Visual Workplace Radio: Let The Workplace Speak

What company champion (site executive, CEO, plant manager, GM) does not seek ways to sustain and extend hard-won improvement results. But few such executives rightly understand what sustainment means or how to attain and extend it. Instead, they mistakenly insist upon mechanisms that track—or even enforce—compliance: Audits are a case in point. But, says Gwendolyn Galsworth (your host and visual workplace expert), they would do better to look for specific ways to use their positional power to: 1) cultivate employee engagement; and 2) drive improvement. In this week’s show, Galsworth presents the third segment in her on-going discussion on “tools that sustain.” This time she focuses on the role of the Management Champion (aka, site executive) and two mechanisms that champions can use to help drive the improvement process—without driving over employees in the process: The Management Watch and The Laminated Map. This is a live show. Your comments and questions are welcomed.

How do you make a poor, unglamorous visual standard (with no real power of its own) meaningful and engaging? First, make sure value-add associates not only own the information in each standard but also decide how it is formatted. In this week’s show, Gwendolyn Galsworth (your host and visual expert) interviews Jeff Nelson, founder/president of Expert OJT, a firm that specializes in helping associates create standards that are both visual and highly effective. Jeff calls these: “job aides.” With over 25 years in the field, he knows better than nearly anyone that “people who own the work own the job aide.” Tune in and hear Jeff explain S.M.A.R.T., his formula for ensuring that each job aide is complete, systematic, relevant, crystal-clear, actionable—and worth the time to develop. Then learn his “15 Tips for Making Your Job Aides Visual”—practical rules for providing the right steps, in the right order, so that the right details are factored in and unimportant details are filtered out.

What does RESPECT FOR THE INDVIDUAL mean? How do we operationalize it? How do we translate RESPECT into behavior? In this second week on the “Nine Tools That Build & Sustain,” Gwendolyn Galsworth (your host and visual expert), presents the Visual Workplace Checklist—a core tool that value-add associates use to maintain and then improve current levels of visuality in their areas. Grounded in the I-driven principle, this checklist is wholly owned by area associates because they: 1) choose checklist items/tasks; 2) administer the checklist themselves; 3) score each item/task based on the extent to which it is complete/incomplete. Plus, checklist items evolve over time. Unlike static audits, this is a dynamic process, made even more so by the rotation of the so-called Checklist Patrol. Tune in and learn how to re-vitalize your 5S by developing knowledge, high-level application, and self-leadership. Also learn ways to make visual workplace supplies a part of your sustainment framework.

What is the true goal of sustaining improvement? The true—indeed, the only—goal is to strengthen the behaviors that lead to a continuous improvement work culture. Hard-won though they are, these behaviors can erode quickly if we do not take concrete steps to sustain them. In this week’s show, your host and visual workplace expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, begins to share nine powerful sustaining tools. First, we learn an exacting definition of discipline (one that may surprise you)—followed by the so-called Visual Workplace Code of Conduct. This code, which is practiced by value-add associates in the targeted areas, is designed to build the qualities of self-leadership into each person’s day. From resisting the temptation to vote excellence into existence—to working for true consensus and modeling the behaviors in yourself that you wish to see in others. If sustainment does not help us grow into who we really are, we are stuck with a narrow definition of ourselves and so is our company.

What do you do when you want to challenge for The Shingo Prize—but know that lean is not the right place for your company to start? When Moog QuickSet (outskirts of Chicago) faced that question, its answer was: We need to begin with operator-led visuality. Join us this week on The Visual Workplace, when Gwendolyn Galsworth (your host and visual workplace expert) interviews Brian Hallstrom, Operator Division Manager at QuickSet, and Jay Alfonso, engineer, supervisor, and new visual workplace coach/trainer/coordinator in charge of visuality on the production floor. Learn about their roles in the visual conversion underway at QuickSet—along with early victories, challenges, and personal changes. Hear what Brian and Jay stay glued on and why there are miles to go before ANYONE “sleeps.” You’ve heard Galsworth present the elements of her model for the past 30 weeks. Now it’s time to examine them in action, warts and all. This is a live show. Get ready to call in with comments and questions.

