Tools for Improvement – An E-Newsletter

September 2010

Do You Manage Change, or Does Change Manage You?

Robert Eaton, former Chairman of Chrysler Corporation once said, “Any culture, be definition, exists primarily to prevent change, to set in stone the lessons of the past.”

How willing are we to embrace change?  I had a friend that always claimed he was a “change agent,” yet when it actually came down to making changes he was as resistant as any one else.  But what is change all about?  William Bridges, PhD tells us that it isn’t the changes that do you in, it’s the transitions.

Change is situational, it is an event.  Transition is psychological; it is the process that people go through as they comes to terms with the details of the new situation that change brought about.

Claes Janssen is a psychologist and writer.  He introduced the four rooms of change.  The Four Rooms of Change is a theory that deals with change, with what happens with people and organizations in change and transition and how they can influence their own and others change processes.

In Contentment you are just that — content and without a change need or demand. Your energy is focused on sustaining a good working system. Life is good — you are centered, focused, and in control.  Then! A need for change emerges. It might be internal — for example, a need for you or your group to take your work to a new level, perhaps automating a system to free up time for other pursuits. Or it could be external, like an imposed budget cut or new organization-wide program that demands a response.

When we are forced to confront external change, we go through Denial, a state of resistance where we’d just as soon not deal with the new, but stay with the old.  We believe that if we deny change, we’ll have less stress.  Yet the opposite is true.  The more we resist change, the more stress we experience.

The next stage we enter is Confusion.  This is where we accept the need for change and begin to grapple for ways to proceed beyond the known into the unknown.  The state of Confusion is actually good news because it offers s the glimmering of hope and future possibility.

We need to realize that being confused at this point is not only natural, but to be expected.  Once we see confusion as a normal reaction to change, we can quickly move beyond it.

Finally, we enter the stage of Renewal where we embrace change with enthusiasm.  We do this either be accepting change that is imposed on us or by conceiving of and implementing new ideas that may be a complete change in the way we’ve thought of and done things in the past.

From Renewal, we cycle right back to the first stage of Contentment.  Our new ideas are implemented and before we know it, our fresh concepts have become commonplace and mainstream.

Now that we understand the stages of change, what do we do as leaders to help people deal with it?

During Denial it is important for leaders to clearly explain the consequences of not changing.  Describe how the new situation will be better and more comfortable and how resisting the change will be harder than accepting it.

During Confusion, assist people through training and coaching to adapt to the new situation.  They have accepted the need to change, but lack the skills to change.  Training and coaching is the key at this stage.

During Renewal, invite their participation.  People are coming up with their own ideas on how to make things better and want to make improvements of what you have described in your initial plans.  Encourage this and provide resources to support the entrepreneurial efforts of your team.

Communication is the key during change and transition.  If people don’t know what is going on and you force them to guess, the rumor mill will take over and you will lose the initiative.  Get in front of the rumor mill with proactive communication.

USA Today had an article this week about more and more passengers getting bumped from flights and often not being able to get to their final destination.  It’s true that airplanes have never been more full.  In fact, Delta, Continental, American, United, US Airways, AirTran and Alaska airlines all reported filling at least 87% of their seats for the month of July.  This doesn’t leave a lot of seats available to deal with delays and cancellations.  The article had several anecdotal examples of people who had been bumped and had big problems as a result.

Missing a connecting flight is the primary reason for missing a flight and most of the time that is due to bad weather somewhere along the airline routes.  Because the airlines can’t control the weather, they don’t owe the passenger anything, although USA Today reports that airlines sometimes provide meal and hotel vouchers for stranded passengers, regardless of the cause of the delay.

The traveler is inconvenienced, but they are compensated if they are involuntarily bumped.  Airlines are required to pay involuntarily bumped passengers an amount equal to the price of their ticket or $400 whichever is less.  If the passenger arrives at their destination more than two hours late, the cap raises to $800.

How big is the problem?  In 2009 69,416 passengers were involuntarily denied boarding.  However, when you look at how many people are flying that number amounts to only 1.19 people per 10,000 passengers boarding, or 0.0119%.  In the first half of this year that number has grown to 1.37 per 10,000 passengers boarding or 0.0137%.  Anecdotal data is entertaining, but trust the numbers. How would you like to have a business that inconveniences only 0.0137% of its customers?

