We have two free webinars coming up in the next week, hosted by KaiNexus. I hope you can join us.
Oh, as a reminder, I'm doing a Measures of Success webinar this Friday, the 22nd.
The Lowdown on A3 Software [Demo]
Jeff Roussel, VP of Sales at KaiNexus, will be doing a demo of our software and how it is used for A3 problem-solving. Click here to register for the webinar being held on Thursday, June 21.
You can view past demos on our YouTube channel.
How to Ease the Pain of Change
I'm playing the role of host and moderator for a webinar being presented by Jamie V. Parker on the topic of easing (but not eliminating) the pain of change.
Click here to register for the webinar.
You can learn more about Jamie and her consulting practice through her website.
We recently recorded a podcast discussion as a preview of her webinar:
Here is a rough transcript of the conversation:
Introduce Yourself / Your Passion:
I am on a mission to make the world of work more human. Many people – just like me – were taught things like “Check your emotions at the door” or “Leave your personal life at home” or “It's not personal, it's just business.” When the reality is that business is personal. It's human. And when we can make the world of work more human, we create more caring and fulfilling workplaces for people – which can really change the world.
The way I do that is by partnering with leaders and organizations to help them improve the way leaders think and behave that not just creates more connection at work, but also yields greater business results in the process.
Your History with Lean:
I was first introduced to Lean 7 years ago when I joined the commercial printing division of a large organization. We were just starting a Lean transformation because we believed in the impact it could have on our business. But we made all the mistakes you hear about – starting with tools first, pushing top-down, and trying to change tactics without addressing culture or leadership. While we did have some quick wins, it was really painful.
About 2 years in, I was serving as a Regional Operations Manager with full responsibility for 6 print plants and also took on the role of Manager of Operational Excellence, where I was responsible for this Lean transformation for all 18 plants across the country. I quickly learned that we had to take a step back and develop our leaders if we had any chance of making this work – the right way.
So I dug into books and podcasts and webinars and conferences to learn as much as I could and then adapted it to develop our leaders – learning and improving our leadership development along the way. And that's when things really started to take off – not just with being able to apply Lean tools to solve business problems, but with the ability to change lives. In fact, the most common piece of feedback I hear from the leaders I work with is, “You've made me a better husband, a better father, or a better person.” That's why I do this work and why I'm so passionate about partnering with leaders and organizations who are practicing Lean – because they already have some shared values that we can build from.
Why is it called the Pain of Change?
Usually, people talk about Resistance to Change. They ask questions like “How can I overcome resistance to change” or “How do I deal with long-tenured employees who just resist change” or “How can I get people ‘on board' or to ‘buy in' to the change we want to make”. When we frame change leadership this way, it puts us into a mindset of blaming the person – even if unconsciously. There's something wrong with the people resisting change and I need to fix them.
That's why I like to reframe the Change Leadership conversation to talking about Easing the Pain of Change. Pain in change is natural. Think about when you've tried to get up at 5am every morning to head to the gym, or cut out sugar from your diet, or interact kindly and openly with your mother-in-law. That can be painful.
In fact, I want to ask you to do something right now. Find something on your body and move it. Move your watch or Fitbit to the other wrist. Or a ring to the other finger. Or turn your hat around. Or move your cell phone from your right pocket that you always keep it in the left pocket. Now how does that feel? Uncomfortable right? It feels weird, and awkward, and if I didn't say anything to you, you would probably change it back before the end of the day – if not before the end of this preview call. And that's just a tiny little change that doesn't really have a lot of risk or impact to it.
So if you have that type of a natural reaction to moving your watch, what type of natural reaction would you have when someone at work asks you to do your job differently or to think differently about how you work? It might be painful. And that isn't about you as a person – that is a natural human reaction. So by talking about the pain of change, we are reframing it from the person being bad or wrong or resistant and instead talking about a shared experience of pain so that we can lead through change in a more respectful, more productive way.
What We Will Cover:
I'm really excited about this webinar. We are going to talk through one common change management teaching that is flat out wrong, and what to do instead. We are also going to go through my Ease the Pain of Change Model, which helps you to understand the Psychology of Change, know three things you need to do to set a Foundation for Change, and then 8 specific steps to follow each time you are introducing change to your team.
Why Change as the Topic for the Webinar:
I probably get more questions about change than any other topic – and in fact, when we reviewed the KaiNexus feedback, it was a repeat topic request. So this topic is hot on the minds of people in both the Process + Results community and the KaiNexus community. And it's critical. Because any business faces change – changing markets, changing customer demands, changing technologies.
And particularly for Lean practitioners who are trying to create cultures of continuous improvement and respect for people, they are leading through tremendous change as well. Some of it is what we do and how we work – implementing Kanban pulls, hosting Kaizen events, teaching 5 Why Root Cause Analysis, using Kata for problem solving, trying to use 5S – and even sustain it for the long-term.
But it's also change in how we think. Moving from blaming the person to blaming the process. Moving from a Results-Only “hit the number, hit the number, hit the number at all costs” way of thinking to a Process + Results way of thinking where we focus on results within the context of process. Moving from viewing failure as an immediate response of “who's fault is it” or “don't take too many risks” to valuing Failing Forward and viewing failure as the learning opportunity it is.
There is change involved in all of this, so if we can improve our competencies and behaviors around leading through change, then all of these changes – the workflows, the behaviors, and the ways of thinking – get easier. It's really a foundational competency to support our other goals.
How can people learn more about you:
You can learn more and sign up for articles, resources, and future webinar invites at my website: processplusresults.com.
(Disclosure: I am a senior advisor and have an ownership stake in KaiNexus).
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Check out my latest book, The Mistakes That Make Us: Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation:
