Visual Workplace Radio: Let The Workplace Speak

What would it be like if every CEO, manager and supervisor commits to the single cultural outcome of making every employee a hero in their own eyes. What would change as a result? What would have to change? And how would they do it? Join us this week as your host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, shares her view on why becoming a hero at work is important—and how workplace visuality can help that happen. At the core of each of us is a deep and abiding need to contribute—a longing to share, or even create, something of value. Not just in our everyday lives but also at work, especially at work. There is a hero within. We want to master and excel. In Gwendolyn’s experience, this can be and has been accomplished by implementing workplace visuality—because it is a language, so practical, and I-driven. What would it be like to make that outcome a part of every boss’s job description—to ensure people become heroes in their own eyes at work. Tune in/Learn more. Let the workplace speak.

Does this sound familiar? You find ourselves faced with a powerful opportunity for change—and decide you’d better take it in small doses. Better not get overwhelmed, you think. Better not lose control. So you enter that powerful opportunity, piecemeal. And then you wonder why the change seems so ordinary—not much of a change at all. Companies are like that too, especially if they are at an early moment in the switch from a command and control work culture to one of genuine empowerment. Listen this week as Gwendolyn Galsworth, your host and visual workplace expert, maps out some myths about participation that can exert a weakening influence, even in the early stages of 5S. And if 5S gets off to a timid start, not much of strength will follow. What are those myths—their names and their anxious behaviors? And how do we combat them? How do we build a powerfully engaged work culture—beginning with 5S—so we can move from strength to strength. Tune in/Learn more. Let the workplace speak.

Do you remember Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs—and its rank order list of six powerful motivators: food/shelter, personal safety, love/friendship, the esteem of others, self-actualization, and (the gold ring) self-transcendence? Maslow did a lot to prove that we humans are not just about one thing. We are about many. This week, your host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, adds one more motivator to the list: Beauty. Listen as she describes where and how beauty already exists in our companies—and where it could become even more present. Do you work in a warren of walled-in rooms, surrounded by endless hallways? Bring beauty to them and each hallway becomes a promenade. What about the world of grease and grime at the top of every overhaul & repair stream? Some simple steps can bring beauty in. And is your factory floor merely neat and clean—thanks to 5S—but not yet beautiful? Do something quick to stir the eye and inspire the heart. Beauty, the final frontier. Let the workplace speak!

Is yours one of the many companies that has given up on 5S? You tried it once—in great earnestness: Sort, Set in Order, Simplify, Standardize, Sustain (or some other set of “S” words that were supposed to work). But just as you thought you had it rolling, you got push instead of pull. Struggle instead of success. Join us this week when your host and visual workplace expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, shares her secrets for a 5S Makeover—a 5S resurrection. Listen as she shares five simple 5S tips that can revive your 5S—and give you the leverage you need to get and sustain the 5S promise: improved performance and improved KPIs and cultural results. Who would argue with what 5S is supposed to accomplish—cleanliness and order? Who would argue with the how—the 5S audit? Gwendolyn—that’s who! She can and does dispute both. If you already put 5S in the trash, discover five simple ways to bring it back to a vibrant, long-lasting, and productive life. Tune in/Learn more. Let the workplace speak!

Have you committed to a new operational vision? If so, a lot is about to change—including the role of your supervisors. There are so many ways your supervisors can contribute. Are you taking full advantage? This week, Gwendolyn Galsworth, your host and visual workplace expert, concludes her 3-part series on getting supervisors on board via your 5S/Visual Blitz. Don’t underestimate this opportunity. Following Galsworth’s five step process for on-boarding supervisors, you quickly see that running an operator-driven blitz is more than a task—much more. It’s a first-rate development opportunity that helps your supervisors grow as leaders and monetizes operator participation. Yes, each blitz can contribute to the corporate intent—in the work area and the company—if you follow these five simple steps, carefully executed: 1/Share the Vision; 2/Teach the Blitz; 3/Demonstrate the Blitz; 4/Practice the Blitz; and 5/Launch the Blitz. Sound too simple? Tune in/Learn more. Let the workplace speak!

