight opportunities for improvement (avoid zero opportunities).
• If audit actions aren’t taken or effective, executive management needs to know.
• Include cost savings or cost overruns as a result of the QMS.
• Include potential cost savings and associate them with opportunities for improvement.

Communicating to executive management correctly

• Identify processes to audit based on data; e.g. scrap, rework, or cycle time.
• Baseline the current performance of each process.
• Set objectives for each process.
• Identify opportunities for improvement for each process, including cost savings.

Management review—the heartbeat of the organization Executive management doesn’t want to waste time in a meeting to have a record in order to satisfy an ISO requirement. In a management review, executive management wants to see a picture of the company and have the information and data available complete and accurate so they can make effective decisions and improvements. Specifically, executive managers need to:


Review and establish new company objectives.
Determine what actions we’re taking or need to take to achieve company objectives.
Determine when they’ll be achieved and at what cost.
Understand where nonconformities are originating.

How much are they costing?
How many are there?
Why and when will they go away?
What is the customer’s perception?

Positive and negative customer feedback
How much is negative customer feedback costing us?

What are the trends?
Will we lose customers?
What indicators do we have that show if our corrective and preventive action programs are effective?

Are nonconformities and negative customer feedback trending down in the areas where we have implemented action?
If not, why not? What are we doing about it?

Internal audit program—the engine driving improvement How to put your executive management to sleep when reporting on an internal audit:

• Report that an internal audit was done and a checklist completed. It says that our processes match our procedures and we have a record to show the auditor. In other words, we are telling them that we are perfect when in fact the executive management knows very well that we aren’t.

How to keep your executive management glued to their seats and not thinking about golf


We conducted an internal audit of the “X” process and found four opportunities for improvement:

1. John Doe suggested we do this, and it will save us 20 hours a week.

2. We eliminated a nonvalue-added process step that will save us X-dollars/month. 3. We identified a breakdown in communication between one department and another. 4. We identified a process in this department that has improved their efficiency by X-percentage resulting in X-dollars savings per year. If we implement this process in other areas, we can improve their efficiency as well.

How do we implement this approach? The simple part about this approach is that the internal auditor has no pressure to identify these steps. The internal auditor simply has to know what type of questions to ask. Audit the process and take notes of all of your observations (mini process map):

How do you do this (inputs/outputs)?
While you’re observing, pay attention to what does and doesn’t make sense, and then ask these questions:

Why do you do it that way?
Is there a better way?
What problems have occurred in the past?

Pay attention to the answers. The following answers indicate that further investigation into the process is required and may require input from other managers more qualified to identify opportunities for improvement. Furthermore, these types of answers indicate a lack of effective training:

• We’ve always done it this way.
• I don’t know.
• That’s how I was trained.

Asking the right questions The people you are auditing are a wealth of information. They know what will make their processes better; the auditor’s job is to get this information from them. By asking the right questions, the auditor will get all of the opportunities needed to report to management.

How to change Another way to identify opportunities for improvement in a process is to try and do the process. Simply take the work instructions and do the process according to the instructions with the help of the person you are auditing. By doing this you can gather information by asking, “Why do you do it this way? Wouldn’t it be easier if ...?” This gets the person you’re auditing to look at their process in a whole new light and all of the sudden they’re working with you to come up with ways to improve their process.

Where are the opportunities? Most opportunities for improvement have to do with communication between departments or effective communication of the company objectives.

Ask, “What are the objectives in this process?”

If none why not?
If yes how are they measured?
When they aren’t achieved what happens?
Ask, “What is the communication?”
Who do you communicate with?
What is the biggest breakdown in communication?
How do you communicate? (verbal, forms, electronic, etc.)

If forms or electronically, do you get all the information required to do your process effectively?

The art of questions What data have been collected within this process to provide management with information for continual improvement opportunities?

• Has action been taken based on them?
• Do they align with company objectives?
• Are there any opportunities for preventive action in this process?
• What will be prevented (risk or cause analysis)?
• What are the advantages of preventing this?

