Volume 1 Edition 31: Follow the TLS Continuum

Welcome to another edition of the Traveling along the TLS Continuum newsletter. This week we want to take the question about attitudes towards continuous process improvement a step further and address your expectations in entering the improvement effort.

Songstress Pauline Wilson wrote

With so many roads

That seem to lead

Down to the sea

I wonder which road

Will be the right one for me

 Others may fall away

Dead ending left and right

But there is this one road

That Journeys far out of sight

Have you wondered where

Your road will lead you

 Maybe to a bright day of sunshine

Or a starry night in heaven

Or it might be you’re afraid to go

Afraid to go, but you’ve got

To follow your road or you’ll

Never know never know, never know

 We are all but travelers

Living in a foreign land

Just trying to find our way

The best as we can

Looking for an answer trying

To find some way

 Richard thanked her for calling and as he ended the call, he began to wonder why this was the first time he was hearing about the problems with their largest client. Further he thought what else might be going wrong out there. Richard began to ponder that, obviously from Ann Morrison’s point of view, there is a serious problem. From Richard’s point of view, based on the information he had, he could not define the real problem; therefore, he suspected there was no real problem. He was not aware of anything that was a real problem for the organization.  On the other hand, he was not sure that there was no problem since Ann Morrison felt she had to once more complain that the quality had dropped. He could not let it just get pushed under the rug.

Richard talked to serval of his senior managers, and they scheduled a visit to Ann Morrison’s workplace. The purpose was to gain knowledge of the problem. Richard explained to Ann Morrison that there were no special arrangements that needed to be completed. Thy wanted to see the process as it would normally occur in the workplace. The purpose of the visit was to conduct a Gemba Walk of the process,

The purpose of the Gemba Walk is to follow the flow of the process from the receiving dock to the shipping dock. Using tools like the Stand in a Circle we want to observe the process to see if we can find the root cause of the issue that the client is experiencing.

Once the client Gemba Walk is completed, the team returns to their workplace and repeats the process again from their perspective. The same managers should walk the internal process within your workplace. The purpose is to determine whether the flow is the same both in your ecosystem and in the client’s ecosystem. If not, why not. Does your process flow the same as your client’s?

The team now needs to complete the third and final Gemba Walk done at your supplier’s flow line. The same managers once again look at the process of delivering parts to you and to your customers.

The final outcome is that either you find the problem, or you do not. You find the cause of the issue from Ann Morrison’s view, or you find some other reason why the problem is occurring.

If the outcome is that you find the source of the problem, it is time to begin the process of resolving the issue through the use of a cross-functional team and open dialogue.

 Dr. Mikel Harry tells us that “We don’t know, what we don’t know.” That is equally true in the Change Maestro’s Roadmap. If we do not understand where we are going, we will never get to the end of the journey (Even though there is no end of the journey). So how do we learn what we don’t know? That is the point of contention for this week. There are several levels of gaining knowledge that we must all become involved with, and we will look at each individually.

These levels consist of 1) Personal knowledge; 2) Active listening; 3) Organizational knowledge and 4) Process Knowledge. Each has its own set of criteria and actions all headed towards the same end result we know and understand the organizational dynamics as reflected in change management.

The purpose of gaining this knowledge is based on a set of specific strategies to benefit the organization.

 Strategy #1: Read

Go to your local bookstore and check the business section for books on change management. Pay special attention to books authored by Jeffrey Liker, Peter Senge and Bob Sproull. Do not overlook the giants of the topic such as Eliyahu Goldratt, and W. Edwards Deming. Visit our website (https://dbaiconsulting.com) and under the resources tab you will find a list of recommended titles of books that you should consider reading.

Prefer E-books, then visit Kindle, Nook or Apple books to locate titles that fit this area of concern.

 Strategy #2: Listen

. Engage in active listening. Be open to information that contradicts your beliefs. When the customer speaks be attentive to what they are saying. Want to ask a question, fine but ensure they are open-ended questions. We want to engage in a dialogue not a discussion. If you are not clear on a point being presented, ask for clarification.

Strategy #3: Learn by Doing

We each have our personal ways we learn new things best. Some of us learn by seeing. Others learn by feeling. Still others learn by hearing.

Toyota tells us that we should implement Shu Ha Ri. You learn what is expected of you and then turned loose to try and implement the process. A member of management serving as a teacher supports you not by telling you what to do but showing where you might do things better. As you become for capable you receive less supervision. Finally, when you reach the top level – you are free to run with the process on your own and even explore ways to do it better.

Search your organization for opportunities where you can join and engage with a cross-functional team so that you can feel at home in working in that environment. We will discuss the teams more in depth in the next stage.

Prepare yourself for the rest of the journey by exploring with the local institutions of higher education or online where you an enroll in a six-sigma certification training course. It will change your career path in a major way.

Take advantage of the LinkedIn groups. There is a good assortment of those where change management is their direct focus. Get engaged in the conversation.

Get out of the office and go visit your customers and suppliers and observe how they are operating.

Get out of the office and visit other organizations and observe how their processes operate and how they compare to what you do.

·Volunteer to coach other human capital assets who may need some guidance going forward. Both sides of the equation benefit from the arrangement.

Take each of your organizational processes and walk the walk, talk the talk and do the Gemba walk. You want to view what is going right, what is going wrong and how the process can be improved. Do the same for your customers and suppliers.

Document your Gemba Walks by drawing process maps for each

Need assistance with your own journey down the TLS Continuum? Drop an email to operationalexcellenceprojects@gmail.com or book a time at https://outlook.office365.com/owa/calendar/TRavelingalongtheTLSContinuum@ NETORG5223078.onmicrosoft.com/bookings/ and request a half hour free Microsoft Teams session with us to discuss your situation and how we may be able to help.

About the author: Daniel Bloom knows HR and Change Management. He’s a speaker on transformational HR, a strategic HR consultant and trainer. Thank you for subscribing to this newsletter. The best strategy that I ever undertook was earning my SPHR and the Six Sigma Black Belt. You can start along the same path as we present live our six-week Human Capital Journey Yellow Belt Certification course.

For more information visit https://dbaiconsulting.com/tls-continnuum-master-seminars