Certainly it is a very big deal to you if you are the one that has been bumped, but 0.0137%?  That’s really not too bad.

For months we have been watching the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the devastation it has been causing the Gulf Coast.  Depending on who you talk to, the blame will be fixed on BP, the government, or just considered an accident.  Recently in Michigan we had our own version of this disaster, albeit not as big, but still bad.  An oil pipeline owned by Enbridge, an oil pipeline company, broke releasing 820,000 gallons of oil into the tributaries of the Kalamazoo River.

Both companies responded to contain the spills and recover and repair the environmental damage caused by these spills.  However, what is important here is Social Responsibility.  The social responsibility of companies has been rising higher and brighter on the radar screen for several years.   For many years, the criteria for performance excellence of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award has social responsibility as part of the Leadership category.

“Societal responsibility” is one of eleven Baldrige core values. The Leadership Category of the Baldrige Criteria asks key questions on this subject including:

• How do you promote and assure ethical behavior in all your interactions?

• How do you consider societal well-being and benefit as part of your strategy and daily operations?

• How do you actively support and strengthen your key communities?

It’s no longer enough to support the employee bowling team and give to the United Way. Role-model companies are weaving Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) into their strategic plans, balanced scorecards, and daily work life.  Social responsibility is not just following the laws and regulations that govern their industry, but actually seeking ways to give back to the community that houses, supports, and uses their products and services.

Going back to BP and Enbridge, how well did they execute their social responsibilities?  Fixing what they broke is not enough.  Preventing such problems is the minimum we expect from any good neighbor.  BP’s track record on safety has not been very good.  Going back years ago, even Sarah Palin in “Going Rogue” commented on a pipeline break by BP in Alaska and numerous other safety problems have been highlighted since then.  Beginning in 2002 officials of the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) noted that Enbridge’s program for identifying problems that could become catastrophic was not up to appropriate standards.  In fact, the PHMSA sent Enbridge a letter citing them for failing to meet a 180-day requirement to repair parts of its pipeline where anomalies were found.

The Baldrige questions are birth-to-grave questions about the design, production, delivery, service, and destruction/recycling of your products, facilities, and equipment.  Or, if you don’t manufacture anything, of your operations. You answer the questions as part of strategic planning and your design processes and you manage and measure your performance as part of process management.

What would our communities and our world be like if companies and organizations truly fulfilled their social responsibility to their large and small communities?  I would suspect that BP would not have taken the level of risk that they had taken the proper safety precautions, even though their costs would have increased.  The same could be said about Enbridge.  Did they have a proper surveillance plan for their pipeline?  It’s great to have an emergency response plan; that is essential.  It is even better to have a preventive maintenance plan to make it possible to never execute your emergency response plan.

Tools for Improvement – An E-Newsletter

August 2010

Alan Mulally and a Culture of Quality

In the1990’s Ford Motor Company was known for high quality cars such as the Ford Taurus.  The group that design and built the Taurus, Team Taurus, was a benchmark for quality in the automotive industry.  Team Taurus employed quality tools as taught by W. Edwards Deming, PhD.  Since then Ford has had its ups and downs in quality, not all of the lessons of Team Taurus were embraced and sustained throughout Ford Motor Company.

Then along comes Alan Mulally as the new CEO.  Mulally came to Ford from the Boeing Company, where he says he was “fascinated with the complicated and intricate machines he helped to create.”   It was at Boeing that he became devoted to quality.

In their May 2009 issue, Fortune Magazine called Mulally the “Comeback Kid.”  His championship of quality is a significant piece of Ford’s success.  Under Mulally’s leadership, Ford did not need federal money to stay afloat and they have been more profitable longer than any of the domestic automakers.

Alan Mulally delivered the keynote address at the American Society for Quality (ASQ) World Conference on Quality and Improvement this May.  He made clear the role of quality tools and a laser focus on continuously improving products and services over the entire company and supplier chain.  Here some of the key factors he applied:

Face the Brutal Facts and Fact-Based Decision Making -

When he first arrived at Ford, the leadership team displayed their scorecards, all of which showed ratings GREEN.  A week later, a major hydraulic lift failed and stopped production, that area showed RED.  Rather than getting upset, Mulally applauded the person responsible for highlighting the problem.  He said the next week the scorecard “looked like a rainbow.”  Make problems visible so they will be addressed.

