by The HLH Team
“If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.”
-Lao Tzu
Talent is a double waste. When an employee doesn’t speak up about an idea, it means the business loses an opportunity to grow, and that person’s morale suffers, dragging down those around them. So how do we motivate employees to perform at their best? We’re going to the sources today, looking at three popular theories and how to integrate them into your business:
1) Dual-Factor Theory:
Since the 1950s, psychologist Frederick Herzberg’s Two-Factor, or Motivation-Hygiene, theory has been influencing HR departments worldwide. It pivots on two factors:
- Motivator Factors: These motivate employees to work harder when they’re present. They’re the “feel good” aspects, like recognition, validation, and a sense of purpose in your work.
- Hygiene Factors: These lead to disgruntled employees when they’re absent. They are the essentials, like salary, benefits, and quality of relationships with peers and managers.
Herzberg found that while both factors influenced motivation, they acted independently from each other. Motivators increased performance when present, but didn’t directly decrease it when absent. Likewise, Hygienes didn’t improve performance when present but decreased it drastically when absent.
How to Use it:
If you have disgruntled staff, you first need to find out if it’s Motivating or Hygiene factors causing it. Everyone is different, and something affecting one person may not matter to another. Find a baseline of Hygiene factors that everyone is comfortable with (not necessarily thrilled, but comfortable). From there, start to make Motivating factors present, consistently and sustainably. This will, according to the theory, lead to maximum employee motivation.
2) Hierarchy of Needs:
Coined by Abraham Maslow in 1943, this famous theory states that meeting our five most basic needs is the key to motivation. When the five needs are met, it gives us a sense of purpose in our jobs, and we perform better. They are:
- Physiological: Food, water, and shelter. Hopefully, all are met regardless of employer.
- Safety: Includes personal and financial security. If your employee can’t afford rent or heating, they can’t focus on the job at hand.
- Love/ Belonging: The need for family and friends and to feel love. Most of us even have some of this need met at the workplace.
- Esteem: Feeling confident and respected. If your employee doesn’t feel appreciated, they won’t come forward with their best ideas. This is tied to the power and gender dynamics in your workplace.
- Self-actualisation: This is the holy grail of psychological needs. It’s feeling that you’re living your purpose and achieving everything you can.
How It Works:
If you can help your employees find a sense of purpose in their job, they will take ownership of it, seize it, and grow the business. Purpose doesn’t necessarily mean more money; in fact, it rarely does. It’s the spark that makes us feel good about coming to work in the morning, that we’re contributing to society and ourselves in our jobs.
To help find purpose, encourage your employees to think about the deeper undertones of their jobs. Get past the services, products, and endless email threads, and find the “why” of what they do. How do they help people day in and day out?
3) Theory of Attribution
This theory, developed by Bernard Weiner, is three dimensional and based on trying to figure out why we do what we do. Weiner believes that the things we attribute our behaviours to influence the behaviours we will have in the future directly. Not all attributions, or causes, are created equal, though, and some will be more effective than others.
To better understand the influence the causes and the effects they will have, Weiner says there are three characteristics to judge them by:
- Stability – Will they change with time or not? If a runner in a race loses, they might attribute the loss to no stamina. Lack of stamina is a more stable and they may lose motivation if they think it’s not temporary. Less stable causes like, say, a twisted ankle, are less likely to decrease motivation, because it is believed temporary. Stable characteristics may also increase motivation but usually only in positive cases (like winning the race).
- Locus of Control – Was it caused internally or externally? If the runner attributes the loss to an internal factor, like illness, they may be less motivated to try again. If they blame the loss on an external element, like bad weather, their motivation likely won’t dwindle.
- Controllability – Could the situation have been controlled? The runner, for example, might believe the loss could have been controlled with harder training. If they attribute it to something they could have controlled, it may negatively affect their motivation moving forward. If they believe it was not in their control, like a bad track, it may not change their motivation as much.
How to Use It
This theory depends on regular input and feedback from employees. Ask them to what they attribute their failures. Do the same for their successes. If their attributions have less desirable characteristics for motivation, give specific feedback to change their outlook. Work toward motivation they can fuel into working harder and improving practices.
