DailyKaizen

Never speculate about problems you don’t go see first for yourself is a goal of mine that I am trying to integrate into both my teaching and my management practices.  I cannot tell you how hard it is to adopt this into daily practice.  Just the awareness of how often I talk about problems that I do not have facts to support has been staggering.  Yet, as I learn more and more about the principles of “Management is Responsible” and “Respect for People” I cannot understate how important this goal is.

So where did it come from and why am I trying to do this now?  I am not sure if there is a single answer to this question, it is more of a build.  Over the last couple of months I have spent a lot of time working with leadership teams helping them transition to a new way of thinking and behaving.  I came to this world after spending two years deep in the gemba working through major value stream redesigns.  I would often find myself in meetings where a group of leaders would be discussing a problem or situation that I new a whole lot about from my past experience.  It was always really frustrating when leaders would claim to have the solution or worse new just who to blame for this so called problem that might not even exists in the first place.  As information travels up through the organizational ranks it is amazing how quickly in becomes corrupted and fades from fact. 

Just recently I was in a coaching session with a Senior Executive who made some untrue comments about a specific project that I had worked on.  I knew the comments were coming so I was prepared to not be defensive and I challenge this person with a set of questions.  I asked them if they had gone to see the problem themselves and then admitted I knew a lot about the situation.  The executive who I respect very much did not get defensive at all and suggested we go together, which I am arranging.  About thirty minutes later we were talking about something completely different and I began to speculate on a problem myself.  BAM!  He called me on it.

Now back to the beginning where I began this post.  With my new awareness it is amazing how often I get caught in the trap of speculation and how hard it is to stop.  This is just one example of why companies struggle so hard with the principle of Respect for People, because it takes such discipline and awareness of behavior to be successful.  So the best way to change thinking is through a change in action, so I am going to continue to do my best to use my feet to see problems as opposed to my mouth to talk about them.

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