learning Archives - Better Process Solutions

Using reflection to learn

You can use reflection to learn from your mistakes.

Do you remember the last time you felt defeated? How did you feel after making a mistake? Perhaps you felt angry, upset, or fearful. How did you react? What did you do after that mistake? The way you respond during the heat of the moment is significant. However, what you do after, is what is even more critical. In continuous improvement, we use reflection to learn from our mistakes.

Get in the habit of analyzing your mistakes.

I read an article from Justin Bariso regarding an online course he took from Garry Kasparov. Kasparov is a chess strategist who uses reflection to learn from his mistakes. Bariso indicated in this article that there is one lesson from Kasparov that stands out. The lesson is that to improve at anything, you must get in the habit of analyzing your mistakes.

He recommends that the next time you commit a blunder, you should take some time to analyze it. The analysis should start with asking yourself the following questions.

Why did I react the way I did?
What may I have misunderstood or have gotten wrong, especially in the heat of the moment?
What would I change if I could do it again?
What could I say to myself next time that would help me think more clearly?

Why using reflection to learn from your mistakes?

Making mistakes is part of our lives. For that reason, we better learn how to deal with them. When you are a leader, it is paramount to learn from those mistakes. Moreover, to learn from the way we reacted to those mistakes.

Emotional intelligence (EI) is the ability to understand and manage your own emotions and those around you. EI skills are a characteristic of good leaders and kaizen facilitators. The reason is that people with a healthy amount of EI recognize their feelings and learn how to react to them. Also, they understand how those feelings can affect other people.

In a continuous improvement culture, you achieve your goal, or you learn. There is no losing, and a reflection is a learning tool. Kasparov’s provided a guide to learn from your emotions. The answer to those questions will help you understand why you reacted that way and how you could do it differently next time. This reflection will help to learn more about yourself and how you deal with your emotions. Your top job is to guide and support your team. Knowing your mental state will support your efforts to motivate and keep your team engage in the continuous improvement process.

Using reflection to learn from your mistakes and emotions

The truth is that reflecting upon your emotions is also a tool to guide your growing process. It does not have to stop with our feelings after making a mistake. I found that in our quest to be better human beings, it helps to learn how we react to some situations.

For instance, we can learn to understand and deal with impatience, fear, anger, sadness, and others. Moreover, why do we feel joy and happiness from some activities? In conclusion, through reflection, we can evaluate and learn from our mistakes and feelings. Both things will help us to be better professionals and human beings.

CI Basics

Continuous improvement books for beginners

I learned that February is the library lovers’ month. Many of us don’t visit libraries anymore, but still, keep our love for books. In my case, I have a weak spot for continuous improvement books. Books are an excellent way to learn, find inspiration, or have a good time. My CI learning experience includes traditional classroom training, webinars, hands-on workshops, and others. But my favorite way to learn more about CI is by reading books. Perhaps, it is because I can go at my pace, reading, learning, and practicing.

Continuous improvement books

There are thousands of books about CI out there. Although there are real gems, there are also some that are not very good. As a result, finding the right one can be difficult. Some publications are best suited for beginners, while others are for people with some experience.

Here is a list of my favorite CI titles

Gemba Kaizen by Masaaki Imai – This book is an introduction to kaizen and gemba. Although the book contains all the traditional lean jargon, it is easy to read. In addition, includes various case studies including hospitals, product development, ground transportation, and logistics.
Lean Production Simplified by Pascal Dennis – The title says it all, it contains a simplified explanation of the lean system. The book includes a description of various concepts like five S, visual management, standardize work, and others.
The lean turnaround by Art Byrne – If you are an executive looking to start a culture transformation, this is the one for you. It focuses on lean as a strategy to create value and transform the company.
Lean Office and Service Simplified by Drew Locher – If you work in an office or service environment, look no further. The author presents all lean principles and concepts from a non-manufacturing perspective. He describes how to use tools like value-stream, standard work, flow, visual management, and others. In addition, it provides several examples and implementation strategies.
The Toyota Way to Service Excellence by Jeffrey K. Liker and Karyn Ross – The authors explain how to use the lean principles, practices, and tools to provide better services. Moreover, it contains case studies in various service industries. The examples include financial services, telecommunications, health care, and insurance.
People: A leader’s day-to-day guide to building, managing, and sustaining lean organizations by Robert Martichenko, Steve Gran, Roger Pearce, & 4 more – This book is a leaders’ guide to build and sustain a lean organization. It provides guidance for all the tasks, activities, and behaviors a leader needs to transform the organization and get long-term success.
Lean Thinking by James P. Womack and Daniel T. Jones – This publication is a best seller classic. It goes from the principles to lean thinking to action, presenting how to close the gap between customers and providers. It also has case studies to explain those concepts. One of them is Wiremold Company with Art Byrne as its president and CEO. Yes, you are right, he is the author of the #3 on my list.

You read continuous improvement books, and then what?

The short answer to that question is that you learn, explore, and practice lean. Learn new ways to do things. Second, you explore how to apply those ways within your business. Third, you keep learning by teaching others how to do it. And third, you keep learning and practicing.