Are you taking full advantage of your weekly or monthly blitzes? Are they just about an attack on waste? Or do you position them as genuine growth opportunities? Tune in this week as Gwendolyn Galsworth, your host and visual expert, maps out the ways in which she uses the blitz event to provide a crucial improvement window for the keepers of the corporate intent—your supervisors. Rightly framed and prepared for, your blitz (whether visual, kaizen or lean) can become a training ground and a stepping stone for supervisors to go further and grow stronger—on their way to becoming leaders of improvement. But you have to pre-load a defined pathway that gets you there. Powerful outcomes don’t happen by accident. Listen as Gwendolyn defines her formula for this, including sharing the vision, training the Blitz format, practicing the Blitz format, and forging a strong coaching relationship between supervisors and your training function. Listen/learn more. Let the workplace speak.

What’s wrong with employee engagement? What’s wrong with getting people involved? Nothing—as long as you make supervisors an active part of that. Don’t be a company that supports operator creativity but forgets that supervisors are contributors too. When empowerment ignites, it’s party time—and supervisors want to be part of it. But what part and how? Listen in this week as Gwendolyn Galsworth, your host and visual expert, sets up the logic of supervisor growth—why to get your supervisor involved and how. Walk with her through her five steps for supervisor empowerment and the mission-critical contribution your five-star sergeants can—and want to—make to the corporate good. Yes, you can use the visual blitz format. In fact, you should. As long as you use it, not as an end in itself, but as a training ground and a stepping stone for supervisors to go further and grow stronger—on their way to becoming leaders of improvement. Tune in/learn more. Let the workplace speak.

Can operators really impact the business case directly with area-based visual improvement? You bet they can—if they learn how! This week your host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, continues her discussion on how line employees can add improvement value to the company—and gain value for themselves—through the principles and practices of Work That Makes Sense/Operator-led Visuality (WTMS). First, your trainers have to train with great expectations in mind—as long as they first find them for themselves. Listen as Gwendolyn walks through the importance of your trainers doing their homework so they find the change they seek—before they train the first operator. Doing advance homework is critical for all the modules in the WTMS system. But the business impact is perhaps never more dramatic than when you help value-add associates implement Smart Placement. Tune in as Gwendolyn anchors this with examples from her Master Class in western Minnesota last month. Let the workplace speak.

What do visual workplace trainers contribute? How do they add value for the company—and gain value for themselves? Join us this week as Gwendolyn Galsworth, your host and visual expert, brings back the news from her most recent Master Class—in the cold, remote regions of western Minnesota. Listen as she shares how she trained a team of visual workplace trainers to use visuality to envision and build the company’s business case. And how, in the process, they discovered that: a) it’s a mistake to use operator-led visuality as just an expanded form of 5S; b) their role as coaches is more than simply ensuring that monthly visual blitzes get scheduled and occur; and c) they can use visuality to introduce TIME into operations—with or without lean. As they began to master visual thinking, these trainers began to see how to advance the company’s operational cpk (capability) and teach others how to surface and link up key feeder functions and let the workplace speak. Tune in/learn more.

Did you know visual management (VM) is a part—only a subset—of the visual workplace? And that there are seven other main categories of visual workplace function besides visual management? Though VM is important (especially to managers and executives), it represents only a small segment of the visual workplace continuum. Join us this week for part two of Gwendolyn Galsworth’s series on visual management. As she states, VM has one over-arching goal: to clarify the corporate intent and connect and align it with: a) corporate-level results, b) site-level results, c) area-level results; and d) value-add level results. How is this done? Visually, through an array of highly-visible but flat 2D formats: charts, schemata, graphs, templates, LCD monitors, KPI dashboards, and so on. But visual management is not visual performance. Don’t stuff all visual workplace functions under the single VM label. Expand your thinking/expand your language. Tune in/learn more. Let the workplace speak.