As the economy was slowing down, Mulally didn’t continue business as usual, but acknowledged the reality of the situation.   He realized that Ford would need significant cash reserves and took the necessary actions to create them.  His proactive and timely actions; based on the facts as they were rather than what he would have preferred them to be, was essential in Ford’s success.

Constant Communications -

Mulally instituted Thursday meetings to align the leadership team to the company’s goals and bring problems to the surface to be addressed.  He has said that every leader at Ford has a quality improvement plan.

Focus and Constancy of Purpose -

In his address to ASQ, he said, “I start with the mission and business performance of the entire organization because world-class companies continuously improve their business performance every year.  Quality means we have an attitude that every year we improve the business plan and the business performance.”

Creating a Quality Culture -

In Mulally’s words, “More and more, I think we are learning that people with an attitude of continuously improving is the foundation and essential to success then, all of a sudden, you’ll start relentlessly looking for every tool and every process you can to improve.  It all comes back to continuous quality improvement.”

I don’t think it is an accident that Ford has done so well.  It has not been easy and there is still many challenges and hard work ahead for the Ford Motor Company, and the rest of us.  What happens if Ford makes it?

An article in the July 2010 issue of ASQ’s Quality Progress, titled “Top This,” discussed how, once you have reached the summit of your industry, do you stay on top?

ASQ interviewed 22 senior executives and asked “How do organizations sustain a quality leadership position over time?”  Their responses were compiled into six key factors:

• Quality superiority is a strategic intent.
• Go beyond customer focus to customer intimacy.
• Leaders at all levels are engaged in quality activities.
• Strong quality management system in place.
• Quality is embedded in the culture.
• The organization adapts to and shapes the environment.

Ford is trying to reach the summit.  However, many companies have made it to the top only to be knocked off.  A system of quality is not enough.  A culture of quality is essential!

Tools for Improvement – An E-Newsletter

July 2010

Do We Over Communicate?

Marketing strategist, Al Ries, says, “Today, communication itself is the problem. We have become the world’s first overcommunicated society.”  The 18th-century English theologian, Joseph Priestley stated, “The more elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate.”

We have the phone,  fax, email, Twitter, Facebook, company websites, the list goes on.  And yet, effectively communicating with our employees remains a challenge.  Surprisingly, many companies and organizations say they communicate well, but have no plan or strategy to do so.  Many of their employees, when asked about the status of their company, typically respond that they “think” things are fine, but no one ever really talks to them about it.  It doesn’t seem to be a problem of over communication as much as one of effective communication.

There are several key factors that are critical to effective communication within your workforce.

Create the culture

To the extent that you can, be transparent.  Today’s workforce wants to be “in the know,” and dislikes secrets.  Their attitude is one of “If I am a trusted employee, why don’t you trust me enough to tell me what’s going on?”  Sharing information is critical to creating a loyal and empowered workforce.  Share even your financial status so your employees can make good and informed decisions.  Knowledge is power, but only if you share it with other people.  If you keep your cards close to your chest, you will be powerless, not powerful!

Schedule informal communication

MBWA, or Managing By Walking Around is an important activity.  It creates opportunities for informal conversations and takes you to employees in their comfort zones.  You don’t have to talk about business, but if they have questions, you open the door to allow them to ask.  MBWA does not happen by accident, this needs to be a scheduled activity that you schedule other appointments around.

Meet one on one and in groups

Take advantage of all opportunities to start conversations.  A brief huddle at the beginning of every day is a good opportunity with a small group.  Scheduled one on one meetings with your immediate staff.  Conduct skip level meetings with employees two to three levels below you to keep from being isolated.  However, make sure you share any concerns with the appropriate supervisor so they can act on them.

Make sure your message is heard

People normally remember only three to five points from any communication, so keep it short and to the point.  Use bullet point items instead of long paragraphs.  Balance your message with positive reinforcement and encouragement with critical comments.

Reward feedback

Employees weigh the risks of speaking up against the uncertainty of being recognized and rewarded for their contribution.  Reward doesn’t necessarily mean monetary reward.  Often a written reply or a personal visit is all the reward our employees are looking for – “Did he even read what I wrote?” they ask.