The secret to a continuous improvement culture transformation is that lean, or CI, is a system, not a group of tools. The focus should be on the people and the learning process. One common mistake is to spend too much time learning and using tools. Instead, focus on working with the people. The real success is, being able to engage your team in CI. That is to say, do not waste your time reading books unless you are committed to learn and teach.

What else you can do?

To increase your learning opportunities, combine reading books with hands-on workshops and training. For even better results, get a serious professional to help you along the journey. We all need a coach or mentor to guide us through the challenging steps of transforming a culture. Here in Better Process Solutions, we are ready to help. Get in touch!

Culture Transformation Journey

Basic concepts to support the improvements

Three basic concepts that leaders need to learn

To successfully overcome each challenge presented to us, we need to know certain basic concepts. For continuous improvement, there are three concepts that management should learn and teach to their team. They are, put quality first, the next process is the customer, and speak with data.

The basic concepts and the Customer

The CI goal is to deliver the customer the highest product or service quality, at the lowest possible cost, in the shortest lead time. Therefore, the focus of all our decisions is quality, cost, and delivery.

How do you keep the focus? How can you guide others to keep the focus? There are several changes in how we work as managers that have to change. None of them represents a new management style. However, many entrepreneurs keep doing the same thing since they learn the ropes of the trade and ignore these three ideas.

Put Quality First

Quality should be the highest priority over cost and delivery but, that is not common practice. Throughout my career, I have seen plenty of examples where quality is put to second or third place while making decisions. The worst part is that the reason cited to do so was to give the customer what they want at the time they wanted it. Really? Is that the reason or that production planning does not want to fall behind on their attainment metrics? Or to avoid the inspection cost? Or maybe to evade having a difficult conversation with the customer?

Practicing quality first requires commitment from management. Alignment within the organization is critical to ensure that the customer receives a high product or service quality. When the entire management team makes decisions based on this and model this behavior all the time, the employees will understand that quality is more important than quantity or delivery and will act accordingly.

Quality is not only for the product, information, or service the external customer will receive. It also applies to the quality of the internal processes. With CI you are seeking to improve the processes with small daily changes, everywhere by everybody. You go see the process, walk the process, and understand the process to identify ways to improve it and minimize all types of waste. After improvements, you either change or create standard work for that particular process. In other words, your focus to improving process quality is the process itself, not the results of the process.

The Next Process is the Customer

Although we all know that every process has a supplier and a customer, every time we talk about customers most people’s mind goes immediately to external customers. Every member of the team should know two things, what is their role in providing the customer the value they expected and that the next process is their immediate customer. It is management responsibility to provide this information to their team.

Knowing their role within the company strategies, including customer and quality give them the understanding of how their actions affect the value stream. It is also a way to present them why their work is important. How they contribute to ensure that the company achieves its goals, by producing a good quality job or service to the next process, which is their customer.

Speak with Data

While many people like to use their experience or gut feelings to make decisions, within a CI environment you speak with data. Tools like huddle meetings, war rooms, 5S and visual management use data to tell what is going on. Visual data presented clearly and simply is important for clear and effective communication as well as alignment with company goals.

Continuous improvement uses PDCA as a structured way to solve problems. If you recall, the first step, Plan requires to define the problem or situation you want to fix. To define it you need to collect all pertinent data, no gut feelings or believes but clear, accurate data.

Summary

To support your continuous improvement journey, three basic thoughts should be part of your daily though process, put quality first, the next process is the customer and speak with data. For some people, these thoughts require a mindset change, and for others just a little tweak. A continuous improvement culture is about exploring new ways to do what we do, learn, and adjust or change. These concepts are another step on your CI journey.

Leadership & Team Development

How do you show your team that you care?

The heart of any business is the employees. Regardless of your experience and skills, you cannot be successful on your own. Your team determines your business success. The most prosperous companies recognize that and transform their operations to be people-centric. If your people will be the focus, how do you show your team that you care?

Your team, business goals, and you

We know that when you take care of your team, your team takes care of your customers. The only way to deliver the highest quality of service at the lowest cost is by taking care of the heart of your business. That is to say, that to achieve your business goals, you need to take care of your employees. What does it mean to take care of your people?

Before you show your team that you care, start caring about you

As a leader, one of your top responsibilities is your development and the development of your people. It is like the oxygen mask on the airplanes, you need to put yours first, and then you can help others. Similarly, you need to develop your leadership skills before teaching and mentoring your team.

How is it to be a good leader? Good leaders have excellent communication skills and listen without judging. Also, they are grateful to their team and help their people to be successful. They see not only the employee but the human being. Good leaders show respect and have open and honest conversations.

Show your team that you care

The best way to show respect is by treating people like human beings and not as machines. For instance, understand their needs and create an environment to help them succeed. Also, build high-trust relationships and drive out fear. Those actions set the stage for teamwork, learning, and participation in improvement activities. When people can change their work conditions by learning problem-solving and other techniques, they feel appreciated and respected.

Caring about your employees is not only to provide decent pay and benefits. It is about providing the opportunities and the environment to learn and grow. My favorite way is to make them feel that they are capable of making meaningful contributions. In times of coronavirus be a leader is more challenging than ever. But the focus is the same, always put the people first.