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We compete in a business environment that is constantly
in a state of change. And as a leader in these times, it's one
thing to have a vision of the way forward, but another thing entirely
to get everyone in your organization headed How do you persuade everyone in an organization -- whether that means 50 employees or 50,000 -- to move in the same direction? How do you refocus the staff around a scaled-down strategy to survive an economic slump? How do you ensure that people at every level understand the priorities of the moment? How do you develop the leaders of tomorrow? Simple: You teach. And that's not directing. Telling people what to do doesn't guarantee that they will learn enough to think for themselves in the future. Instead, it may mean that they'll depend on you or their superiors even more and that they will stop taking chances, stop innovating, stop learning. Chuck Slater outlines 16 ways to be a better teacher in a recent Fast Company article. Here's 5 of them: 1. Study your students You need to understand the strengths and weaknesses of your students; their talents, their motivations and their needs. If you understand where they are, you'll be able to show them the way to where you want them to be. If not, you are leaving them to find the path for themselves 2. Students learn when teachers show them how much they need to learn. Doing something differently requires learning something new. And since it is a human tendency to resist change, people will often adopt the position that they don't need to improve. They don't see the gap between where they are and where they need to be. A good teacher will make them aware of that gap. 3. Keep it clear even if you can't keep it simple. One of the chief attributes of a great teacher is the ability to break down complex ideas and make them understandable. In today's business world not everything that people need to understand is simple. Without understanding you have no learning - only memory work. And memory work is not good enough for today's competitors. 4. Repeat the important points. "The first time you say something, it's heard," "The second time, it's recognized, and the third time, it's learned." The challenge is to be consistent without becoming predictable or boring. The best teachers keep it fresh by finding new ways to express the same points. 5. Good teachers ask good questions. Effective teachers know that a student only begins to "own" what they have learned when they put it into practice. Posing thought provoking questions and letting the student wrestle with the answer can make the difference between effective learning and predictable forgetting. For an in-depth look at all 16 of Slater's "be a smarter teacher tips", check out the Fast Company article by clicking here. |
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The Power of Process Back in the early to mid-90s, Michael Hammer wrote
several books on the then popular topic of "re-engineering". Although
the term may have since lost some of its luster, the heart of the
concept - a focu Process at the Heart of the Organization Hammer's thesis is that processes must be at the heart, rather than the periphery, of companies' organization and management. They must influence both structure and systems. They must shape how people think and the attitudes they have. Customer Satisfaction Directly Linked to Your Processes And the single most important word in the definition of process is "customer." A process perspective on a business is the customer's perspective. To a customer, processes are the essence of a company. The customer does not see or care about the company's organizational structure or its management philosophies. The customer sees only the company's products and services, all of which are produced by its processes. Process Management Must Be A Way of Life The heart of managing a business is managing its processes: assuring that they are performing up to their potential, looking for opportunities to make them better, and translating these opportunities into realities. This is not a part-time or occasional responsibility. Attending to processes is management's primary ongoing responsibility. Process centering is not a project; it is a way of life. A process perspective sees not individual tasks in isolation, but the entire collection of tasks that contribute to a desired outcome. Narrow points of view are useless in a process context. And process work requires that everyone involved be directed toward a common goal; otherwise, conflicting objectives and parochial agendas impair the effort. In Beyond Re-engineering, Hammer lays out 4 critical principles: Principle 1: The mission of a business is to create value for its customers A company exists to create customer value. Everything a company does must be directed to this end. Create customer value and you'll create shareholder value. Principle 2: It is a company's processes that create value for its customers The tasks are the bits of work that people actually perform, but the tasks themselves do not create value nor do the individuals performing them. It is only whole processes, all the tasks put together, that create value. Principle 3: Business success comes from superior process performance Delivering consistently superior products over long periods of time requires a set of consistently superior processes-for product development, manufacturing, order fulfillment, service, etc. It is not any one product but its process capability that gives a company its crucial advantage. Principle 4: Superior process performance is achieved by having a superior process design, the right people to perform it, and the right environment for them to work in. Hammer cautions strongly that a company must continue to focus on its processes so that they stay attuned to the needs of the changing business environment. One-shot improvements, even dramatic ones, are of little value. What You Measure You Can Manage He also points out that without measurement you'll never be able to know how well your processes are working or how to refine them. Companies must identify the key measures by which each of their processes will be assessed and some of these measures must be based on what is important to the customer. By studying customers and their requirements of the output of the process, a company can decide whether to measure cycle time, accuracy, or other aspects of process performance. Another set of measures must reflect the company's own needs: process costs, asset utilization, and other such typically financial matters. Measures are essential not only for knowing how the process is performing but for directing efforts to improve it. Communicate Results of Measurements Whatever measures are employed, they must reflect the process as a whole and must be communicated to, and used by, everyone working on the process. Measures are an enormously important tool for shaping people's attitudes and behaviors. Avoid Process Silos And finally Hammer points out that it would be tragic
if functional silos were to be replaced by process tunnels, if the
old fragmentation into departmental dukedoms were merely to give
way to process protectorates that are defended with equal jealousy.
A business is not just a group of processes, it is a system of processes
that must interact to create all the results customers need. |
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The Leadership Pipeline is an excellent book that a client recently mentioned to us. We have reviewed it and find that it offers excellent practical advice for senior executives concerned with developing leaders. The authors outline six critical leadership passages or major changes in job requirements that occur as managers move through a large decentralized business organization. These are:
The authors lean on their broad experience at GE to describe the dynamics of these six passages in terms of competencies and performance at each stage. We believe that the book is a useful read for leaders of organizations of all sizes. Even executives in smaller organizations have to deal with the first three or four passages. Check this one out. Order it today from Amazon.com by clicking below. |
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on process - is still as valid and vital today.
Company