Who doesn’t recognize the tremendous power of the visual workplace in operations—color coding, visual standards, kanban, borders, addresses, production boards, poka-yoke systems? These devices are effective because they are visual. And devices from the management side of the visual workplace are also useful: KPIs, LCD monitors, dashboards, and other visible tracking systems. Does it surprise you to hear visual management (VM) referred to as only a part of the visual workplace? If so, you are in good company. This week, your host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, will define VM and locate it properly as a subset of workplace visuality. Stuffing the extensive range of visual functions under the single label of visual management is a mistake. Why? Because it keeps you and your company from realizing the full benefit that the visual workplace can contribute to your bottomline—and to growing a vibrant work culture of continuous improvement. Tune in/learn more. Let the workplace speak

What does the world of work hold in common—no matter the setting? This week at The Visual Workplace, your host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, shares the answer. The single and fundamental transaction deployed a million times a day in every workplace is: the translation of vital information into behavior. In recognizing this, we understand workplace visuality’s shining purpose—to imbed information into the living landscape of work in order to imbed behavior: human behavior, machine behavior, and company behavior. This week that true purpose is front and center—along with its impact. The results! Listen as Gwendolyn shares the remarkable bottom line and cultural outcomes created by effectively implementing the technologies of the visual workplace: 15% to 30% increase in productivity, an aligned and engaged workforce on every level of the organization, and a complete transformation of the company into an enterprise of visual thinkers. Tune in/Learn more. Let the workplace speak.

What if 5S-from-Japan made a cozy—and permanent—home for itself in the West as a core and very successful part of continuous improvement? What if 5S triggered high, even dazzling, levels of employee engagement? What if 5S was a system that pulled high-impact operational outcomes into a place that fed the bottom line? Great questions to which your host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, says: Why not? Tune in this week as she introduces four new elements into 5S that change—everything! These four create a powerful synergy that can transform your 5S into 5S on Steroids: 1) information deficits as the enemy; 2) motion as the measure; 3) visual devices as the solution; and 4) I-driven as the engine. Traditional 5S contains no authentic call to action—and for good reason: It is first and foremost a compliance-based (not process-based) approach. So we tick off if we did/did not do what we were supposed to do, audit style. Let’s change that! Let the workplace speak. Tune in/learn more.

What if your 5S was a creative process that engages, enlivens, educates, and elevates? What if your 5S could let the workplace speak? Let’s face it: 5S has a problem, a BIG problem. And it lies at the very foundation of the 5S approach. But this problem cannot be addressed through an audit or any other piece of paper. It’s a bigger problem than that. Join us this week as visual workplace expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, shares her take on why traditional 5S is such a struggle for far too many companies. Why they have to push their 5S agenda far too often and far too hard. The problem, as Galsworth explains, is what lies beneath the 5S logo. The problem is with 5S’s internal mechanism—its central thesis or theme. Its compelling premise. What is that? What is 5S’s beating heart? Does it even have one? If your answer is not substantive and meaningful, then 5S is merely an activity your boss requires you to undertake—an activity you have to push associates to apply. Tune in/learn more.

What’s hard about a 5S audit? Not much—except most companies can’t get them started. Or if started, can’t make them stick. And did we mention the push back and/or the indifference? But it doesn’t have to be that way. Join us this week as Gwendolyn Galsworth, your host and visual workplace expert, shares six simple—but powerful—ways to tweak your approach to the 5S audit and change—well, everything. For example, have you ever considered what would happen if you let your associates own the audit format and change the items that they get audited on? Have you ever considered letting your operators audit themselves? And maybe other departments as well? Have you ever thought about actually changing audit items—so they would trigger a response that was something beyond a simple YES/NO? And how about that scoring scale? Does it work? Could it work? It’s time to rehabilitate your 5S audit—to create success for the company and develop people as well. Tune in/learn more. Let the workplace speak.

