Visual Workplace Radio: Let The Workplace Speak

For his first 16 years with global packaging giant, MeadWestvaco ($5 billion sales/125 sites/ 16,000 employees/30 countries), Kendall Henry made success happen in many MWV facilities. If a challenge occurred, he turned to technical subject matter experts for solutions. And it worked—until it didn’t. Tune in this week when your host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, interviews MWV’s Kendall Henry. Hear what happened to change this executive’s definition of what success means and how to get it. Listen as Mr. Henry describes how he used his new role as plant manager at MWV/Slatersville (Rhode Island) to develop a spirited and engaged workforce of self-leaders and add to the improvement contribution that used to be the sole domain of technical experts. Learn how he is harnessing the power of visuality and lean to involve everyone in improving their own work daily—and become engrossed in and accountable for stabilizing and growing the Slatersville site. Tune in/learn more.

What happens when the workplace speaks? What happens when formerly voiceless work stations, equipment, tools, machines, and material communicate freely and precisely with us? What happens when we know vital information—the details of work—at a glance, without speaking a word, without asking (or answering) a single question? What happens when we take the muzzle off? Join us this week at The Visual Workplace where your host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, shares how. Learn how to imbed operational intelligence into the landscape of work—intelligence you can see, intelligence that functions. Workplace visuality is rooted in a set of powerful principles that, when systematically applied, create a reliable and highly effective operational environment you can bank on and build on. Tune in and learn why your work environment can speak only if you give it a voice. And you can only find that voice if you can “see” what is there—and more importantly what is not. Tune in/learn more.

Q: Given the array of powerful visual tools that help executives learn to lead more effectively, what tool can we use to share a sense of improvement urgency and direction on the value-add level? A: The Operations Roadmap. In this week’s show, Gwendolyn Galsworth, your host and visual workplace expert, drops into place, this final visual leadership tool. Deployed by supervisors and managers, the roadmap is a stepdown version of the X-Type Matrix, naming the company improvement goals and objectives for the year—but connected to a specific set of departmental projects and tasks. While each work area’s roadmap is locally different, it is globally framed within the company’s overall direction. The roadmap provides each department with its own window on the corporate intent and how to contribute to it. In this final show in the series, Galsworth concludes with the roadmap and brings together all six visual leadership tools so their synergy becomes plain and compelling. Tune in/learn more.

Why is a Visual War Room important? What’s its purpose? Why not rely on a rich array of data-sharing LCD monitors? Why meet daily—and ONLY for 19 minutes?! What do we meet about anyway? So many questions/so little time. This week, your host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, answers them all and builds your War Room understanding. As she maps out the three War Room stages, she explains that most organizations have to spend at least one year in Stage 1 before they even consider moving on to stage 2. Why? Because they are not ready and they know it. They know about their readiness because one of a War Room’s four purposes is to reveal (and then build) the company’s current level of leadership competency. Stage 1 companies realize what it will take to make the jump and respond to the demands of the next stage. They value those demands—and do they elect to prepare for them. This is a powerful turning point in visual leadership and for the enterprise. Tune in/learn more.

What does driving look like when you are a visual leader? It looks like a Visual War Room—a space that is intensely focused on paying special daily attention to a narrow group of time-sensitive objectives on which the daily life of your operations depend. These are not a loosely-held array of KPIs—quality, safety, cost, and delivery—that you and your operations team monitor and check but a set of tightly-defined measures, specifically chosen by the ranking site executive. This week, your host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, maps out the third tool of visual leadership for the executive: the War Room—how to structure it, when to schedule it, how to advance it and where to begin. Along the way, she outlines and corrects the most common War Room mistakes and mis-conceptions. Listen as she describes the key role your continuous improvement leaders can play in making a War Room a success and why the best War Room teams meet daily but for only 19 minutes. Tune in/learn more.

Now that you constructed your X-Type Matrix, how are you going to use it to carve out an improvement pathway—to help you lead? Because that is the proposition: The principles, tools, and practices of visual leadership shift us away from mere managing and help us strengthen and shape our skill and effectiveness as leaders. In this week’s show, your host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, reminds us of the power of the visual leadership construct (tool) called the X-Type Matrix—and why it is entirely worth developing and using. Included in this discussion is her related set of don’ts—pitfalls that have too often rendered this superb executive leadership tool a pale copy of its real potential. Developing a format that fits your annual plan on a single page (which is what the X-Type does) is a handsome accomplishment. But the real victory lies in using it to lead and then drive your company to a visionary horizon that means stability, prosperity, and growth. Tune in/learn more.

How do you define “leadership”? Do you use the time-honored words of Vance Packard, marketing guru of the 1960s: “Leadership appears to be the art of getting others to do something you are convinced should be done?” If so, you are mis-quoting Packard’s truly brilliant contribution. Just two little words missing—and, with them, all meaning. This week, your host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, supplies the two missing words and explains how the first of her five visual leadership tools helps leaders decide on and organize the corporate intent. At first glance, her Operations System Improvement Template (OSIT) may appear to be yet another take on the Toyota House (temple) that frames TPS—and as such a likely candidate for the boardroom wall. Yet when fully understood, OSIT can be the premier tool for selecting your company’s improvement horizon and connecting it directly with credible tactical targets that represent its dynamic growth. Tune in and learn more (866-472-5790).