Motivation is key to reducing Talent Waste. Making the most of what we have in our hands will provide better results and happier employees. Motivating can feel like a tricky task, though. These three theories have been time-tested in workplaces over and over again. Based on the ideas of understanding human behaviour, you’ll be sure to see results with one, two, or even three theories in place.
by The HLH Team
For processes to actually improve in your organization over the long-term, people need to believe that there is a reason why change needs to occur and why it needs to occur now. There must be an informed consent – not a mad rush or a docile acquiescence – that drives action across hierarchies, departments, and projects. And you can structure an environment to help create that consent. Start change by considering these 7 ways to help increase urgency in your organization:*
#1: Focus on financial losses
Trust us: People get interested when they see numbers turning red. If your organization has areas that are losing profitability, share that information with employees in a way that they will be able to understand it. They need to see how those losses have the potential to impact them personally and how they personally have the ability to impact those losses. By tying the relationship between losses and people together in a direct way, the simplicity of process improvement becomes an easy “yes.”
#2: Initiate Kaizen Events to identify inefficiencies
If Kaizen Events are new to you, all they are is a tool that gathers employees, managers, and owners of a process in one place to map existing processes and collectively determine ways to improve on that process. They can extend over a couple of hours or over weeks depending on the level of organization need, and there are several checklists available to help you run a successful Kaizen Event (try HERE and HERE).
#3: Identify unpopular programs or processes
People are often intrinsically motivated to change what’s “bugging” them about their workplace. By providing time and space to discuss what isn’t working in the organization, employees can often identify and solve problems that are detrimental to company health.
#4: Increase or decrease membership in the organization
Whether from mass recruitment, layoffs, loss of customer accounts, or bringing in new clients, any time organizations experience a substantial enough shift in stakeholder numbers, people recognize the accompanying change as an inevitability and are more open to process improvement as part of that change process.
#5: Hold employees accountable for their actions
People will do what’s working for them (or what they think is working for them). If your employees aren’t actively working to improve processes and nothing is said or done, that’s a problem. Further, if they’re actively working on process improvement and nothing is said or done, that’s a bigger problem. By holding people accountable and rewarding desired behaviour, you set a clear precedent about what is expected in your organization – what will be tolerated and what won’t.
#6: Restructure leadership
Shaking up management structures across the company sends a clear message to those in charge that the status quo will not continue and invites an opportunity for employees to re-evaluate their contributions to their departments or to the organization as a whole. New objectives and targets can be set that can help accelerate process improvements across the board.
#7: Bombard people with aspirations for the future
Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech is a great example of this. In giving people a clear picture of what could be, he helped motivate commitment to an ideal that had not yet materialized. You can do the same for your staff. Help them see so clearly what your company can become and, more importantly, why achieving that ideal matters beyond a financial logic, and you can create an urgency for change that did not exist previously.
By giving people the information and experiences they need to understand and appreciate why the change needs to occur – the sense of urgency behind process improvement – you create the kind of informed consent that can internally motivate and sustain long-term change in your organization.
“There are only two ways to influence human behavior: you can manipulate it or you can inspire it…People don’t buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it.”
– Simon Sinek
* Suggestions adapted from: Bowhay, Vincent & McCracken, Edie (Mar 2017). Leading Change: Helping Transformational Efforts Succeed. Campus Activities Programming, Vol. 49 Issue: 7, 4-5. ISSN 0746-2328
by The HLH Team
Think of the word “urgent”. What comes to mind for you? Maybe an “urgent care” health centre. Maybe a few synonyms: crucial, vital, pressing, imperative.
Now think of “complacent”. What ideas do you have this time? And would you ever want to characterize yourself or your company as “complacent”?
When it comes to instituting process improvement, instilling a sense of urgency is essential. And the word “instilling” is important here. Urgency in organizations is not the natural state, complacency is. Urgency comes in spurts, but complacency tends to stay the course. Urgency has to be manufactured and re-manufactured, and complacency simply doesn’t.
So what is urgency in this context of process improvement?
Urgency is a combination of thoughts, feelings, and actual behaviour that creates determination and calculated movement toward making things better. Urgency is smart and methodical, not frantic or erratic, and it acknowledges the hazards and opportunities that arise as people work toward strategic objectives. Urgency is that gut-level resolve that says, “We’re going to do something now, and we’re going to do something to win.”*
When urgency is high in an organization, things happen because people commit to making them happen over and over again, across time and space. When complacency is high, transformations usually go nowhere because few people are even interested in considering what could be done to improve anything. In that environment, it’s nearly impossible to put together a group with enough power and credibility to guide a change effort. Without urgency, process improvement cannot occur in any meaningful way.
