Visual Workplace Radio: Let The Workplace Speak

How is it that Sheldlah choose to pursue problem solving (“PS”) with such strength that, in 1987, it adopted this definition: “A problem is any thing that inconveniences anyone downstream?” 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 many companies, PS merely organizes the noise around a problem and makes it more approachable—instead of doggedly pursuing cause. But chronic problems exist on a nested or multi-layered level; 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 her as she shares the definition of a standard that Dr. Ryuji Fukuda revealed to her in 1985 that almost made her drop her teacup. An ENCORE Episode while Gwendolyn travels.

The pursuit of causality is a powerful but underutilized component of leadership. It remains only a concept until we harness people’s interest in cause and can steer them down the causal chain. As Gwendolyn Galsworth, your host and visual expert, resumes her discussion of supervisors as Leaders of Improvement, she introduces a third visual tool for supervisors: dynamic problem-solving. Gwendolyn focuses on: a) how to use the so-called ScoreBoard technique to get and keep people involved, b) the vital activity between sessions, and c) the joy and adventure of traveling down the causal chain. Pushing on easy solutions may gain us inches but it will never turn us—or the enterprise—into a driving force for improvement. In this final episode in her current treatment of supervisor-as-visual-leader, Gwendolyn describes how to use the ScoreBoard Diagram to empower people and target and hold their improvement fervor as they discover, understand, and control. Tune in LIVE/call in: 866-472-5790.

Back briefly from her travels, Gwendolyn Galsworth, your host and visual expert, shares highpoints and hitches from her recent trip. She covers a wide range of topics, many of them lessons not yet learned—or learned but forgotten. Why, for example, is quick changeover important—and why track the time of each and every machine set up? Or how is it that six sigma is not effective in detecting or reducing defects? And here’s another puzzle: What’s the difference between operational excellence and continuous improvement—and why should we care? Having straight, unambiguous answers to such questions can make the difference between the growth of the enterprise and a constant erosion of that same company’s potential. This trip was a powerful reminder of the importance of getting the thinking straight first—and letting actions and metrics flow from that. Tune in LIVE and hear Gwendolyn’s commentary on these matters—as well as why it is important to not standardize visual devices.

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 returns next week.

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 workplace expert, shares the lessons she has taught—and learned—about getting HOW going. If you have 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. Another great ENCORE show while Gwendolyn travels.

Strange that most of us believe we know how 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. Gwendolyn is traveling and so we present this very cool ENCORE show!

How does a supervisor or manager use problem-solving to become a more effective leader? How are problem-solving and driving the corporate intent connected? In this week’s show, Gwendolyn Galsworth your host and visual workplace expert, continues to un-nest the power of visual problem-solving by detailing the process she calls ScoreBoarding—whose ancestor was CEDAC, Ryuji Fukuda’s masterful process for creating new standards from the detritus of the past. Tune in as she connects her recent discussions on visual metrics/stacked metrics to the creation of a sequence of good causes that become your new SOPs—and your problems solved! This is a rare opportunity to get an audio primer on a robust methodology that produces a system of long-term solutions for those complex, chronic problems that often seem out of the control of operations. Listen as Dr. Galsworth describes how to use the ScoreBoarding architecture to get the control back—and lead! Tune in/call in: 866-472-5790.

As supervisors and managers embrace their new identities as Visual Leaders of Improvement, they will be faced, at a some point, with the nitty gritty part of that role: problem-solving, actual and real. As your host and visual expert, Dr. Gwendolyn Galsworth, explains: This is not delegated to an underling but lead by the leader him or herself (at least until the mold is set and the practice oiled and well-understood). Leadership depends on the right understanding of both the destination and the road to it. This week, Gwendolyn shares her perspectives on solving chronic, costly, complex problems—as a segment of her Visual Leadership model. Linked tightly to the visual (stacked) metrics she has discussed in the past three shows, visual problem-solving has a definite perspective on cause, causality, and the causal chain—and creates the three outcomes needed: solutions, alignment, and profit. A3 offers some help but is not a complete answer. Learn more. Tune in/call in: 866-472-5790.

