Effective leaders prepare people for the future. They prepare themselves, their team, and their organization. I’ve led numerous leadership teams through an assessment of their current culture as an input to the assessment, development and deployment of their strategic and tactical plan. The culture assessment is comprised of five steps. One of the steps of the culture assessment requires the leadership team to articulate (write down) what about their culture they need to: (1) stop doing and why; (1) start doing and why; and (3) accelerate doing and why. Each member of the leadership team is required to individually identify and then prioritize their top three suggestions, along with their supporting logic, for each of the three above. Next, each person reviews their individual prioritized suggestions and then the leadership team aligns on the top three for each.
The next step of the culture assessment is to have the leadership team complete the same exercise with their direct reports. Almost all of the leadership team members ask for help to facilitate the culture assessment exercise with their direct reports. Usually, they want to observe and not contribute suggestions so they do not inhibit the input provided by their direct reports. As you can imagine there are differences in the suggestions identified by the direct reports vs. those identified by the leadership teams. There are also some similarities as well, although there are not as many similarities as there are differences. Many-times the direct reports identify that the organization needs to develop and implement a long-term plan because, from their perspective, there isn’t one. There are several benefits to having the leadership team complete a culture assessment with their direct reports. Here are some of the most common ones: (1) there is an implication that the leadership team values the input of their direct reports; (2) the leadership team derives a more effective understanding of their culture from different perspectives; (3) it provides valuable input to identify and close the gap in perspectives related to the actual culture. Some organizations take this analysis to the front-line employees. If I ran the business I would do it.
One of the clients I served was located in Oberhausen, Germany. I was contracted to train and then help the leadership team complete a value stream analysis of their most significant product line. I was on-site at their location multiple times. My first trip to their location lasted two weeks. The first week I trained the leadership team on how to complete a value stream mapping analysis inclusive of the time from order receipt to customer receipt of their product. The second week I helped them: (1) capture their current state value stream map; (2) establish their future state design goals and objectives; (3) design a future state value stream; (4) identify the projects necessary to close the gap between the current and future state; (5) develop project charters for the top-three prioritized projects; (6) develop a presentation for the Director of the European Operations so they could present their findings.
At the end of the value stream analysis review meeting with the Director of the European Operations it was suggested that the leadership team explain the value stream analysis to all of the employees – both hourly employees and the entire management team. I seem to remember there were about 250-employees on-site. Their plan was to form groups of about 10 people each and then bring them into their product display room, where all the team’s work was displayed on the walls. They would use the actual documents to explain what they learned as a result of completing the value stream analysis and what they planned to do.
So, why bother preparing people for the future? When I returned on site to Oberhausen, the value stream mapping leadership team told me how it went when they explained the outputs of the value stream analysis to all of the employees. They said it went even better than what they anticipated. They said they realized several benefits from explaining their plan to the employees in small groups. Here are a few of them: (1) the employees were very appreciative that they took the time to explain the plan to them – there was a lot of interest and excitement; (2) the employees asked some very good questions and one of which prompted them to refine the approach they planned to take on one of the projects; (3) when they explained the plan to the employees multiple times the team continued to internalized their analysis – in-fact they said it made even more sense to them each time they explained what they planned to do; (4) they said the employees told them they now had more confidence in them as a leadership team because they now have a plan for our future; (5) they team said they now know how to complete a value stream analysis and they could do it by themselves in the future.
I will never forget what the team told me that one of the shop floor employees said to them upon the conclusion of their group’s presentation. The employee said, “I’ve been here for 35-years and no one has ever taken the time to explain the whole process to me from beginning to end. Today, is the first time and I really learned-a-lot. I now realize that just because I increase the output of my process does not mean it will improve the output of the whole process. Actually, if I increase the output of my process, it will hurt us financially. I now understand which process I need to help to improve the output of the whole.” A pretty powerful statement from a very experienced and talented employee that cared a lot about that business. What do you think all of their employees talked about that night at dinner with their family and / or friends?
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