Strange how most of us believe change happens. Strange how we believe companies learn and improve. Stranger yet is how we seek to validate the progress we think we’re making by attending to exact technical causes and the concrete logic of the physical. But what if an entirely different set of causes pertain and an all-but-undetectable logic produces these tangible, knowable outcomes? Suddenly reality ain’t what it used to be—or is supposed to be. This week on The Visual Workplace, your host and visual workplace expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, takes you into the world of chaos theory, fractals, and morphogenic fields, sharing research on how companies evolve and learning happens, based on the largest gap in understanding that exists: “what we don’t know we don’t know.” Tune in and you may be surprised to learn that even monkeys can point the way to what’s really going on when we learn, implement, and improve. This is a live show. Your call-in comments and questions are welcomed!

Did you know? Visuality is contagious. So is employee engagement and continuous improvement. Better watch out! They are spreading around the globe, in places as far flung as India, England, Australia, Mexico, and Brazil—and in the US from Boston to Utah. This week on The Visual Workplace, your host and visual workplace expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, shares what she has seen and experienced on her travels since January when she took her visual workplace model on the road through seminars and visual site assessments. Tune in and hear her observations about companies and countries that are new to the quest for operational excellence—as well as those that are second- (even third-) generation achievers in the challenging journey of continuous improvement, cultural alignment, and increased profit margins through workplace visuality. No one ever said it was going to be easy. But everyone knows it’s going to be rewarding. This is a live show. Your call-in questions and comments are welcomed!

It is not the number of visual devices that transforms a company into a highly-functioning visual work environment. It is the power of those devices. That’s what separates watered-down copycat devices from highly-effective visual solutions…and cosmetic visuality from authentic visual function. In this week’s episode, Gwendolyn Galsworth, visual workplace expert and your host, defines what visual devices are—and how to make them increasingly effective by applying the steps of visual power. Tune in and learn about visual indicators, visual signals, visual controls and visual guarantees (poka-yokes). See how the construct of these four power levels can turn any visual device into a performance driver—a device that ensures the outcomes you require: speed, flow, accuracy, safety, and perfect quality. This is a two-episode show. Listen to both to learn what the four power levels are, how they function, and how you can create more powerful visual devices in your own company.

It is not the number of visual devices that transforms a company into a highly-functioning visual work environment. It is the power of those devices. That’s what separates watered-down, copycat devices from highly-effective visual solutions…and cosmetic visuality from authentic visual function. In this week’s episode, Gwendolyn Galsworth, visual workplace expert and your host, defines what visual devices are—and how to make them increasingly effective by applying the steps of visual power. Tune in and learn about visual indicators, visual signals, visual controls and visual guarantees (poka-yokes). See how the principles in these four power levels can turn any visual device into a performance driver—a mechanism that ensures the outcomes you require: safety, speed, flow, accuracy, and perfect quality. This is a two-episode show. Listen to both and learn what the four power levels are, how they function, and how you can create more powerful visual devices in your own company.

“Never in U.S. history has the subject of healthcare costs been so visible or so contentious….” Thus begins Naida Grunden’s groundbreaking new book, Lean-Led Hospital Design (Charles Hagood/co-author). This week on The Visual Workplace, Gwendolyn Galsworth, your host and visual workplace expert, interviews Ms. Grunden on her concept of lean-led hospital design and why she considers it is indispensable to minimizing soaring healthcare costs. Hear why, when asked “When do you build?“ Grunden responds: “Build when process improvement cannot take you any further.” In traditional hospital planning, the focus is on the architecture, not operations and merely imports and prolongs old systems and the chronic problems tied to them. Grunden offer us instead a way to construct a building that is borne out of continuous improvement. Tune in and here this fresh perspective on the power of a design paradigm that can take 40% of the building cost out before a shovel ever goes into the ground.