How do I use visual metrics in a food processing plant? In an office? What if no one in my area wants to measure anything? How many stacked metrics can I track at a time? Who updates the metric? How do I handle two shifts that want to measure different things, without piling a lot of work on me, the supervisor: day shift wants to track quality—night shift wants to track downtime? This week is a Mail Bag Show at The Visual Workplace where your host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, responds to questions and comments you emailed in. The focus is her recent shows on measurement systems and how supervisors can use them to become leaders of improvement. Tune in for your savvy questions—and pretty darn good responses. Remember: If we use your question on air, we send you one of Gwendolyn’s prize-winning books—FREE. Learning about visual metrics is important. Putting them into action is even better. Your questions show that you are ready to take this on. Tune in/call in: 866-472-5790.

KPIs are a popular measurement approach. They are everywhere and here to stay. But that doesn’t mean they are a reliable way to improve. In fact, KPIs are structurally incapable of improvement—except as a kind of motivating shock like a bad report card when we were kids. Our parents get on our case; we knuckle down: get better grades quick—solve the problem. And we usually do—solve it enough for the KPI to bump up enough. A pattern forms: bad KPI + vigilant boss + enough problem solving = enough improvement. But what would happen if the measures themselves triggered improvement—without the stuff in the middle? If problem solving happened as we measured? That is exactly what visual metrics do—they stack cause and reveal the improvement pathway, in one fell swoop. This week, your host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, walks you through the purpose and power of visual metrics and shows you how to use them. AND that can change everything. Tune in LIVE. Call in LIVE: 866-472-5790.

POP QUIZ: Q/1: How many sets of measures do you need to improve a department’s performance? Answer: one. Q/2: Who owns that measure? Answer: The user. Q/3: Why is it critical for us to understand the importance of those two questions and how to respond to them fully and correctly? For answers, listen to Dr. Gwendolyn Galsworth this week as she lays out that logic. With examples and stories, Gwendolyn shows you how to begin constructing a measurement system that drives—and why it’s mission-critical. It starts with the first brick: identify the owner of the metric and then its voice. Only then will the metric illuminate cause. Only then can it drive. Learn, as Galsworth first walks you through a set metrics that don’t work—that can’t work. Then hear how to shift them. The fact is: metrics can perform on a level far distant from and far better than merely counting and tracking. They can do more than simply monitor performance. They can improve it. Tune in LIVE and call-in: 866-472-5790.

Too often, we make the mistake of thinking that making measures visible (tacking them on a bulletin board) has the power to create improvement. It does not—and that includes your KPIs (key performance indicators). KPIs show only. They monitor performance but they do not change it. Why? Because they cannot. KPIs cannot cause improvement because they are not structured to do so. But Visual Metrics are—the next tool in the supervisor’s visual leadership tool box. In this week’s show, Dr. Gwendolyn Galsworth—your host and visual workplace expert—defines and discusses visual metrics: a category of visual function that speaks in the voice of the user, defines performance in concrete, local terms, and illuminates cause. And because they illuminate cause, visual metrics are capable of driving down the causal chain. And driving, as you know, is the most powerful form of leading. Tune in and learn what visual metrics are, how to develop them, and how to use them to lead: to drive excellence.

“How do I start leading visually—I’m a supervisor?” “How can I lead when I spend most of my time filling out reports?” “What the difference between visual leadership and supervisor standard work?” “How does leading visually help my operators?” These are just a few of the questions you emailed in to your host, Dr. Gwendolyn Galsworth, across the first eight episodes of her Visual Leadership series. Questions are always the first part of learning anything new—including new ways of being and behaving. Your questions show you want to learn a new way—or help others learn it. (Plus five of you will receive one of Gwendolyn’s books as a thank you.) Here are some more of your questions: “I can’t change what my boss wants on my scheduling board, but that board doesn’t help me—it helps her. What do I do?” “Who updates a visual display—and what happens if they forget?” This is a live Q&A show. Call in with your own question and we’ll send you one of Gwendolyn’s books: 866-472-5790. Listen!

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

What are the visual tools of the new leadership for supervisors? Last week your host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, presented their seven-element new role description. After a short reminder of how supervisors begin to practice these new skills, Galsworth introduces a nested framework of visual functions, designed to equip traditional supervisors and executives to take on their new leadership roles. The first of these visual functions is Visual Displays: multi-layered information delivered in single, interactive format. Displays enable us to see the relationship between complex information at-a-glance, understand status, and take correct, timely, and independent action—based solely on the info in that display. Tune in and learn why effective displays are always I-driven and how they help harried supervisors: a) secure control over their corner of the world, and b) gain the internal margin needed to become effective visual leaders of improvement. Call-in LIVE: 866-472-5790.

