Visual Workplace Radio: Let The Workplace Speak

How do you decide where to apply resources in order to improve? And how do you know you made the right choice? So many improvement opportunities/so little time. As part of her current series on Visual Leadership/The Executive Function, your host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, continues to un-nest the strategy of waste reduction and its macro-metric (including the story of how the West discovered it). She then explains how to harness the improvement power of your house by naming its tactical targets. Will you target product improvement—or your process? Quality or machinery? Service/support or people? You cannot do it all—so which will you do? How do you say YES to the few and WAIT to the many? And once you decide, which methods will you apply to ensure improvement happens. Tune in and learn how to turn your House into a work horse, make it whinny for its supper, and then plow up the treasures you need to improve, sustain and grow your company? Tune in/Call in: 866-472-5790.

How do you turn your “house” from a pretty poster on the boardroom wall—into a real-time improvement driver? In her on-going series on Visual Leadership/The Executive Function, your host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, un-nests the next three elements of her Operations System Improvement Template (OSIT) and a new paradigm of thinking: 1) your company’s overall improvement strategy (there’s only one that counts), 2) the macro metric that tracks the success (or failure) of that strategy, and 3) the strategic principles that anchor the people-side of moving forward. It’s time to turn BORG thinking on its head. As time allows, Gwendolyn explains the next OSIT element: Tactical Targets—and how to determine the most critical to the company’s current need to improve and grow. She encourages all listeners who are visual-leaders-in-the-making to develop their own OSIT Template, in real time, as she explains the elements in each show. Tune in and learn. Questions? Call: 866-472-5790.

How do you turn a time-worn idea in an enterprise driver? How do you make what is as obvious as wallpaper striking and relevant—so you not only see it with fresh eyes but know exactly how to use it to drive operational improvement? This week, your host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, starts the construction of the house she calls her Operations System Improvement Template (OSIT)—from the top down: customer, vision, mission. Who doesn’t think they know what these oh-so-familiar terms mean? Who doesn’t throw them around like popcorn? Join Gwendolyn on a walk through the construction site. Take the first concrete steps with her as you expand your responsibilities and learn to become a visual leader of improvement—spearheading the change you want for your company in yourself first. Gwendolyn encourages all visual leaders in-the-making to tune into the next ten shows and do the action homework that each describes—with her, in real time. And call in questions/comments: 866-472-5790.

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).

Where did our new ideas about leaders come from? What triggered the change so many leaders now seek? Should Japan really get all the credit? In today’s show, your host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, responds—and also provides an overview of the five visual constructs (tools) the new leader needs in order to understand and operationalize the corporate intent: 1) Operations Improvement Template; 2) X-Type Matrix; 3) Metrics That Drive; 4) War Room; and 5) Operations Roadmap. These five leadership tools capitalize on visuality’s power to structure in thinking and behavior—and create a new leadership paradigm that ties into the job profile presented last week. This week, Galsworth introduces the first of the five constructs: Operations Template, an advance visual organizer that provides the executive with a crystal understanding of the organization’s strengths and deficits—and what growth means for the company. This will take several shows to unfold. Tune in/call in: 866-472-5790

Is this the choice? Charismatic executive leader—born to the role and with an insatiable appetite for improvement versus some competent decision-maker who has to (and wants to) learn how to do that? It’s the wrong question. The truth is the profile of executive as improvement leader is new or new-fangled to almost everyone, including executives.Equally untried is the notion that the principles and practices of visuality will not only help but are pivotal and indispensable. Why? That is exactly what your host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, begins to un-nest and explain in this week’s show. In the process, she walks you through the seven elements of that define the executive leadership profile, paired and contrasted with the set of seven for supervisors/managers: 1) Decide vs Stabilize; 2) Align vs Measure; 3) Inspire vs Target; 4) Drive vs Deploy; 5) Verify vs Coach; and 6) Grow vs Model—which all roll up to the crowning pair: 7) Lead vs Improve. Tune in / learn more.

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

What is an effective organization? And what is the role of leadership in making it so? This week, your host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, resumes her series on visual leadership, this time focused on executives (she covered supervisors/managers last Spring). She begins by posing the two questions leaders must answer before they launch an excellence initiative: 1) Do we know what to do? 2) Do we know how to do it? In other words, is my organization ready? Readiness is a particularly thorny issue—and one that visual leadership is geared to help the executive not just answer but shape. In support, Gwendolyn converses with Alex Bleier—IT consultant and veteran of decades of IT project management—about the Software Engineering Institute Research Project on Capability Maturity Levels (Carnegie Mellon/1989). The result? A critical framework of thinking and insight for leaders—especially visual leaders-in-the-making. As relevant today as when it was published. Tune in/learn more.

