Many years ago, I had a recently promoted technician working with me that was struggling to understand how to improve the stability of their process and better support their production team. They had advanced primarily based on superior skills and performance as an operator. As leaders, we often mistakenly assume that because people are technically good at some activity, they automatically are suited to management or support roles. However, not every all-star player makes the transition into a great coach.  In this case, the tech couldn’t empathize with others who were struggling to perform the standard work. They were adamant that everyone should be able to flawlessly perform the job, because “I could do it”. They quickly blamed any quality or productivity gaps on character issues such as operator attitude or poor work habits.

Luckily, I had just returned from a leadership meeting where the company invited David Mann to speak about his book, “Creating a Lean Culture”. As a bona fide process geek, I read the book on the plane and was eager to test his methods after hearing his talk. When I got back, I challenged the tech to learn LSW and to experiment with me as the test subject. Our initial goal was to improve 5S standards in our team’s office area. At the time we were near the bottom in plant scores. We would leverage what we learned in our little experiment to develop good LSW training for the rest of our engineering team. My hope was that this tech could step outside their “expertise-trap” and learn how to lead improvement without authority.

That was over twenty-five years ago and the lessons we learned together have stuck with me. I religiously use LSW. The last activity I do each Friday is to pull out my LSW for the week and reflect on my performance. I ask myself what worked, what didn’t, and how I need to change/update my approach for the following week. I take what I learn and build the next week’s LSW – that is the last action for the week.   I try to keep up on the latest best practices for LSW and visual controls and incorporate them into my own processes. Over the years, I’ve run over a thousand LSW “experiments” on myself. In this article, I’ve compiled some key points that I hope can benefit your LSW journey.   

The Need for Control: Preventing the Drift Towards Chaos

In organizations where processes lack control, life is a never-ending cycle of firefighting. Leaders and teams find themselves consumed by addressing one crisis after another, leaving little time for proactive or improvement work. This constant state of reaction hampers productivity, innovation, and overall efficiency.

Entropy poses a constant threat to the organization’s stability and success. Without proper management oversight, control and intervention, systems will tend to deviate from their desired state. This will lead to inefficiencies and suboptimal performance. During slower times, it is critical for leaders to recognize and address entropy by implementing standard processes and routines that stabilize operations. This entails setting clear expectations, defining roles, and establishing visual controls to monitor performance. By combating entropy through some process of control, organizations can maintain order, optimize processes, and prevent a decline into chaos.

David Mann's Vision: Focus on Inputs, Not Results

David Mann teaches us how lean is deceptively simple but requires strict discipline to achieve results consistently. To effectively apply lean practices, you must shift your focus from results-based thinking to process orientation. In other words, pay attention to the inputs instead of the outputs. He emphasizes the use of visual controls to provide real-time visibility into process status. By identifying gaps between expected and actual outcomes in key performance indicators, leaders can quickly identify deviations, address challenges, and make data-driven decisions. To support this, Mann introduces a standard accountability process, ensuring that leaders are actively involved in problem-solving and supporting their teams. 

LSW is the framework for you to ensure your processes are in control. By diligently establishing and practicing LSW, you can achieve better stability and control of your operations. The fundamental principle behind LSW is to ensure that all necessary inputs are in place and that processes are monitored with sufficient frequency to withstand the inevitable effects of entropy.

LSW provides a powerful antidote to the cycle of chaos by instilling discipline and structure in how processes are managed. As leaders establish clear standards, monitor performance, and take timely action, they gradually bring processes under control. This shift from reactive problem-solving to proactive management empowers teams to focus more on continuous improvement initiatives and strategic projects. By using LSW to develop process control, organizations can break free from the cycle of firefighting and create an environment where time and effort are dedicated to making lasting improvements and driving success.

Watching and Reacting: Right Inputs Lead to Right Outputs

Results matter. Everyone is responsible for achieving specific results within their organization. An old boss of mine had a sign on his office door that said, “At the beginning of the day it’s all about opportunity, but at the end of the day it’s all about results”. Traditionally, management didn’t care much about how you achieved your results, as long as you did. Thankfully that has changed over time, but the objective still needs to be met.

Keeping your promises: As leaders, it's crucial to set clear expectations for your team and yourself. Frequently monitoring progress to the target and reacting to gaps is a powerful tool to drive accountability. It also creates urgency within the team to maintain an adequate pace. Just as LSW keeps us on track on whether we've accomplished what we intended; it also keeps us focused on the frequency to check progress – so that we don’t let things drift out of control. 

