Visual Workplace Radio: Let The Workplace Speak

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!

Shall we resume? Gwendolyn Galsworth, your host and visual workplace expert, has been ill and away from her radio microphone since the end of November. Now she is back and raring to tell you about the two plants she visited in December: Genie/Terex, a lean classic outside of Seattle—and Fast Cap, an innovation jewel near Canada, about to expand ten times its current size. Both plants have tremendous operational strengths. And both are visual—after a fashion. And that is exactly what makes their stories so interesting. Tune in this week—when Gwendolyn is back LIVE—and hear what she learned as she toured these two lively companies and quietly assessed their visual presents and futures. Listen as she frames a discussion about growing a company’s improvement level so it is scalable to an expanded future. Learn how to create this in your company using principles as the fresh base of change instead of simply trying to repeat the past. This is a live show. Call ins are welcome: 866-472-5790.

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 ENCORE SHOW.

Operators who implement the Visual Where (5S) to their level of need often believe that the company is 90% through its journey to a fully-functioning visual workplace. Instead, fully-implemented, the Visual Where can only ever represent 25%-35% of the final outcome. Nonetheless, the formula of “Border + Address + ID Label for Everything That Casts a Shadow” represents the indispensable first step on that powerful journey. In this week’s show, Gwendolyn Galsworth, your host and visual workplace expert, reminds you of the purpose, power, and function of borders. Then she walks you through rules, tips, and innovations associated with applying addresses. Learn to drill still deeper by applying that formula to small clusters of linked function that Galsworth calls visual mini-systems. Tune in while she shares training tips to help you create 5S outcomes that ignite and inspire value-add associates even as these outcomes directly impact the bottom line. Our Encore show for a Happy Holiday.

The world of work can sometimes resemble politics—where the method of choice for handling differences is often further polarization: Go to your corners and come out fighting. Though trendy, playing our differences against each other is rarely effective. In this week’s show, your host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, recounts the true story of Pro-Life and Pro-Choice groups doing the hard work of seeking and finding common ground. Though polar opposites, they learned a new way and broke the myth of either/or choices. The same is possible in the workplace—beginning with an executive decision to invert the power pyramid and develop a new power proposition with value-add associates. The result? Alignment and the simultaneous definition of areas of commonality and areas of enduring differences. The outcome: unity. And throughout, managers and supervisors are caught in the middle. Another great ENCORE show. (Sorry: Though Gwendolyn is much better, her voice has yet to return.)

Who has not heard the discussion of employee empowerment begin with the well-worn top/down pyramid and its seeming opposite—the bottom/up pyramid? The question is not which of the two pyramids to reject but rather how do we blend the two into a single framework of excellence. In this week’s show, your host and visual expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, begins to map out that process and the new paradigm of leadership and participation that results. At the heart of that paradigm is the re-distribution of power—beginning with the role of executive as leader in charge of identifying, articulating, and driving the corporate intent. This is the realm of the executive WHAT and WHY. Contrast this, Galsworth urges, with the bottom-up or empowerment pyramid with its steady focus on the value-add level HOW: operational performance. This order of aligned enterprise is a perfect blending of the two. Another great ENCORE show. (Sorry, Gwendolyn is still sick as a doggie; we expect her back next week.)

What’s special about scrubbing the workplace? Or about safety for that matter? And what’s the real reason we implement so-called “lines and labels?” (In fact, there are eleven such reasons.) In this show on 5S, your host and visual workplace expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, un-nests the engines behind the four of the five Ss (or six, depending how you count). Listen as she tells you why she calls her approach to industrial housekeeping “5S on Steroids”. And learn about the logic of smart placement, the step Gwendolyn developed to make sure when you lay down the lines, they contribute to metrics-driven performance and the bottom line. Hear about many different types of borders, and the powerful role an address plays, even when your borders are color-coded. Speaking of color-coding, do you know how that can go wrong, very wrong? Join us and find out. This is the show when 5S ramps up beyond neat and clean and soars into visuality! Another great ENCORE episode.

What is a visual workplace—and why is it important? How do you develop workplace visuality in operations and company wide? These are just a few of the questions Gwendolyn Galsworth, visual system expert and award-winning author, answers on this week’s show. Tune in while Dr. Galsworth shows you: why workplace visuality is the glue that holds all other improvement methods together, how it strengthens lean initiatives yet remains its own distinct strategy—and why visuality creates cultural alignment by liberating information and, in the process, liberating the human will. Learn how visuality is used to translate information into exact behavior and make the workplace speak. Whether you work in a factory, bank, hospital, engineering office, military depot or open-pit mine, listen and build your knowledge and know-how of visual workplace technologies and the principles and practices that drive them. Another great ENCORE show. And Happy Thanksgiving!