The most important factor is listening

It’s not a mystery to me why God gave us two ears, but only one mouth.  Successful communication is a two-way street.  If you’re the one doing all the talking, employees tend to tune out.  It’s the people doing the real work of the company that have the best ideas on how to improve it.

This story has been around for several weeks now, but it is still appropriate to bring it up again:

“On June second of this year, Armando Galarraga, a pitcher for the Detroit Tigers, was one out from pitching a perfect game, something that is rare in major league baseball. However on the last out the first base umpire Jim Joyce ruled the runner safe, putting an end to Galarraga’s quest for a perfect game. Joyce believed he made the right call until he saw the replay for himself after the game; the replays showed the runner was clearly out and that Galarraga should have got credit for a perfect game. Joyce, the umpire, immediately went to the 28-year-old pitcher from Venezuela after the game and apologized for getting the call wrong.

Holy cow, backup, rewind… let me say that again. The umpire, Joyce, went and apologized for getting the call wrong. That’s accountability in all of its purest glory folks!

And then Galarraga turn around and forgave him for blowing a call that costs him something he may never ever do in his career again; throw a perfect game. ‘He probably feels more bad than me,” Galarraga said. ‘Nobody’s perfect. ‘Everybody’s human. I understand. I give the guy a lot of credit for saying, ‘I need to talk to you.’ You don’t see an umpire tell you that after a game. I gave him a hug.’ “*

There is a lot to take away from this story.

Armando Galarraga is a great pitcher and has worked hard to hone his skills to where they are today.  This takes effort and dedication.  Woody Allen may have said that 80% of success is showing up for work, but anyone who has truly achieved success will tell you it takes more than showing up to be successful.

First Base Umpire Jim Joyce made what he thought was a good call.  He used all of his skill and experience to take it a fast moving, multi-dimensional event and make an accurate call.  He did his best.  Unfortunately, due to the benefits of today’s technology he was proved to be wrong.  He could have said, “I calls ‘em as I sees ‘em!” and let it go at that.  But, instead, he took responsibility and admitted he had made a mistake.  While current league rules don’t allow him to take it back, he didn’t just say “too bad,” but went to  Galarraga and apologized for taking away the opportunity to have a perfect game.

Armando Galarraga could have been upset, yelled and screamed and demanded that action be taken to right an obvious wrong.  Yet, what did he do? He shrugged it off.  Even better he hugged the man that had taken his perfect game away from him.  He acknowledges that no one is perfect and we all make mistakes.

This is a scene that we should all find a video clip of and show it to our kids as they grow up.  It is a great example of true sportsmanship that is seen all too rarely today and accepting responsibility.

Reverend Billy Graham once said, “When wealth is lost, nothing is lost. When health is lost, something is lost. When character is lost, all is lost.”

Character matters in everything we do in life.  Without character, nothing else we do matters.

*taken from “LeadershipandTeamwork.com

William McKinley, the 25th President of the United States, once had to choose between two equally qualified candidates for a key position.  He puzzled over which one to choose until he recalled an incident that occurred in the past.

One rainy night before he became President, McKinley boarded a crowded streetcar.  One of the men he was considering was already on board, but he hadn’t seen McKinley.  Then an old woman, carrying a basket of laundry, struggled into the streetcar, looking in vain for an empty seat.  The candidate for the position kept his seat, pretending not to see her.  McKinley gave up his seat to her.

Remembering this episode, which he called “this little omission of kindness,” McKinley decided against the man on the streetcar.  Or decisions, even the small, fleeting ones, tell a lot about us.

Well it is done.  President Obama has accepted General McCrystal’s resignation.  Should this have happened?  Yes, it should.  When General McCrystal took his oath of office as an officer in the United States Army, he swore

“I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”

As much as I think the President is not pursuing a course of action that will succeed in Afghanistan, General McCrystal at best was unwise and demonstrated poor judgment in making the statements he did and allowing his subordinates to make such statements.  If General McCrystal disagreed with the President’s orders then he should have appealed it through his chain of command and if the result was unacceptable to him, should have resigned in protest.  His resignation, in that manner, would have been a professional action that would have supported his case.  What he did was put himself in an indefensible position and is now viewed as being disloyal.