What are realistic expectations about how people should and do respond to your splendid new improvement initiative? Should you get your hopes up? Should you remain detached and neutral? Or should you gird your loins for battle? In our show this week, your host and visual workplace expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, discusses what she has discovered over three decades of implementations: that people will respond to change in one of three ways. They embrace it. They resist it. Or they do not have an opinion about it one way or the other; they are neutral. We call this threesome: The Rowers, Watchers, and Grumblers. And they offer us a perspective on the I of the I-driven approach to workplace visuality. Tune in this week and hear Gwendolyn share the telling difference between inertia and resistance and the most effective way of handling the grouches. Learn what not to do and what happens when individuals are allowed, even encouraged, to be themselves, with no fear of penalty.

Far too many companies make the mistake of training and implementing the visual workplace the same way they train and implement lean. In fact, the success of a visual workplace depends on a launch protocol that is very different from the one that works for lean. This week, Gwendolyn Galsworth, your host and visual workplace expert, shares the training and implementation secrets she has discovered in nearly thirty years of hands-on visual workplace conversions. Her learning curve was like that of most: some important failures and a ton of impressive successes. Learn why teaching people about visuality through simulations is not often a good choice. Discover the real purpose of the first visual conversion cycle in a company. Hear how Galsworth defines resistance and inertia. And why she says that success in addressing them usually begins with ignoring them. Tune in and hear lessons learned and make them part of your approach. Call in with your own stories and insights!

“What do I do when my COO says he wants us to be creative then floods us with his ideas?” “Can I use visual to get other people to do the right thing, like show up to meetings on time?” “How come 5S in the West is only about neat-clean-labels-lines and how can I get beyond that?” These are just some of the questions your host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, has received over the past few weeks. In this show, she responds in ways that make sense to her. And, she hopes, you will call in with responses, comments, stories, ideas of your own. And maybe more questions. It’s time to pause and check for understanding and application. Here are some more we have received. “Can I use Kaizen Blitzes to get visual inventiveness going with my operators?” “What’s wrong with standardizing on our visual devices? How can we make our processes reliable without that?” “Where do the 5 Whys fit in?” Are these your questions too? Tune in. Call in. Your comments and responses are part of this show!

Napoleon, Churchill, Roosevelt, Gandhi, Bernstein, Jobs, Battenburg. Natural leaders all. How did they naturally lead? They set the direction, assigned resources, and held steady to the course. What natural leaders do intuitively, we can learn through the practiced use of visual leadership tools. This week, Gwendolyn Galsworth, your host and visual expert, delves into three such tools: Business Systems Improvement Template, X-Type Matrix, and Operations Road Map. These high-level Doorway 4 mechanisms (combined with visual metrics and visual problem solving) help us simulate the remarkable behaviors of natural leaders and turn them into practical skills we can use everyday. What behaviors? Visually name the horizon, assign resources, set the pace, confer valence, and drive relentlessly drive. All the while, we never give up our humanity: nice on the outside/toast on the inside. Whether you work as a supervisor or executive, tune in and find the leader in you through workplace visuality.

Why do many business owners, CEOs, and plant managers struggle with their role as leaders? What does effectiveness mean for leaders? How can visuality help leaders be more effective? In this show, Gwendolyn Galsworth (your host and visual workplace expert) continues her walk through the fourth doorway into the visual workplace: Visual Leadership. At this point in Doorway 4, visual metrics are in place; visual problem solving is propelling the workforce down the causal chain; standards are improving and visual solutions are stabilizing those improvements. Leaders are now able to see their organizations behave and it is their turn to step up to their role as visual leaders—owners of the organizational horizon as well as the pacing and will needed to drive the enterprise towards it with focus, confidence, and certainty. Tune in and learn why good leaders always crave excellence and how visuality can help them both sharpen and satisfy that hunger.