As managers, we must accept a large responsibility in driving the future development, improvement, and success of an organization. It isn’t a responsibility that can be taken lightly. To succeed as managers, we must put in the effort and work to ensure that executive management’s objectives are achieved. (It’s our job.) Every manager should strive to make a difference in the organization. Management isn’t only about completing paperwork to pass an audit. Management is about managing—taking proactive steps to avoid problems and improve the organization. Management skills can be learned (continual training is required).

A final note about improvement Many managers seem to feel that there is a limit to improvement. In fact, we’ve heard comments such as:

• "These types of problems are associated with the process and can‘t be removed (acceptance)."
• "We’re better than industry standards and in fact, achieving 97.5 percent is excellent (perception of excellence)."

Acceptance I attended a management seminar presented by my colleague Peter Sanderson, who presented some interesting examples about acceptance and attitudes of management. (A copy of this seminar may be obtained by from peter@cisssoftware.com.) In 1993, Sanderson went into a circuit-board manufacturer to quote an ISO 9001 quality system. The quote was $ 19,500.00, which the owner felt was far too much money. During the tour of the operation, Sanderson noticed a large table in the inspection that was piled high with scrap boards under a sign that said “scrap of the month.” Before leaving without an order, Sanderson questioned the owner about this scrap table and was told that manufacturing circuit boards was a tough and dirty business that inherently produced scrap. Sanderson asked about the value on the scrap table and was told that the typical monthly scrap was about $ 30,000.00. Sanderson told the owner that he’d do the ISO 9001 system for free and see it through to certification with one condition. That condition was that we benchmark the scrap table today, and that after the ISO 9001 system was implemented, the company would issue a monthly check payment for any difference between the $ 30,000.00 typical scrap amount per month and the savings after certification for the rest of his life. Sanderson explained to the owner that if he was willing (accepted the fact as a standard) to have $30,000.00 worth of product scrapped each month and that it was acceptable to him, why would he object to simply putting the money in Sanderson’s pocket rather than on the scrap table? After all, he would get a free ISO system. Sanderson left with a $8,000.00 deposit to do the management system and the owner agreed to the $19,500.00 price tag. In six months, the monthly scrap was less than $4,000.00.

Perception of excellence In this example from the same seminar, Sanderson said, “If I were to give you a brand new 2008 Ford Mustang right now, how happy would you be?” But before he delivered the Mustang, he would take a key and scratch the car all over each side including the roof, trunk, and hood. “Would that make you angry? Even though the car was free, wouldn’t you have the scratches repaired?” The Mustang has approximately 25,000 square inches of surface area. The surface area of the scratches would be about 33 square inches, 0.00132 of the car’s surface. In fact, the car is still 99.9868 percent scratch-free. Well, isn’t 99.9868 percent perceived as perfect? Can’t we live with that? If not, why are we so willing to live with it in our organizations’ processes?

The bottom line is attitude The attitude of solving a problem alone vs. having a team approach to problem solving may be a change.

• The attitude of working together to meet customer’s performance requirements on a daily basis may be a change.
• The attitude of planning together to survive into the future instead of only fighting today’s battles may be a change.
• The attitude of insisting on performing the job right the first time to a standard process may be a change.
• The attitude of measuring performance, effective process auditing, and taking preventive actions to avoid potential errors and initiate improvement may be a change.
  But there is no change to the QMS.

Final notes No nonconformities, variations from the standard, or mistakes are acceptable, no matter how small the ratio of output to errors can be. Continuous improvement only becomes effective when all management buy into this methodology. ISO 9001 emphasizes the importance of management leadership to meet the customer’s needs and quality objectives. Without leadership, the company achieves zero improvement and simply reacts to problems.