What good is new knowledge if we don’t put it to use? Last week, your host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, walked through her seven-element model for shifting supervisors over to a new role: leaders of improvement—and not just expediters of logistics and ace firefighters. This week she shows you how to help supervisors learn that model and put it into action. She shares her Seven-Skill Grid—a tool by which supervisors can self-diagnose their current skill level as visual leaders and then target which skill they first want to strengthen. Knowledge of each of those supervisory leadership skills is essential. Of equal importance is the opportunity to practice that one new behavior with a buddy—build it, achieve it, and then pursue another. Eating the elephant one bite at a time. Production chiefs and managers help through teaching and coaching. Everyone gets a chance to stretch and contribute. Change is never easy, especially when oneself is the focus. Tune in and learn more.

What does a leader of improvement on the supervisory level do? Does that new role overlap with traditional supervisory duties? And how can visuality help? This week, as her series on Visual Leadership continues, Dr. Gwendolyn Galsworth (your host and visual expert) maps out the seven elements of what a leader of improvement on the supervisory level does—and how visuality is the glue that holds them all together: 1) stabilize the work area; 2) measure performance by focusing on what winning means; 3) target specific improvement outcomes; and 4) deploy the needed activity to meet each target. For Element 5/Coach, Galsworth draws the difference between teaching and coaching. In 6/Model, she describes behaviors that reveal and inspire. In 7/Improve, she demonstrates ways that the new area leader can make improvement contributions of his or her own. Tune in LIVE and learn how these elements work together and how your supervisors can gain skills and experience in each. Call-in: 866-472-5790.

What do supervisors do? What is their job? Is that job the same in companies pursuing the new excellence? This week, in the fourth show of her new Visual Leadership series, Dr. Gwendolyn Galsworth, your host and visual expert, shares her perspective on supervisors and their work. While not yet widely recognized, this perspective tells of a new role for supervisors, one that is pivotal and transformative. Galsworth describes that new role—not as logistical expeditors—but as Leaders of Improvement, a revolutionary principle that can trigger a deep cultural shift. When supervisors learn and adopt this new role (this wider identity), everything changes and for the better, including supervisors themselves. This new job description is a complete replacement for the old way and has a powerful counterpart for executives (which Galsworth covers in future shows). Tune in as she begins to share her leadership model for supervisors. Invite your staff to listen LIVE. Call in: 866-472-5790.

How does the logic of visual thinking relate to leadership? Do the same core visual principles apply to a leader who wants to make his job more effective, stable, and imbedded? Can it really be said that a leader becomes more effective when she uses visual devices to assist her in achieving her required day-to-day outcomes? In this third show of her new series—The Principles & Practices of Visual Leadership—Dr. Gwendolyn Galsworth, your host and visual expert, sets out a line of logic that helps us understand the leader as “just another I-driven visual thinker.” But she also identifies the conditions and qualities that make leader-led visuality distinctly different and apart from operator-led visuality. As she explains, while the building blocks of the visual thinking are the same for every employee, the unique pressures of leadership expose a different set of expectations and a unique definition of both work and the leader’s value field. Call in questions/comments: 866-472-5790.

What is visual leadership? Why is it so important? How do leaders become more effective? And what does “effective leadership” mean anyway? These are just a few of the questions your host and visual expert, Dr. Gwendolyn Galsworth, tackles this week as she launches her new series on visual leadership. The fact is: Compelling, natural leaders are rare in any field—regardless of industry or venue. Executives, managers, supervisors! To make a compelling leadership contribution to the enterprise, you need to do more than simply chase down information, monitor KPIs, submit reports, and show up for meetings. You need to change your job description, and in the process, change yourselves. Fire the boss that you are—and hire a new one. You need to transform your identity. But identities shift only when we see and understand ourselves differently. Tune in as Gwendolyn maps out a fresh understanding of leaders at work and how visuality can help. This is a LIVE show. Call in: 866-472-5790.