President Obama had no choice but to accept McCrystal’s resignation.  The President’s action is necessary to support good order and discipline in the military service.  I only wish that if McCrystal disagreed so much with his orders that he had resigned in protest – that would have been honorable!

The Code of the Army Officer (The Army Officer’s Guide, 39th Edition) discusses the tradition of loyalty.  Here it states, “Loyalty is demanded of the Army officer.  It extends throughout the chain of command to the President, the Commander in Chief.  It must be true loyalty and there is an essential reason for it.  Even the suspicion of disloyalty would destroy the usefulness of any officer for no one would trust him or give him responsibility.”

Leaders in the military and in the civilian world need to be loyal.  Loyal to those that have chosen to follow them and loyal to their bosses.  Without loyalty there is no trust.  Without trust there is no motivation to go the extra mile.

I don’t agree with the way President Obama is waging this war in Afghanistan, but General McCrystal was disloyal in his actions, when an honorable option was available.  We should not act like politicians and lower ourselves to their standard of conduct.  He made the wrong choice.

Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Landry once said, “I don’t believe in team motivation. I believe in getting a team prepared so it knows it will have the necessary confidence when it steps on a field and be prepared to play a good game.”

Too many people believe they can motivate others to do what needs to be done.  What most people fail to realize is that you cannot motivate other people – they must motivate themselves!  Motivation must come from within a person.  External factors such as high pay, praise and compliments, or threats of punishment are not motivators and, if they were, they are certainly not in the long term.

External factors such as high pay, etc are merely incentives to encourage people to do what they already want to do.  If the incentive has no value, it will not be a factor in motivation.  I have heard people say that they will give their people praise and that will motivate them.  However, if they don’t value the praise it will not help them to be motivates.  Others have said, “If they don’t perform, I will punish them.”  Well, if they don’t fear the punishment, then they won’t be motivated!

Everyone is motivated to do something.  It is our job as leaders and managers to give them the incentives they are looking for and they will motivate themselves.

Landry’s quote makes a lot of sense. If the team has confidence in their abilities, it will feel like it can win and as a result of that feeling will be motivated to do just that – WIN!

Follow this link for more great Tom Landry quotes! http://www.inspirational-quotes-and-quotations.com/famous-tom-landry-quotes.html

In an episode of “Walker, Texas Ranger,” Chuck Norris, says, “There are choices and consequences.  You make these choices and you enjoy or suffer the consequences.  These choices are up to you.”  We are faced with choices every day of our lives.  Some choices are very clear and some are pretty ambiguous.

If you look at the situation in the Gulf of Mexico and the BP oil spill, many choices are being made.  If what I have read in the news is accurate, BP made several choices in their drilling operations.  They chose to use a drilling technique that cost less, but offered more risk than other methods, and they did not let the drilling fluid (a concrete slurry) adhere to the shaft before taking the next step.  The Obama administration made choices.  They chose to let BP be the lead organization on almost every aspect of the operation, rather than letting BP be the lead on the deep water operation where they clearly had the expertise and letting the Coast Guard, Corps of Engineers, and local governments protect the shoreline where they had the expertise and local contacts (not to mention the higher stake they hold in the outcome).  The Corps of Engineers made choices on whether or not to set aside bureaucratic procedures in giving permits for the erection of sand barriers to protect the coastal marshlands.  State and local governments made choices in whether or not to mobilize the National Guard as the state militia on state duty and to call for volunteers to take protective measures on the coastline on their own authority.

I am not taking a stance on whether any entity made a good or bad choice, but only to highlight those choices were made.  Some of these choices were made in the form of decisions and actions taken and some choices were made by making no decision and taking no action.  Not making a choice is a choice!

While not as dramatic as the biggest environment catastrophe in our memory, we make individual choices every day.   Parents may choose to take their kids to church or not, they may choose to help them with their homework or not, they may choose to go to parent/teacher conferences or not, and they may choose to volunteer for their children’s activities such as Scouts, youth sports, or other groups.  Mothers may choose to stay at home to care for the children or choose to work in order to provide a higher lifestyle for their family.  Fathers may choose to take time off from work to participate in their children’s activities or work late to insure they are successful in business in order to provide for their family.

Texas Ranger, Cordell Walker, was right.  There are choices and consequences, and we will have to live with the consequences of our choices.  Harry Potter author, JK Rowling, once said, “It is our choices….that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”