The problem with using the term “line” interchangeably with “border” is that a line is a geometric coordinate. It does not have a performance function. But a border not only tangibly contributes to the nature and performance of work, it also functions dynamically as an operational partner in how, when, and where work gets done. The more we understand this, the more we recognize how borders can help us create work that makes sense. On this week’s show, Gwendolyn Galsworth (your host, author, and visual expert) discusses ways you can add dimensions of meaning to your borders so they can extend, control, and reveal the work itself. When we get very clever with borders, we can even make them imbed time into the process. Yes, borders change our understanding of the flow and changes in work content. As a result, our visual intelligence grows. And as we get smarter, our borders get smarter as well. Tune in and learn more. Amp up your 5S/Border approach! Another great Summer ENCORE.

Until a company understands the logic and power of borders, borders are merely treated as so many lines—useful for neatness and order but not much more. Few people will expect performance to improve because of them, let alone positively impact KPIs. What a surprise to discover that borders (especially when combined with robust addresses) can measurably increase productivity on the area level, even while helping build a work culture of continuous improvement if there is none. And if such a culture already exists, borders will strengthen it. On this week’s show, Gwendolyn Galsworth (your host and visual expert) presents the reasons that justify borders on a functional AND cultural basis. Tune in and learn how borders help to make the workplace transparent, building accountability and a PDCA loop into the floor and onto work surfaces. Listen as Galsworth describes dozens of examples—and you imagine/re-imagine the role robust borders can play in your company. Another great Summer ENCORE!

Borders are the work horses of operator-led visuality—but rarely used to their full potential. This week, your host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth reminds us of to first position and connect workplace items in terms of their functions. In this way, we can capitalize on the power of Smart Placement and its core formula: Function + Location = Flow. Then she tells us how to nail that connection through borders, addresses, and (if possible) ID labels: how to implement the visual where. Begin with borders, starting from the floor up. Then move to walls, benches, shelving, cabinets, and drawers—and then to what’s inside each of them. In the end, borders get installed for everything that casts a shadow—a requirement that applies equally to easy-to-move items and to those items that never budge (machines and tall shelves). Join her and learn not only how to apply borders effectively—but how to let your borders get smarter as you get smarter. Build your visual performance vocabulary.

We are visual beings and therefore we live in a visual world—and not the other way around. The world did not teach us how to communicate visually—or why. We taught it. We are sensory beings, equipped and eager to send—and receive—messages. That is why human-based environments are flooded with visual devices. Our roads and highways are only one stunning example. Why not also the workplace? In this week’s show, Gwendolyn Galsworth (your host and visual expert) explains the natural connection between visuality and us—and work. The workplace also needs to be a visual—sense-based— environment because we are a visual, sense-based, beings. Sensory beings. Without visuality at work, we are quite literally lost. We have no navigational anchor. That puts us in a state of risk. Without visuality, work can get complicated and unproductive. We struggle and it shows in our bottomline and our hearts. Tune in LIVE—and learn more about why visuality at work is not just important, it is indispensable.

How do supervisors contribute to a successful visual workplace conversion? This week, your host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, continues her series on “Becoming a Brilliant Visual Workplace Trainer”—this time focusing on the crucial role your supervisors play in your visual success. But that role is probably not what you or they think. Yes, everyone knows it is vital for supervisors (and managers) to get and stay on board. But what if they hurt process because they don’t fully understand the nature of the change visuality represents for their direct reports? Even highly successful, natural-born supervisors may need to adjust their approach. What has this got to do with becoming a brilliant trainer? EVERYTHING! Tune in as Gwendolyn discusses the four remaining principles of effective visual workplace training. When she does, the indispensable role of the supervisor may take on new meaning for you/your company. Another great ENCORE show while Gwendolyn teaches Mistake-Proofing.

What does employee involvement mean in a booming economy? Why should a company go visual when it is already selling everything it can produce? How can growing market demand make the most compelling case for a visual workplace, more compelling than the potential for cost savings could ever represent? The economy in question is China. For your host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, her recent trip to China triggered more questions on her return than were raised while she was there. But the short of it can be expressed in five words: Where does visuality fit in? Why bother? Last week, Gwendolyn shared impressions and startling discoveries (like the dragon under a super highway in Shanghai). This week she targets more strategic themes: Why does China need visuality? How does that support an already booming economy? What do US companies have in common with those in China? And why is the government of China as interested in solid responses to these questions as she is? Tune in LIVE.