What do we mean by a fully-functioning visual workplace. What do we mean when we say a company has reached a showcase level of workplace visuality? This week, your host and visual workplace expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, announces the three first recipients of The Visual Workplace/Ten Doorways Prize: Delphi Deltronicos in Mexico, Parker Hannifin in California, and Royal Nooteboom Trailers in Holland. The purpose of The Prize is to confer recognition and appreciation on companies that have cultivated a level of operational visuality that is sufficient to demonstrate to others what a visual workplace is, how it functions, and precisely why it is indispensable to the dual business benefits of cultural alignment and dramatic bottom-line results. Listen as Galsworth describes the visual work environment of each of these prize-winners and where, within her Ten Doorways framework, their distinctive visual contributions cluster. Then compare and contrasts those with your own efforts.

Visual Metrics play a mighty role in effective problem solving because they illuminate cause, show us how the problem behaves, and drive us down the causal chain. They are the vector force of the process: thrust plus direction. But metrics have only limited use without deep and sustainable solution making. People are needed for that. This week, your host and visual workplace expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, explains part two of the Visual Problem Solving process: getting people engaged in developing rich problem descriptions and then create a wide array of viable solutions. To do this, we gather stake holders and lead them through a step-by-step method that allows them to share their insights and expertise in order to un-nest levels of viable solutions that they, in turn, implement systematically. Eliminating problems is rarely about silver-bullet answers but instead focus on identifying an exact array of good causes that have been tried, tested, and, through visuality, made sustainable.

What happened at Sheldlah that allowed it to pursue problem solving (“PS”) with such strength that, in 1987, it adopted this: “A problem is any thing that inconveniences anyone downstream.” Though not widely recognized, all problem solving is fundamentally about creating new standards, new reliable procedures, that allow us to repeatedly achieve the value/specs our customer wants. In too many companies, PS merely organizes the noise around a problem so that it becomes approachable instead of doggedly pursuing cause. But many problems exist on a nested or multi-layered level so there can be no silver bullet solution. This week (in the first of two shows on the topic), Dr. Gwendolyn Galsworth, visual workplace expert and your host, shares her perspectives on solving chronic, costly, complex problems, indispensable to operational excellence. Join us as she shares the definition of a standard that Dr. Ryuji Fukuda (Sumitomo) revealed to her in 1985 that almost made her drop her teacup.

Do your performance measures monitor? Or do they drive? If you are in hot pursuit of operational excellence, your answer tells us lots about your success. In this show, Gwendolyn Galsworth (your host and visual expert) opens and defines the fourth doorway in her 10-Doorway Visual Workplace model: “Visual Leadership,” with visual metrics as its first crucial step. Visual Metrics are a category of measurement function that speaks in the voice of the user, names performance in concrete, local terms, illuminates cause, and then drives us down the causal chain. Drives us where? To highly-improved, sustainable performance. Yes, we also need metrics that monitor (KPIs), usually because our boss requires them. Too often, however, we make the mistake of thinking that making measures visible (tacking them on bulletin boards) has the power to create improvement. It does not. Tune in and learn what visual metrics are, how they get developed (I-driven), and how to use them to drive excellence.

What do we mean by a fully-functioning visual workplace. What do we mean when we say a company has reached a showcase level of workplace visuality? This week, your host and visual workplace expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, announces the three first recipients of The Visual Workplace/Ten Doorways Prize: Delphi Deltronicos in Mexico, Parker Hannifin in California, and Royal Nooteboom Trailers in Holland. The purpose of The Prize is to confer recognition and appreciation on companies that have cultivated a level of operational visuality that is sufficient to demonstrate to others what a visual workplace is, how it functions, and precisely why it is indispensable to the dual business benefits of cultural alignment and dramatic bottom-line results. Listen as Galsworth describes the visual work environment of each of these prize-winners and where, within her Ten Doorways framework, their distinctive visual contributions cluster. Then compare and contrasts those with your own efforts.