“Implementing Lean Office” - Now, that sounds really good and in vogue, isn’t it? But then, people never fail to ask “what if Lean Office doesn’t work out as we hope it should?”...
Here comes my favourite answer and in the form of another question: “What do YOU think THE one key success factor is and that YOU will have to work hard yes or yes?”
Management buy-in, clear organization goals and objectives, right tools and techniques chosen, of course those play a big part in any Lean Office implementation success. But if I had to pick up one, it would be communication.
Any change management relies heavily on communication and we all agree that it is extremely important. Communication has to see with what you want to deliver as a message, when and how you want to deliver it, but most importantly, by who.
By experience, the who is what matters the most and that (too) many organizations tend to overlook. As a driver of change, you want to ensure that your team members or whoever you will rely on to communicate the change are skilled in communicating the change.
Why?
It is relatively easy to learn a variety of continuous improvement tools and start putting them to use. What is much harder to do, is to make those tools become an integral part of the way the company does business. You want people accept the change and increase your chance to have a change lasting...
So, start assessing your communicators!
Here are 4 area that you want to evaluate your communicators on - starting with you (?!)
Be an advocate of change - How much you / they will be projecting confidence about the change ahead? How do they feel about the change? It is a manager’s job to promote the change to his/her team.
Be a point of contact - How much credibility do they have to make people feel comfortable or safe to question or push back the change? It is about developing trust with team members.
Ability of building and empowering teams - How capable they are to give credit to the team, delegate, able to engage? Let’s not forget that the stronger teams have the proper training to make decisions in the absence of leaders.
Process owner - Taking ownership, ie understanding the process but also understanding their role in the change process. How well your team members can be a facilitator of learning?
The next step you want to take is to translate your assessment into an ACTION PLAN and work together with your communicators. Communication is not improvisation, it requires time and efforts!
As a final note, I invite you to read “Managing for rapid change and uncertainty - What anyone in a managerial role involved in organizational change needs to know about change management”.
As always, enjoy the reading!