All trainers are in training. The act of training others is in itself a learning experience—a closed loop feedback system. So how do we help our Trainers steadily improve—become more effective and get better results? In today’s show, Dr. Galsworth, your host and visual expert, continues her discussion of The GRID: a tool she uses to discover how the trainers she trains are faring—in terms of the business impact, their inner stability, and the support they do (or do not) receive. Along with that, Gwendolyn introduces The PYRAMID—another tool she uses to help her diagnose the learning readiness of trainers or any group. Whether trainers, operators, engineers or CEOs, the pyramid helps her gauge the extent to which they are ready for tasks—or still need more process. And, finally, she concludes her description of The DEBRIEF PROTOCOL she follows when coaching a trainer, one-on-one—so that hearts and minds stay open to feedback, especially when it is tough. Listen LIVE. Call in!

Do you spend much time thinking about how to support your visual workplace trainers? Are you wise about ensuring your feedback to them is positive yet precise? Do you know how to care for and nourish these fine individuals upon whom so much of the success of your visual conversion depends? As you’ve learned over the past many shows on “Becoming a Brilliant Visual Workplace Trainer,” these instructors cannot simply walk through the material and hope it sticks. A great deal of planning and preparation goes into every session—at least for the first few training cycles. And then there is the inevitable homework, as you learned in our last trainer show. No doubt about it: It’s a big job. This week, Dr. Gwendolyn Galsworth, visual expert and award-winning author, discusses the quality and quantity of feedback visual trainers need so they can continue to get the job done—and do even better. Listen LIVE as Gwendolyn shares her own protocol for doing just that. Thursday/10 am/Pacific.

Workplace information can change quickly and often—products, schedules, specifications, tooling, parts, methods, and the thousands of other details on which the daily life of the enterprise depends. How can busy (often harried) supervisors and managers stay on top of this ever-shifting detail and still make sound, timely decisions? The answer is: visual displays/production control boards, the category of visual function that is Doorway 3 in the Ten Doorways framework. This week, Gwendolyn Galsworth (your show host and visual workplace expert) defines visual displays: physical presentations of multi-layered information in single, interactive formats. Their purpose? To enable us to see and understand complex information at-a-glance, understand a situation's status, and take correct, timely, and independent action. Tune in and learn how displays get developed (I-driven) and help us gain control over our corner of the world, even when the pressure is on. Another great ENCORE show!

In school, teachers love to give homework. But what about in the workplace? What does homework mean there? And what homework do Trainers do to make the grade? In this week’s show (at our new Thursday time), Gwendolyn Galsworth, author and visual workplace expert, focuses on just that as her series on “Becoming a Brilliant Visual Workplace Trainer” continues: the importance of trainers doing their homework so they come to the training room prepared to help others learn. The savvy trainer, for example, knows she can’t implement visually in a multi-shift operation simply by letting people “improve things.” In multi-shift improvement, she knows she has to factor in that different people (sometimes a lot of them) share the same real estate—and never even see each other, let alone confer. What to do? Do your homework, Mr. Trainer! And listen to Gwendolyn as she shares how she handles this situation—often across five shifts! Tune in/call in at our new time: Thursdays, 10:00 am/Pacific.

What happens when trainers engage our senses and our brain in the training room? We learn! We learn through the body/brain connection. Savvy trainers know that whatever our senses experience gets transmitted to the brain. If we feed the senses as we share knowledge, the learner absorbs more of that knowledge—and hungers for more. This week on The Visual Workplace (at our new time), Gwendolyn Galsworth, author and visual workplace expert, continues her discussion on teaching visuality through knowledge principles and our senses. Why? So we invent visual solutions that work seamlessly and with precision. Just like the device a herd of cows in Colorado encountered one day as they moseyed from pasture to pasture. The cows did exactly the right thing (even calves)—the very thing these cows would have wanted to do anyway. They did it seamlessly, without uttering a single moo. Vital information, visually shared. But how? Tune in and find out at our new time: Thursdays, 10:00 am/Pacific.

How does a visual workplace instructor produce “new thinking” as a training outcome? Why bother to provide a “feast for the mind?” How do we use examples of great visual solutions to stimulate and inspire? These are only a few of the questions Gwendolyn Galsworth, your host and visual workplace expert, answers in this week’s show as she continues to describe the actual training process—as part of her current series on “How to Become a Brilliant Visual Workplace Trainer.” Listen and learn why visuality must be taught with precision, flair, and rigor in order for participants (visual thinkers-in-the-making) to understand what drives visual information sharing— and, as a result, to invent splendid visual solutions of their own. Tune in and learn about: a) the two primary principles of workplace visuality; and 2) how to use motion as a lever. Note: On Thursday/October 24, our show moves to a new time—Thursdays at 10:00 am/Pacific Time. Same great show—at a more convenient time for you!