Perhaps this all seems basic, but most organizational change fails because there simply was not enough urgency to motivate the long-term investment of time and effort into process improvement. Most people do not want to endure an endless learning curve unless they see a need to, and that need is what must be constantly addressed. Below are 3 steps you can use to build urgency into your organization:
Step #1: Examine Market Realities
Get a clear sense of what is going on in your industry, what your stakeholders expect from you, and how your competitors are meeting demand. Report this on a regular basis to your employees and get them to contribute their observations and experiences.
Step #2: Identify and Discuss Crises, Potential Crises, and Opportunities
Create a forum where you can learn the challenges and chances your organization has, and make sure that every person in your organization has an opportunity to participate. Whether you decide to do it by department, project team, a town hall meeting, or some other way, creating a regular dialogue around organizational realities is essential.
Step #3: Establish Changes
Use the information you’ve gathered to determine a course forward. Clearly establish the process improvements that will address the opportunities and challenges you’ve identified, articulate why those improvements will better the situation, and show how they will do it.
In paying perpetual attention to the level of urgency in your organization, you can clearly decide where you need to focus your energy in driving process improvement ahead.
“Status quo, you know, is Latin for ‘the mess we’re in.'”
– Ronald Reagan
* From an interview with John Kotter: “The Importance of Urgency,” 2008, Harvard Business Review. Accessed on January 2, 2018 from https://hbr.org/2008/08/harvard-business-ideacast-106.html
by The HLH Team
Ever argued with someone about the best way to make it to a destination on time? It’s common: two people in a car each insisting that their way is the best way to go. They each have their reasons, and chances are good that either would get them to their destination in good time.
It’s the same for organizations who turn toward process improvement. The way you implement Lean and the way I implement Lean may look different. And there’s power in that.
Understanding how different change processes look can help you decide what method best supports process improvement in your company. There are 4 paths toward process improvement:
Path #1: Radical Change
Radical change is about fundamentally changing the way your organization operates. It’s breaking away from a template and starting fresh. These changes are usually driven by a catalyst such as a new CEO or a change in the external market. They are fast-paced and big-scope, both high risk and high return. Investing in a workspace with LEAN infrastructure could be a radical change for your organization. Job redesigns, department reorganizations, or management restructuring could constitute radical process improvement changes.
Path #2: Convergent Change
When something converges, it means it comes closer together. It becomes more unified and aligned. Convergent change is about keeping the same organizational template you have and improving on what’s already there.
In process improvement, convergent change is useful when LEAN practices have already been adopted. It’s for those working on fine-tuning and streamlining what they already do well. These changes are subtle, valuable, and easy to maintain because the foundational work is already done. Convergent change happens best when LEAN is already part of an organization’s culture.
Path #3: Planned Change
As the label suggests, planned change is deliberate. It’s about moving the organization from one state to another. Investing in a new workspace with LEAN infrastructure could be a planned change for your organization, rather than a radical one. Well-planned changes tend to run smoother, last longer, and provide more meaningful learning than do other forms. In the context of process improvement, their results can be concretely measured to drive greater efficiency.
Path #4: Emergent Change
Emergent change relies on experimentation and adaptation to create process improvement. It provides venues for knowledge to be filtered through the organization, built upon, and then re-built. The goal is to work on constant progress until improvement is no longer possible. Emergent change is difficult to measure. Its effects may be readily apparent but must be actively championed to get the most from its progress. This change path can be incredibly valuable in organizations with cultures focused on innovation.
You’ll probably need to use all of these paths at some point. Your knowledge about your people, organization, and process improvement journey will help you decide on the most effective path for you.
“We have to continually be jumping off cliffs
and developing our wings on the way down.”
― Kurt Vonnegut
* Change paths loosely adapted from Barbara Senior and Stephen Swailes’ Organizational Change. 4th ed. Harlow, Essex, England: Financial Times Prentice Hall/Pearson, 2010.
by The HLH Team
There is a distinct difference between change management and change leadership.
We often hear stories from organizations who have embraced process improvement (and we certainly have our own), and many of the stories follow the same plot line: upper management sees how identifying and eliminating waste will benefit their people, their customers, and their bottom line. They teach their staff the 8 Deadly Wastes and explain how process improvement will make people’s lives easier. Employees are willing to give this “lean” approach a try, and small efforts start to produce wins in some areas. Everyone pats each other on the back, and 4 months later those wins have evaporated and it’s back to square one.