Courageous Leaders Don't Make Excuses...They Apologize by Erika Andersen

I’ve been thinking about the power of apology lately.  I’ve been noticing that the people for whom I have the most respect don’t hesitate to say “I was wrong,” or “I’m sorry I…”  On the other hand, the people I have the hardest time respecting seem constitutionally unable to take responsibility for their own mistakes.  Even when they try, it comes out sounding like “I may have been partly at fault, but…” or “It may seem that I was wrong, but…”  They just can’t do it.

Apologizing freely requires a good deal of courage.  It’s not comfortable for any of us admit an error, or to acknowledge that something we’ve done has caused others harm or inconvenience. So when someone truly apologizes, we know he or she is putting honesty and honor above personal comfort or self-protection.  It’s inspiring, and it feels brave.

I just today read a great article here on Forbes about this very topic called Creative Leadership: Humility and Being Wrong.  The authors, Doug Guthrie and Sudhir Venkatesh, make a really clear and well-reasoned case for the positive power of admitting and apologizing for one’s mistakes.  At one point in the article, they note that:

We are frequently taught that leaders, especially aspiring leaders, should hide weaknesses and mistakes. This view is flawed. It is not only good to admit you are wrong when you are; but also it can also be a powerful tool for leaders—actually increasing legitimacy and, when practiced regularly, can help to build a culture that actually increases solidarity, innovation, openness to change and many other positive features of organizational life.

And courage begets courage: your followers are more likely to make their own tough decisions and to take responsibility for them when you model that behavior.  You have their backs – so they’re much more likely to have yours.I couldn’t agree more. Followers look to see whether a leader is courageous before they’ll fully accept that person’s leadership.  If they see courage (and taking full responsibility for actions and admitting and apologizing for mistakes are two of the five key indicators of courage), it feels safe to ‘sign up.’ People need courageous leaders in order to feel there’s someone to make the tough calls and to take responsibility for them – they need to know that the buck truly does stop with the leader. With a courageous leader, people feel protected – not that they’re helpless, but they know the person in charge really has their back.

Because so many of us have a hard time apologizing, I thought it might be helpful to have an ‘apology primer.’  Here you go:

• I’m sorry: this is the core of a genuine apology.  “I’m sorry.” or “I apologize.”  It’s the stake in the ground to communicate that you truly regret your behavior and wish you had acted differently. No apology is complete without this.

• Stay in the first person:  Many, perhaps most, apologies run off the rails at this point, when the apologizer shifts into the second person, e.g., “I’m sorry….you didn’t understand me.” Or “I’m sorry….you feel that way.” Suddenly, you’re no longer apologizing for your actions; you’re telling the other person that you regret their actions or feelings.  A true apology sounds like, “I’m sorry I….” or “I’m sorry we…”

• Don’t equivocate:  Once you said what you regret about your actions or words, don’t water it down with excuses.  That can blow the whole thing.  The former manager of my apartment building once said to me, “I’m sorry we haven’t gotten back to you about your security deposit, but you have to understand we’ve got hundreds of tenants.”  I definitely didn’t feel apologized to – in fact, I felt he was telling me I was being inconsiderate to hold him accountable!  Just let the apology stand on its own. “I’m sorry we haven’t gotten back to you about your security deposit.”

• Say how you’ll fix it.  This seals the deal.  If you genuinely regret your words or actions, you’ll to commit to changing. This needs to be simple, feasible and specific. “I’m sorry we haven’t gotten back to you about your security deposit. We’ll have an answer to you by this Friday.”

• Do it. I know some people who don’t have a hard time apologizing, but seem to have a hard time following through on their apologies. If you apologize and say you’re going to behave differently, and then don’t – it’s actually worse than not having apologized in the first place. When you don’t follow through, people question not only your courage, but also your trustworthiness.

So there you have it.  Next time you’re clearly in the wrong, take deep breath, put aside your self-justification, your excuses, your blame, your defensiveness, and simply apologize. Being courageous in this way is generally scary in anticipation. But it feels great once you’ve done it….to you, and to those you lead.

Source: 

Forbes