Delivering on our commitments is essential. If we find ourselves falling behind, we must immediately intervene and/or seek support to get back on track. Timely communication about challenges allows leadership to marshal additional resources and support to address the issue effectively. Waiting too long to seek help can severely limit problem-solving options and impede the team's ability to fully recover.

Asking for help is a sign of strength, not weakness. If we make meeting customer requirements our priority, we will develop leaders who are more concerned with their customers than their own image. For long term success, it is essential to create teams that proactively ask for help whenever your customer might be impacted. Only then will we have an environment of accountability and openness, ensuring that challenges are addressed collaboratively and efficiently.

Understanding Hansei - The Need for Reflection:

Hansei, refers to the act of self-reflection, a critical practice in Lean and continuous improvement methodologies. As leaders, we must regularly set aside time to reflect on our LSW and its effectiveness. At the end of each week, taking a step back and assessing our LSW allows us to identify areas that need improvement. By doing so, we can reduce firefighting and enhance stability in our processes. The purpose of hansei is to allocate more time and resources to improvement initiatives and strategic planning, minimizing reactive responses to issues. Embracing hansei helps us evolve from a reactive leadership style to a proactive one, ultimately contributing to the growth and success of our organizations.

In the realm of LSW, humility plays a pivotal role in fostering a culture of continuous improvement. It begins with leaders genuinely understanding the significance of LSW and its potential impact on their processes. Before assigning LSW to others, managers must test their own ideas about its implementation on themselves. This act of self-reflection enables leaders to experience the challenges and opportunities firsthand, which, in turn, strengthens their ability to guide their teams effectively.

Dynamic Nature of Leader Standard Work:

Leader Standard Work is not a one-time checklist; it embodies continuous improvement principles. Every week, leaders should reflect on their LSW, assessing what's working well and what can be improved. Just as we expect our teams to follow the PDCA cycle, we should apply the same principles to our own leadership practices. The PDCA cycle is ingrained within LSW, serving as a framework for driving improvements. Each week, leaders Plan their activities, Do the work, Check the results, and Act on the lessons learned. This iterative approach ensures that our leadership practices continuously evolve, and we become more effective in supporting our teams and driving improvement initiatives.

Leader Standard Work is not a static set of procedures; it is a dynamic process that evolves as leaders gather more insights about their processes. Rather than being imposed from the top down, LSW is most effective when crafted by those who are directly involved in the work—the experts themselves, the leaders/owners of the process. This can be engineers, accountants, managers, or executives. They have an intimate understanding of the process, are best positioned to identify the critical tasks, set appropriate frequencies, and pinpoint potential issues.

Embracing the Spirit of Continuous Improvement:

The essence of LSW lies in fostering a culture of continuous improvement. By integrating hansei and the PDCA cycle into our LSW, we reinforce the spirit of kaizen. As we dedicate time for reflection and improvement, we empower our teams to do the same, creating a culture where everyone is engaged in seeking better ways of doing things. This collective pursuit of excellence builds a strong foundation for our organizations to thrive in both slow and busy times.

As with operator standard work, LSW also follows the four stages of learning:

1) "I understand,"

2) "I can do with help,"

3) "I can do by myself,"

4) "I can teach."

Starting with the understanding of LSW concepts, leaders progress through the stages of hands-on implementation and mastery. Eventually, they reach a level of proficiency where they can teach and guide others effectively in adhering to LSW principles. This continuous cycle of learning and teaching ensures that LSW remains a dynamic and powerful tool for driving sustainable improvement throughout the organization.

One-on-one meetings serve as an ideal platform for leaders to discuss LSW challenges and task frequencies with their team members. These conversations provide valuable insights into the real-time experiences of the operators, the issues they encounter, and the problem-solving efforts being employed to modify LSW for optimal outcomes. Such dialogues enable leaders to refine and tailor LSW based on the collective intelligence and expertise of their team members.