When 5S came to our shores from Japan in the early 1980s, its purpose and process seemed simple, straightforward, and useful. Easy-peasy. But implementing 5S turned into an entirely different story. Though many western companies enjoyed remarkable triumphs, others struggled—or quite simply failed. Why? Join us this week as Gwendolyn Galsworth, your host and visual workplace expert, shares her answers. In the process, she draws sharp differences between US and Japanese values. She also names three other culprits: 1) confusions in the English translation; 2) the mistaken notion that 5S was a surefire way to build an engaged workforce; and 3) the decision to use the 5S audit as a key sustainment tool. As Dr. Galsworth points out, that decision pitted a compliance format that required people to adhere to the rules of 5S—against the attempt to use the same audit to build creative improvement. The workforce balked. The gap was just too wide for many companies to bridge. Tune in/learn more.

When 5S came to the West in the early 1980s, we were inspired and eager to get on board. In a blinding flash of the obvious, we asked how we could have worked for so many decades in such cluttered, dirty work places—and achieved any level of success. But the fact is we did work in such places, without a second thought—and we became a world economic power. Go figure. With the blessing of Womack and Malcolm, we forged ahead with 5S. Countless companies achieved remarkable 5S triumphs. But many other companies failed in ways both puzzling and wrenching. In some, using the term “5S” was banned forever. This week, your host and visual workplace expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, takes a glance into the past and begins to answer the question: Why? What went wrong? Why had these unintended—often disastrous—consequences occurred? To start, she shares her take on the origins of Japan’s 5S model, its true role, and how all that fit with the values and preferences of the West. Tune in/learn more.

Is lean alone enough? Many companies attempt to convert from traditional to the new manufacturing by relying exclusively on lean tools. Hospitals and offices too. In keeping with core lean principles, they focus on reducing the time component of a process–attacking time as a cost factor in order to increase profit margin. That means reducing cycle time as well. Join Gwendolyn Galsworth, your host and visual workplace expert, as she begins a discussion thread on the interface between lean and visual. (Fasten your seatbelts because in a few short weeks, this thread will bring us face to face with the role of 5S to help or hinder.) Make no bones about it: lean (time-based improvement) is a critical step in transforming the enterprise and increasing profit margins. But impressive gains that improving your critical path can generate will erode over time—and not that much time—if you don’t take specific steps to build sustainability through visual workplace technologies. Tune in/Learn more.

Are you like Gwendolyn…never giving a thought to Kenya, its people or its economy—simply because you never went there? And then, like her, arriving at the Nairobi airport, have whole new worlds open—magical people, magical skies. Tune in this week as Dr. Galsworth, visual expert and your host, shares a wealth of surprises from her recent trip to Kenya. Surprises about operational excellence and the strides so many Kenyan companies are making to improve their processes and their work culture. Hear what she learned when she keynoted the 11th Annual Kaizen Conference. And on the Nairobi roads in endless traffic jams, as she observed Kenya’s entrepreneurial spirit—everywhere. Join her on safari with Daniel, her Masai warrior guide, as she encountered legendary African animals, closer to you than the nearest door: lion, rhino, elephant, zebra, gazelle, cheetah, water buffalo, giraffe—and the annual migration of 500,000 wildebeest. And 56 orphan elephants cared for by Kenya’s magical people

Do you mistakenly use the term “visual management” to refer to the full spectrum of visual function in the workplace? If so, you probably also mix up visual scheduling boards with visual displays. The first merely shows the production time table. The second—when properly built—reveals the pain of the supervisor in trying to achieve that time table: the barriers and constraints. The first merely makes the schedule visible. The second shows supervisors how to improve and get control over their corner of the world. The result? Margin—room to change. That is why your host and visual workplace expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, positions displays as the premier visual tool for supervisors on their way to becoming leaders of improvement. Tune in this week as she walks you through her unique process for creating visual displays—I-driven and capable of addressing production challenges even as work unfolds. Get really good at this and your displays will start talking to each other. Listen