Leadership waste


poor hiring decisions leading to having to replace people) and continual checking and rechecking of people’s work if it is defective.


Given the damage that leadership may do to an organisation, consider this summary of leadership attributes. Each of these is open to attack from leadership waste. Reducing and eliminating this is crucial to the success of a Board.


• Managing vision and purpose


Communicate an authentic, inspiring vision that the organisation can buy into. Avoid confl icting messages or blurred strategies. Ensure every single employee understands the key messages.


• Customer focus


Demonstrate, through action, a customer-intimacy centric approach to the building of long-term relationships. Avoid paying lip-service to customer relationship management and ensure all teams do not miss the opportunity to ‘wow’ customers at every opportunity.


• Priority setting


Clarify the most important aspects of the organisation’s strategy, and ensure no misunderstanding about what is crucial to the success of the company. Avoid falling into the trap of too many priorities.


• Results


Ensure there are enough performance metrics in place to measure and track progress and take care that all employees are clear about what they will be measured on. Avoid the pitfall of measuring everything just for the sake of it.


• Team player Work diligently and


proactively to promote the value of teams and team- based problem solving at all levels of the organisation, ensuring that diversity of opinion of opinion is respected, applauded and positive reinforced, so as to promote a culture of inclusivity.


• Decision-making Rapid yet effective decision- making can be a true accelerator for organisations, if done well. Avoid making snap decisions, however, based on incomplete information. Whilst the potential pitfalls are many, there are some simple guiding principles that leaders can follow, to maximise their likelihood of successfully understanding, reducing and eliminating waste…


Consider the following recipe for success Effi cient working that focuses on effective processes, rather than excellent people, is the key to waste elimination at the leadership level.


Focus on small incremental improvement steps. If you can fi x leadership waste in one area, copy the process, expand the blueprint, replicate the success and you will continue in the right direction. Embrace your ineffi ciencies and your wastes. Without them, you are not being honest about your organisation. Take your existing leadership strengths, and consider your areas of weakness, to develop your own recipe for success. Without it, you run the risk of not plotting the right course. Leadership drives change, but without an authentic focus on an empowered, engaged and motivated workforce, such change will be diffi cult. The supporting pillars of any change are the people. For waste elimination


to be a credible program, processes, people, systems and organisation culture has to align. Change on the scale required in many organisations cannot be managed from the ground- fl oor; it has to be supported, and truly championed from the top down.


World class waste


elimination begins with leadership and permeates down throughout the entire organisation. Aligning goals and objectives to this will help glue the organisation and its teams together.


Simplicity and speed.


Whether leaders focus on communication, planning, or execution, they need to be easy to understand, easy to follow, and easy to read. ‘Winning from Within’


promotes the idea that most of the organisations ailments can be solved within the existing workforce. Many people have improvement ideas that are waiting to be utilised. Leaders should communicate deeply within their teams, to tap into the ideas and energy that exists. Capture improvements, and communicate wins. Do this again with speed and simplicity. Demonstrate how wins in one area can be translated into quantifi able benefi t. Leaders need to convert good work at lower levels in the organisation into positive, meaningful and inspiring updates. Often there are


opportunities at multiple levels with the organisation. In order to model the way and set a solid example, leaders ought to start with themselves and focus on their ineffi ciencies and wastes as a leadership group. Often these areas of focus will shine a light into a huge array of improvement opportunities. Too often, leadership waste is replicated at lower levels.


Management Services Winter 2012


39


About the author Mike Keen is Supply Chain Director, Global IEC Electrical Products, Cooper Bussmann.


For information, email mike.keen@ cooperindustries. com or visit www.


cooperindustries.com.


“Leaders add value to their teams when they train


them, support them, remove obstacles, unblock


stagnation and provide the platform for success.”


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