The Three Rules of Management: Achieving Stability, then Improvement

The foundation of effective management can be broken down into three fundamental functions:

• Process Stability = Support systems to achieve your current condition
• Process Improvement = Systems to improve your current condition
• Engagement = knowing when to support / help as well as when to step back and return to Stability or Improvement

If your organization is always in firefighting mode, then you probably don’t have stable processes. To combat this, you should create two dedicated groups of resources: one to react to the noise and one to fix the noise. If you try to do this with only a single team, they will default to firefighting. Make sure your team is working to their own LSW processes and doesn’t enjoy chaos. Coach them to realize zero emergencies is the goal, not overcoming the emergency. Traditionally, we loved heroes who “just made it happen”. In our new enlightened view, we should promote those who can achieve results without drama and intervention.     

If you have some level of process stability, you must make sure that the process is running to your standards. LSW, coupled with visual controls and run rules are great tools to maintain processes in control. When your processes are running in control you can focus your efforts on improvement activities. When the process breaks, you must return to supporting your process until it returns back in control. This is the engagement function of LSW. The better your process stability, the more time you and your team can focus on improvement. If your process is not stable, the best thing to work on during slow periods is gaining stability and developing good LSW to maintain it.

Holding the Line:

There is a great analogy attributed to Taiichi Ohno where he describes the improvement work on a process to a boxer working out to maintain his status in a certain weight class. If the boxer only loses fat, then the exercise he’s putting in is good and he is more efficient. But if the weight lost includes muscle, then his efforts are hurting his purpose and he’s getting weaker as a result. In the same manner, LSW should help us keep the gains we make during improvement, while keeping us away from the waste we remove.

In a similar way, the idea of a military campaign not giving back any ground is equally applicable in the business context. Once an organization achieves positive changes and establishes a foundation of stability through LSW, leaders must strive to sustain these gains and build upon them. This involves reinforcing the new practices, promoting a culture of accountability, and empowering employees to contribute to ongoing improvement initiatives. By continuously refining and expanding LSW, organizations can achieve long-term success and navigate through both challenging and prosperous times.

The Groundhog Day Approach – It’s ME competing against ME:

My favorite movie is “Groundhog Day”. At the bottom of my LSW sheet all these years is a question that Phil Connors asks his cameraman when he first starts his transition into becoming a better person. “Larry, what do you think?” If you watch the scene, once Phil asks the question, Larry straightens up and his chest puffs out. Until then, he was essentially forgotten. By asking for his opinion on creative input, Phil has now engaged Larry. You can see the power and bond it creates between them. That scene always hits home for me.

I keep “Larry, what do you think?” and other reminders at the bottom of my LSW sheet because I have blind spots. Personally, I continually need to remind myself to always engage others. You may have the same problem as me, or you may need different reminders to be a better leader. Regardless, LSW is about making sure we continually strive to be our best. And if that means I use a silly line from a movie – who cares? Each week my LSW is my best known ME going against the actual ME. Sometimes I succeed and other times I don’t. When I can’t achieve something, I don’t take it as I’m a failure, but as an opportunity to get better.

In one of my most successful roles, I was able to hone my LSW down to a couple of hours a day. The rest of my time was spent on coaching and improving the team at gemba. In other roles, I was lucky to finish all the work in 8 hours per day. Regardless, every week I reflected on what I needed to do to get better and created a new hypothesis and ran another experiment. LSW is about improving our own process.

Conclusion:

Getting back to our technician. Once we deployed LSW throughout our team, our processes started becoming very stable. As a result, we were able to spend more time on improvement and problem-solving. Eventually we reduced our primary metric by over 80%. People started getting promoted and given opportunities. It changed my life. 

Leader Standard Work is a potent tool that enables organizations to combat entropy, achieve stability, and drive continuous improvement. By adhering to the discipline of LSW, leaders can create a lean culture that thrives in any business environment. During slower times, the power of LSW lies in its ability to maintain order, optimize processes, and foster a resilient organization ready to seize opportunities and thrive in the face of adversity. As leaders embrace the concept of LSW, they embark on a transformative journey towards building a culture of continuous improvement and long-term success.

We invite you to take a bold step towards unlocking the full potential of your organization. Peak Productivity stands ready to partner with you on your journey to implement LSW with all the benefits it can bring. Our team of experts brings decades of experience in crafting LSW strategies, fostering a culture of accountability, and driving continuous improvement. Let's connect to explore how we can guide you in shaping a leaner, more efficient future. Reach out to us today and let's embark on a transformative path towards sustainable success. Visit our Peak Productivity LinkedIn page or website for more information and to start your journey of innovation and excellence.