What’s next? The physical training room is in tip-top shape, you as a trainer know whom to train—and how to handle some quirky issues that surface on your way to your training launch. And thanks to last week’s show, you also better understand what supervisors and managers do during training sessions (Gwendolyn will finish up the last three of the nine principles she started last week). What’s next? Now we get down to brass tacks: Just what do trainers teach? What do you talk about? What do you explain? How do you get people to learn about and apply visuality? How do they become visual thinkers? And what does Galsworth mean when she tells us (repeatedly!): Trainers have to do their homework or the learning won’t happen? What is that about? Tune in this week and get the next dose of how to become a brilliant visual workplace trainer, as Gwendolyn Galsworth, your host and visual workplace expert, continues her series on just that. This is a LIVE show. Call-ins welcome!

How do supervisors contribute to a successful visual workplace conversion? This week, your host and visual workplace expert, Gwendolyn Galsworth, continues her series on “Becoming a Brilliant Visual Workplace Trainer”—this time focusing on the crucial role supervisors play in a visual transformation. 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 spoil the 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 and your company. This is a LIVE show. Your call-in is welcomed!

Did you listen to our very first all-call-in show a few weeks ago when folks emailed or called in a comment or burning question for Gwendolyn, our host and visual workplace expert? We heard from Colin (an industrial engineer) who wanted to know how to become a visual workplace trainer. Whitney (from HR) also called in: Her boss wants her to “improve” the traditional 5S Audit the company has been using for years—but which, to quote Whitney, “is boring and only about neat and clean.” Bob also called in to find out how to get borders to stick on a shop floor made in the 1890s. And we heard from Margie who started developing visual devices in her office cubby based on the need-to-know/need-to-share; now she wants to go further. Great questions! Great responses! Plus, each of these listeners got one of Gwendolyn’s books FREE as a Thank You. And we are going to do it again this week! Call in with your comments and issues at: 866-472-5790. Or email them to: radio@visualworkplace.com. THANKS!

Whether you are new or very experienced as a trainer, there are special things to learn in order to become an exceptional visual workplace trainer. This week, Gwendolyn Galsworth, award-winning author and visual workplace expert, continues her trainer series and shares the first five of her Nine Principles of Effective Training—principles that build knowledge, understanding, skill, and confidence for trainer and learner alike. Listen as Gwendolyn discusses: 1) Principle One/Inspire First, Then Inform; 2) Principle Two/Start Small (growth is faster/deeper as a result); 3) Principle Three/The First Cycle is for the Trainer; 4) Principle Four/Everyone Gets Trained (representative training is not effective); 5) Principle Five/Make the Training Room Physically & Psychologically Safe for Learning (operationalize “Respect for the Individual”). In support of Principle 5, Galsworth shares two sub-techniques: “Normalize the Room” and “Talk Amongst Themselves.” Tune in for all this and more!

Let’s mix it up! This week we continue our discussion on becoming a brilliant visual workplace trainer—but with a twist: You will be the biggest part of the show! Yes, we will begin a real-time conversation between you and Gwendolyn Galsworth, your host, visual expert and prize-winning author. Call in to comment on or ask questions about—well, anything. Your experiences as a visual trainer? Or what you discovered about the best material for borders on an epoxy floor? Or ways to use color-coding to strengthen quality? Or how about sharing your thoughts on getting more management buy-in? Or how to imbed visual info on a machine? You choose. Gwendolyn happily responds. September 20 marks the start of our third year on the air. Just over 100 shows. Add yourself to the equation and be part of the show. The following week, Gwendolyn will share more on becoming a truly impressive trainer of visuality. But this week, it’s time to call in: 866-472-5790. Or email us: radio@visualworkplace.com

Are there natural-born visual workplace trainers? Is training visuality so different from training other topics? How much is a trainer responsible for people’s learning—and for their implementation results? What are some common training mistakes? What are the tricks—and the golden secrets? In today’s show, Gwendolyn Galsworth, visual workplace expert and prize-winning author, shares insights and guidelines into successfully training workplace visuality so the results build the bottom-line and strengthen employee engagement and cultural alignment. Tune in and learn the importance of: a) the training room space, b) giving/receiving trainer feedback, c) continuity in teaching, d) relying too heavily on people’s creativity, e) the central role of supplies on hand, e) not standardizing too soon, f) doing your homework, and g) training effectively across multiple shifts. While we are at it, what are reasonable expectations of support from senior management? This is a LIVE show. Call in!