China! What is the link between its 1.35 billion people and visuality? Does that carry over into factories? Where does visuality fit in with China growing economy? These questions and more are on the mind of your show host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth. This is her first real week back since she started to travel in mid-May—last stop China. The riot of experiences, impressions, and questions that have piled up over these past few months have begun to sort themselves into an array of themes that Gwendolyn wants to begin sharing this week. But there is no question about the fact that China is impressive. For her, perhaps the most stunning aspect of her trip was the level of modernity in the visual infrastructure that girds the Chinese economy. It’s all there in stunning multiples: the self-explaining roads and highways, glutted with self-regulating traffic that is wildly populated with bikes, go carts, motorcycles—and the unexpected. Tune in LIVE/Call in LIVE: 866-472-5790.

When does standardization fail? Is its real purpose a uniform and static outcome? Or is there a more dynamic result? In this week’s show, Gwendolyn Galsworth (visual expert and your host) shares her view that standardization provides us with a platform for discovery—a jumping off place for the next iteration. We are mistaken if we take a standard as an unalloyed good. If we do, our pursuit of excellence is short circuited. The goal of excellence is not a static replication of the current definition of good. In the same vein, we are sometimes surprised to learn that the Japanese educate their children in the art of discovery: how to think. Not where to find the answers but how to find them. This is exactly what Shigeo Shingo demonstrated when he sat in front of a machine for five months in order to discover the first pivotal steps in quick changeover. Tune in this week as Gwendolyn contemplates the commonalities between the Lewis & Clark Expedition and our modern pursuit of excellence.

Why do the Sami people in the Arctic have 180 words for snow and nearly 1000 for reindeer? Because words matter. Words are different because different meanings are needed. In much the same way, it is important to question why we have so many different improvement approaches and to probe our assumptions about what we believe their differences are. Our results can only be as good as our thinking. This week, Gwendolyn Galsworth (visual expert and your host) takes us through the three remaining components of the BORG mind: Borg Quality, Borg Empowerment, and Borg Standardization. What happens when we buy the marketing and not the product? Or eat the packaging instead of the meat? What happens when we organize our improvement initiatives around mistaken beliefs and fuzzy hopes? Why can’t Six Sigma eradicate defects? Why is an empowerment mandate never enough? When does the pledge to standardization defeat long-lasting improvement solutions? Another great ENCORE while Gwendolyn is in China.

Why is getting improvement going so tricky? Why do companies so often bail in the early stages—long before they have had time to fail? Why is it that the start stops us? Building on last week’s show when we learned the difference between the HOW of deployment and the WHAT, Gwendolyn Galsworth, your host and visual expert, maps out five factors that can doom our best efforts to launch successful improvement initiatives. The first factor, discussed last week, is the mistaken pursuit of perfection. Secondly, we are often far too casual about choosing the methodology itself—or it lacks a separate and robust implementation protocol. The third factor that can defeat us is when managers demand results too quickly and, in doing so, rob the organization. Fourth, our trainers begin to train groups for the wrong reasons. Fifth, implementers decide to re-shape the methodology long before they have learned it. It’s the start that stops us. Another great ENCORE show! Gwendolyn is in China.

It is a well-recognized fact that understanding WHAT to do is only half the battle in operational improvement. The other half is HOW—and then doing it. Knowledge + Know-how. In this week’s show, Gwendolyn Galsworth, your host and visual expert, shares the lessons she has taught—and learned—about getting the HOW going. If you’ve already cracked this code and learned how to deploy and make it stick, launching another improvement initiative will only strengthen you. But if you are a newcomer (or have a history of “almost-made-its”), the challenge of putting knowledge in place—so it can be and is used—can be a mighty challenge. So much is at stake: 1) promised bottom-line results; 2) cultural growth; 3) hope and confidence; and 4) the reputation of the people who promised success. Your reputation. But few authentic roadmaps exist to help with this subtle, behind-the-scenes process. It’s the start that stops us unless we know that and what to do about it. Gwendolyn is back next week.

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 alone do not trigger robust and sustainable solutions. People are needed for that. This week, your host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, explains part two of her Visual Problem Solving process: getting people engaged in developing rich problem descriptions and creating a wide array of viable solutions. To do this, we lead stake holders through a step-by-step method that allows them to share their insights and expertise in order to un-nest levels of viable solutions—and then implement them systematically. Eliminating problems is rarely a silver-bullet set of answers. We focus instead on identifying an exact array of good causes that have been tried, tested, and, through visuality, made sustainable. (An ENCORE show while Gwendolyn is in the UK.)