CEOs and plant managers are right to question their status as ranking site executives. Though they may want to lead their companies to victory, they often spend most of their time merely managing and maintaining. They are right to ask: What do effective leaders do? This week, your host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, describes the heart of the bona fide leader—in her language: the barracuda leader. Her jumping off point is last week’s discussion on the maturity model the software industry developed so more of its projects would succeed. Though by no means a complete model, that model does provide a type of roadmap that at least gets the organization to the starting line. Authentic leadership, however, is so much more. Gwendolyn develops the theme of structure as a key element for transmuting executives into effective

Why is the X-Type Matrix either thrilling to those just discovering it—or a worst nightmare for those who have used it (or as they’d emphatically state: “Tried to use it!!)? In this week’s show, your host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, walks you through the basics of the X-Type Matrix: its sections and their meaning, how it is commonly used, how she prefers to have you use it—and its triumphs (which are impressive) and pitfalls (which are common but not mandatory). The fact is, the X-Type Matrix is a powerful executive leadership construct (tool) that can provide your company with your annual plan for the entire year—actionable and on a single page. Galsworth places it second, only after the Operational System Improvement Template (“House”) as a key executive framework for leading and growing the enterprise. She explains not just how the X-Type Matrix works but why its works in terms of cultural alignment and brain function (the so-called third focus). Tune in/learn more.

Why is the notion of still point important to executives—visual leaders of strategic improvement? And what the heck does “still point” mean anyway? Today, your host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, anchors last week’s discussion of chaos theory and the strange attractor in two practical examples—projects that hold the promise of transformation if associated improvement leaders hold steady to their project course. Only then is life-giving breakthrough possible. Frequently touted but rarely understood, the kaizen principle is not the preferred way to achieve and sustain continual improvement. “Better makes us best” is an appealing slogan that may help us embrace a more progressive values set but does not necessarily drive excellence. It can, instead, be a trap. This week Gwendolyn continues her visual leadership series for the executive function. As time allows, she begins the discussion of the X-Type Matrix, the second powerful executive leadership construct. Tune in/learn more.

Do your efforts to lead improvement ever seem random and erratic—producing results that are unpredictable or inconsistent? Do you, as a result, decide to abandon the endeavor and start over on some other improvement target—the notorious flavor-of-the-month syndrome? Do the so-called glories of leading improvement sound like so much hype to you—a distraction from the real business at hand: making a profit? If so, you may have unworkable notion of how improvement progress is made and long-lasting results achieved. This week your host and visual expert, Dr. Gwendolyn Galsworth, examines what most of us take for granted: improvement as a positive and staying-the-course as a leadership imperative. At its heart, the discussion is about the mysterious, nearly miraculous, role that stillness plays in leading improvement. Join us as Gwendolyn re-launches her series on visual leadership/the executive function and links dynamic systems with the role of the strange attractor. Tune in/learn more.

Lean is capable of improving the operational profile of nearly every company—and fast! But we ask: When lean turn arounds are so rapid, can the culture be transformed as well? While it’s possible, for most companies it is unlikely. And while many techniques impact cultural change, none in the view of your host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, is more powerful than the visual workplace in transforming a work culture completely and sustainably. This week Gwendolyn describes: how visuality does it. Tune in and hear how and why her visual approach engenders fierce commitment and very personal expression. Learn exactly how visuality can create connectivity in an enterprise, even tough ones. Understand the power of margin—that slightest bit of internal personal space that can and does liberate our human potential and trigger a spirited, engaged and unified workforce. Learn for yourself, why she says: visuality doesn’t just support an aligned work culture. It creates it. Listen LIVE!

Standards are the bedrock of all work, paving the way to repeatable, precise, and predictable outcomes. What manager/supervisor does not pursue standards, standard work, and standardization as the starting point of control and the end of human error? But where do Visual Standards fit in? And can they ensure exact, stable performance? In our show this week, your host and visual workplace expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, maps out the conceptual and application profile of visual standards: what they are, how they work, and what they can and cannot contribute to operational excellence. Here is the stuff and substance of Doorway 2, the category of visual function owned and led by managers, supervisors, and engineers—but also often mis-understood by them. While she is at it, Galsworth describes the trap we can fall in if we try to build adherence by standardizing visual devices instead of cultivating visual inventiveness. Tune in. You won’t want to miss this important discussion.

