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Driving Efficiency in Leadership: Adopting Lean Strategies for CEO Success

Lean Initiatives will never work unless you start with a strategy to eliminate wasteful management practices.

Now don’t get scared, I’m not talking about chopping headcount! This is short sighted as a way to get financial gains, yet so many organizations engage in this proactiveness. Lean is about eliminating the waste that was created to serve leaders vs. the value added activities that serve the people that impact your customers.

If I’ve made you feel uncomfortable, I’ve done my job well!

If you’d like to learn more about doing Lean right, read on…

Let’s use a typical production example to explain what I mean.

An operator on the floor can increase their output to improve the workplace organization so a team is deployed to “fix” the symptom.

But why do the conditions exist to create a workplace set up that was not optimal? Was it a legacy set up? Was it set up with certain outcomes in mind?

Did we leave it up to the operator to create their own work standard?

Regardless of the history, the operator was not set up for optimal efficiency hence why we deploy Lean Methodology to “fix” the symptom.

But what are the management practices that allow the conditions of an inefficient workplace to exist for the operator for which we now need to fix him and his workplace?

The reason why this happens is that leadership is more interested in getting the equipment in place with the promise of efficiency and cost savings. They don’t take the time to understand the interactions with the operator..

Had leadership started from a place of how the operator had optimal conditions to leverage the efficiency of the new equipment, might there have been a different result?

Instead, we deploy consultants, hours of training of white, yellow, green and black belts to hurry, scurry and do the work and claim success when we save a few dollars here and there.

I’m not saying I’m anti-Lean, but had we dealt with the management practices at the top when deploying an organizational design, we might have realized the lean efficiency out of the gate?

Lean starts with a leadership strategy at the top:

  • What Management practices need to exist to set the organization up for success?
  • What Conditions exist to management practices that need to be mitigated to eliminate the opportunity for inefficiency?
  • And have we evaluated the Symptoms that exist due to the conditions to assure we identify the possible causes for inefficient performance?

It’s not about throwing more resources to find a solution.

It’s about setting up the right Lean Leadership Strategy so you don’t have to allocate more resources later due to short-sighted decisions.

One client of mine did not have regular leadership meetings to discuss changes in the organization and actions needed to mitigate risk. Then one day, a risk manifested into a crisis and now I have the good fortune to “Drop In” to fix the issue and set up the conditions to mitigate the risk in the future. Had the organization had the Management Practice of a regular leadership cadence, might they have seen the risk and mitigated the condition before the crisis happened?

Given this insight, let’s turn to your situation.

Have you deployed initiatives that fail to gain traction?

Are you now throwing money at bad hoping to get better?

Are you doubting yourself because you didn’t get the results you expected due to a poor execution strategy that should have dealt with management practices?

If this is you or someone you know, could we have a conversation to adopt these insights to your situation and set you up for success?

For the unfiltered, off the cuff discussion about this topic, please listen to my podcast airing on 2/16/24 and view the video so you see how I really feel about this topic!.

If you are a CEO who would love a partner to help you with a business challenge, be your #2 or help develop the team of tomorrow, let us partner in 2024.

Be well-Deb

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How to Create Momentum and Drive Success as an Emerging Leader

Throughout my career, I get excited about new initiatives and often put a lot of time into thinking about possibilities. However, big ideas can fall flat if we don’t now how to move them forward. Let me share a client story so you understand what I mean.  

Let’s call this client Mike, who I was working with to evolve their continuous improvement program. Weeks and months would go by where we wouldn’t get visibility to the status of the initiative. Often he would deflect or make excuses or if you came to him in person, you would get a verbal status. It became frustrating for leadership not to have the report for this initiative to track his progress and make sure he stayed on track. 

Upon further discussion with him, he was always the execution guy, but never had to report formally to leadership. He never had a framework. I worked with him on what information would be required by leaders for a monthly high level status report and then we built a schedule for him to collect the data, review, and issue on a monthly basis. Once that system was built, getting support for the initiative was easy because it was visible. 

We make assumptions that people know how to kick off an initiative, but the reality is the plan is often already laid out for them, leaving them to execute. Knowing how to build a plan and keeping accountable to your own plan is a skill many leaders don’t have. They fall victim to the easy fire fighting and any other problem that comes in their door. They know how to solve problems, but fail to have a reliable system to plan, prevent and ultimately improve through initiatives. 

Creating momentum behind an initiative is a harder skill than you think and often missed when elevating to the C-Suite. 

Here are some thoughts on how to build a process to move your initiatives forward:

  • Confirm you are still committed to the initiative. Moving forward without passion will kill success out of the gate.
  • Put your thoughts down on paper to get a high level view of your idea. Don’t seek perfection, seek to iterate. 
  • Run it by a stakeholder ask for feedback. Making a proposal is already a step towards leadership.
  • Build in accountability – weekly report and reminders until it becomes routine.
  • Communicate, communicate, communicate and acknowledge the collaboration of others. It’s not just about moving your initiative forward, but also gaining the collaboration of others. 

These are simply ideas to get you moving your initiative forward. However, if you still struggle, I ask you a few questions:

  • If you can’t master this skill, how can you ensure others will replicate your behavior?
  • If you aren’t committed, should you be a leader or simply a single contributor?
  • If you’ve mastered this and your team around you has challenges, do you have the courage to ask for help if you don’t have the capacity to elevate others?

These are bold questions for which leaders must face and be able to answer. Now I challenge you to act. Look at your initiative and apply this framework or something of your own making.

Do you still have questions unique to your situation? Consider The Drop In CEO Collective to pose these challenges or reach out to me direct for a quick conversation.

P.S. Stay ahead of the curve in your industry and get to the point of what C-Suite leaders need to know by joining the Get to the Point Newsletter.  You’ll be the first to hear about the latest trends, insights, and strategies that can take your business to the next level.

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