Implementing actual change in any organization – whether it’s your business, your family, your community – takes prolonged effort and commitment from the people who have influence. In other words, change takes leadership, and we often make the mistake that managing change and leading change are the same thing. They aren’t, and here’s how they’re different:
| Change Management |
Change Leadership |
| A set of processes, tools, and mechanisms designed to make change smoother by:
· Getting stakeholders to buy-in to the change
· Keeping the change process under control
· Ensuring the project stays on budget |
A network of practices that designed to drive change ahead by:
· Articulating a vision of the future
· Mobilizing the resources needed to make that vision possible in concrete terms
· Putting an engine on the whole change process to move things forward faster and smarter |
| Useful for small-scale change |
Essential for systemic change |
| Typically driven by a small group of change managers who may be helped by external consultants |
Undertaken by leaders – people who:
· Have a clear vision for a better future for the entire organization
· Inspire stakeholders to believe in the change
· Empower people to push toward the change |
| Always planned and deliberate |
Always urgent, relying on speculative action to implement good, but unproven, ideas |
Here’s the takeaway: implementing process improvement or lean management techniques needs to be a systemic change if it’s going to stick, and that means that change leadership, not change management, will be what’s required.
Here are 4 key questions you need to (clearly and articulately) answer to start establishing yourself as a process improvement leader:
- 1) What will process improvement do for my organization?
- 2) What 3 things will I need to do differently in order to get better in my role as a change leader?
- 3) In 3 areas of my organization, how will process improvement actually look once it’s implemented?
- 4) What difference will improving processes make in the lives of employees and customers?
“For companies to change, we need to stop thinking like mechanics
and to start acting like gardeners.”
— Alan M. Webber
by The HLH Team
“Lean is a way of thinking, not a list of things to do.”
-Shigeo Shingo
Working on a big project can waste resources in so many ways. Endless email chains, departments that don’t know how to work with each other, and a general inability to focus on a project over and above the daily whirlwind all cost us dearly.
Toyota’s Answer:
Developing a new car isn’t easy. In fact, it’s one of the most complex tasks a car company undertakes and can be a project-management nightmare of manufacturing, engineering, and safety issues. It’s a process that takes most car companies 36 months; Toyota does it in 20.
A pioneering champion of Lean, Toyota employs Obeya as one of the pillars of its production system. It’s a simple project-management method that saves time and money by adding one crucial element: dedicated space.
Room for Collaboration:
In Japanese, Obeya translates to “large room” or “war room.” It’s exactly that. An Obeya is a room dedicated to a project. It’s where important meetings happen, progress is posted, and all key decisions are made.
If you’re a Star Trek fan, think of it as the bridge. If you like military history, it’s your war room. Toyota calls in their brain, the center of the nervous system that is the Toyota Production System. It’s a space dedicated to focused communication about the project: information pours in, gets synthesized and digested, and then decisions are made and priorities selected from there.
Project over Silos:
Companies specialize in different things. Whether you want them to or not, silos emerge around those specialities so that each department can function at its best.
Silos function well when each is designed to contribute autonomously from the others. But when a project emerges that requires them to work together towards a common goal, the system can easily break down. Departmental priorities conflict with the project’s priorities and inefficiency runs rampant.
In the Obeya, the project rules. Silo politics are checked at the door, and in that space every stakeholder contributes their expertise to the overarching goal. It’s a simple, elegant, and difficult goal.
The Power of Visuals:
Visual aids like Kanban boards play a key role in Lean. When walking into the Obeya, you’ll get an instant idea, via the graphs and boards around you, of where the project is at. Plaster your walls with everything that shows your team what’s happening.
Obeyas eliminate the need for constant email updates, or hunting for status updates, or trying to get hold of other departments to find out where they’re at. Hours of time-waste get eliminated by making it visual for all.
Emerging Trend:
Obeyas have started to catch on, with big companies like Nike now employing it successfully. Business blogs and pinterest boards are full of ideas on how to assemble agendas and build visual walls to create the perfect collaborative space.
The kind of non-siloed communication fostered in an Obeya can be the gateway and driving force to implementing Process Improvement across your business. Keep it collaborative, set the silos and egos aside, and your Obeya can be what you need to get high-level buy-in for your Lean ambitions.