How do we know we’ve lubricated the machine enough? How can visual devices help us be sure? Can visuality also help us avoid the wrong lubrication? In all cases, the answer is a loud and definite YES. In this show, Gwendolyn Galsworth completes the fourth and final episode on The Visual Machine®. She presents the Six Big Mistakes in Machine Lubrication and how visuality can help us avoid many of them. brbr 1.Mistake 1: Not Enough/Not Often Enough brbr 2.Mistake 2: No Lubrication At All brbr 3.Mistake 3: Too Much Lubrication or Too Often brbr 4.Mistake 4: Wrong Lubricant brbr 5.Mistake 5: Improper Procedure brbr 6.Mistake 6: Introducing Contaminants brbr brbr Time permitting, she walks through a summary of the discussion so far, highlighting the main visual opportunities in surfacing information deficits related to the machine so they can be into an imbedded system of visual devices. Let the machine speak! Gwendolyn resumes her series on Visual Leadership for the Executive on February 5, when she returns from

Did you know: 70% to 80% of all machine failures are due to lubrication problems? Chief among the many reasons is: People don’t realize lubrication is the cause or there is something they can do about it. Did you also know that the most common response to a lubrication problem is to add more—even though over-lubrication is one of the six BIG lube mistakes? The result? Machine downtime, lost production, bad quality—and often wrecked machines. Proper machine lubrication is a serious challenge; it is also a huge opportunity. Listen as Gwendolyn Galsworth, your host and visual expert, shares her machine lubrication approach: visual and effective. Don’t expect her to name the right vs. wrong type of oil, grease or process lubes. Do expect to learn how to build a visual lube function—and how your people, tools, and targets can make it so. As part of that, she walks through those six BIG lube mistakes—and, as time permits, the visual part of their solutions. Let the workplace speak!

Why bother to apply visual thinking to a machine if you’ve already decided which devices you will put on it? Just stick them in place and do the minimum. It’ll help—a little. But why not go further? Why not get the machine to cough up its secrets? Tell you its worries and woes? Why not make a partner of the machine so it can help you in your work? Listen as Gwendolyn Galsworth, your host and visual expert, shares more of her approach to the visual machine. Hear her six principles of visual thinking, specifically ordered for equipment-based visuality. Use them to spot motion and information deficits hidden deep in the routine of buzzing machines. Use them to develop devices that do not resemble so many cookies in a row—but rather a yummy layer cake of visual inventions that clarify work content, illuminate problems, and make a huge performance difference. Learn to think visually and develop true visual innovations, never been seen on the planet before. Tune in/learn more.

Do you have unplanned machine downtime? Are quality problems related to machine and operator performance plaguing your planning? Are quick changeovers not quick at all? The Visual Machine® solves these challenges and more. When machine visuality is missing, we are forced to resort to memory, word-of-mouth, costly trial-and-error—and tons of struggle. Let your machine speak by installing vital operational information through visual devices and mini-systems. Tune in this week and hear Gwendolyn Galsworth, your host and visual workplace expert, share her insights and tools for imbedding vital machine information into the landscape of the equipment. When you do, machines become self-explaining—and you become self-regulating. Make all relevant information available at a glance through machine visuality: performance data, SOPs, calibration protocols, metrics, safety procedures, lube points, standards of usage—as well as preventive maintenance activities and schedules. Let the machine speak.

Do you mistakenly believe the visual workplace is merely a series of point solutions—helpful, even clever—but not much more? If so, your expectations of visuality are too small for the quantity of information deficits in your company. This week, Gwendolyn Galsworth, your host and visual expert, puts her series on Visual Leadership on pause in order to share five telling perspectives on workplace visuality. This begins with the fact that visuality is a dynamic language, an imbedded vocabulary that makes your operational system reliable and robust. Tune in and learn why Gwendolyn says: 1) Lean does not include visual; 2) Visuality and lean are equal partners in operational excellence; 3) Visuality puts 5S on steroids; 4) visual technologies create a spirited, engaged work culture, even on the executive level; and 5) Visual thinking provides a new core competency that not only reduces waste but also aligns and unifies. Upgrade your expectations—and your results. Tune in/learn more.

What’s missing from the Toyota Temple and its many clones? Why aren’t stairs, four pillars, and a roof enough? This week, Gwendolyn Galsworth, your host and visual expert, completes her treatment of her Operations System Improvement Template, constructing the bottom two levels during the show: Tactical Targets and the Methods/Tools that drive TIME out of the equation. Which improvement targets are mission-critical—and which are optional? As Dr. Galsworth explains, an organizing template is of little importance unless a link can be forced between the customer and the improvement direction of the enterprise. Without a laser focus, a company may simply engage in improvement activity because: “Everyone knows better makes us best.” That kind of logic may work on a day-to-day level but it will mislead us when we attempt to engage a macro-strategy. Listen as Gwendolyn walks you through your six tactical choices and how they link to what is/is not in your tool chest. Tune in/learn more.

Who would dare ask this question: How much waste reduction is enough? ‘Sounds like heresy, doesn’t it? But to the executive leader it could start sounding pretty darn smart. This week, Gwendolyn Galsworth, your host and visual expert, responds to this and other questions about your operational improvement strategy. She will also her survey of the meaning and application of the House, a core mechanism of Visual Leadership/The Executive Function. That discussion reaches into the importance of finding and deploying a tactical focus in order to achieve strategic outcomes. You won’t be able to harness the improvement power of your House if you stop short of selecting viable, mission-critical tactical targets. What will it be: product development? Process improvement? Defect reduction? More machine uptime? Better customer service? You can’t do it all—and you don’t want to. How do achieve world-class and still not do everything? How much waste reduction is enough? Tune in/learn more.