Lean Quote: Do or Do Not. There is No Try

On Fridays I will post a Lean related Quote. Throughout our lifetimes many people touch our lives and leave us with words of wisdom. These can both be a source of new learning and also a point to pause and reflect upon lessons we have learned. Within Lean active learning is an important aspect on this journey because without learning we can not improve.

"Do or do not. There is no try."  — Yoda, Star Wars Jedi 

Yoda's quote "Do or do not. There is no try" conveys a mindset focused on commitment and determination. It suggests that simply trying can imply a lack of conviction or half-hearted effort. Instead of merely attempting something with the possibility of failure, Yoda advocates for a full commitment to either accomplishing the task or not engaging in it at all.

"Try" is self-denigrating. It essentially means that you are not capable of doing a certain task - or at the very least lack the necessary self-confidence to do it. It implies you are not sure if you can do it.

By eliminating the word try, you make up your mind to either do something or not. You will either ignore the task completely or do whatever is necessary to complete the task. It implies that you will have the necessary perseverance in the face of any obstacles that may emerge.

By eliminating the word try, you are declaring that you are capable of doing the task and that you have the self-confidence to fight whatever might stop you from completing it.

This perspective doesn't necessarily mean that trying is worthless; rather, it emphasizes the importance of intention and dedication. In a broader sense, it encourages individuals to take decisive action and to fully commit to their goals, aiming for success rather than just going through the motions. The quote can inspire a proactive approach to challenges, highlighting the value of perseverance and belief in one's capabilities. 

Happy Independence Day – Lean’s Freedom Lesson

Today, we celebrate Independence Day in the US. The 4th of July is an extremely patriotic holiday where we celebrate the independence of our country. People celebrate with family and friend gatherings, barbecues, parties, games, food, fun, festivals, parades, musical events and fireworks.

Freedom is not just the natural right of every human. It is the state of mind that enables people to create the greatest and the most inspiring things. The spirit of freedom gives us the power to conquer new heights, whether it is a real mountain peak or a bold business challenge.

Lean is all about finding better ways to do things, so that they require less effort, less time and fewer resources. It is not about cost reduction – penny-pinching, cutting investment, taking out people – it is about finding better ways to get work done. It is about developing a mindset, methods, and tools to identify and eliminate waste in all its forms at every opportunity. It is about freeing up resources because you no longer need to use them.

Lean manufacturing provides your workforce the freedom that they need to own and maximize their productivity. In a Lean production plant, the "freedom to control one's work" replaces the "mind numbing stress" of mass production. Armed with the skills they need to control their environment workers have the opportunity to think actively, even proactively to solve workplace problems.

Lean is more than the traditional metrics of improved efficiency, reduced costs and increased throughput. The people-centric approach to the application of Lean creates a better future, driven by empowered individuals working in teams, committed to continuous improvement. It is this culture of responsible freedom and trust that allows employees and their organization to realize the positive benefits of Lean and achieve a successful outcome.

Lean Manufacturing is a business method that extends employees independence.  It provides more employees with the tools, methods, and authority to make decisions. It creates teams to measure progress and devise new techniques. This leads to higher employee motivation and productivity as workers are asked to come up with solutions to problems as opposed to having to work with flawed procedures. There is much to be said for greater worker independence in the execution of a lean philosophy. We may not have a day to celebrate like the US but the message is no less important.

The 3 Things That Keep People Feeling Motivated At Work

As part of TED’s ‘How to be a Better Human’ series, two researchers, Richard Ryan and Edward Deci, developed an idea called ‘self-determination theory’. Self-determination theory essentially argued that people are motivated when they can determine for themselves what to work on and how to work on it.

Below, I’ll outline the three main drivers of motivation according to self-determination theory — autonomy, competence, and relatedness — and I’ll provide practical ways to leverage the power of each.

1) Autonomy

This refers to how much people feel they can influence the work they do or control the output and outcome. It outlines how much say a person has in the way they do something.

The opposite, of course, is being micro-managed. If micro-management is about being told what to do and how to do it, autonomy is getting the person involved in deciding how it’s going to be done and showing creative initiative to get there.

·        Analyze how many times you ‘tell’ people what to do, versus how many times you ‘involve’ them in decision-making.

·        Mutually assign tasks and objectives for people, identifying and agreeing deadlines

·        Give them more freedom on how the task is completed, within certain guidelines.

·        Communicate the progress people are making to achieve the goals they are set.

2) Competence

We’ve always stated that a vital aspect of people’s drive is to learn, grow and develop. Becoming ‘better at stuff’ is one of the keys to motivation, so assist and support in helping team members to develop their skills.

·        Limit the amount of constructive criticism you offer. The research showed there were links between poor feedback mechanisms and poor motivation.

·        Share successes with people so they can see how much they’ve grown by taking more responsibility.

·        Give positive feedback when you can, specifying exactly what you are happy with so it can be repeated.

·        Look for opportunities to get your people learning and developing on the job, not just on training courses.

3) Relatedness

The research showed that, when people feel a connection between what they do and the bigger picture they are serving, there is an increase in motivation.

·        Ensure team members have opportunities to connect with others, even on a virtual basis.

·        Show people how the role they play interacts and contributes to others’ work, hence reducing the impacts of silos within the business.

·        Create a connection between their role and the mission of the organization.

·        Allow people to interact with each other more, so the feeling of belonging is enhanced.

Relatedness refers to the sense of feeling worthwhile and being able to contribute to the overall goals of each other as well as the company. You can naturally see how and why this would be a key driver of motivation.

When people have the ability to determine how they work, the means to judge their progress and the feeling that their work helps other people, they can’t help but be motivated to get to work.

Empower Your Employees With the Right Mindset

Empowerment. It’s a word often said, a goal, a value, a hallmark of modern leadership. Yet it may be one of those leadership principles that can be misunderstood and difficult to put into action. Especially, when we are talking about empowerment at work.

Create an empowering environment by fostering trust and respect. An empowering leader is a wise teammate. They create the space where great work gets done. To become a teammate, leaders must truly know your team members, their goals, and their strengths. They must understand their sense of purpose and work to support them in achieving it.

For employees to be empowered, they must be part of the conversation. Employees must participate in discussions on achieving current goals and setting new goals. Doing so will enable them to develop a personal stake in these goals and successfully fulfill them. Employees should also be encouraged to participate in shaping new ideas and strategies.

By being part of big-picture conversations, employees feel worthy and valuable to the team's success.

Align individuals to organizational goals. An organization still has a “why” that drives the work and value of the organization. Empowerment derives from having relevant information.

To bolster empowerment at work, ensure team members understand the goals of the organization. Enable them to connect their contributions to these goals. Show them how and why their work matters.

Provide feedback so they will know when they have been successful. Aligning individual and organizational goals means coaching team members to unleash their strengths in service of organizational goals.

Redefine accountability. Individual accountability is at the core of empowerment, but how we define it is important. 

Accountability here means a commitment to achieving organizational goals. But it also allows for risk-taking and new approaches that might lead to temporary setbacks and failures. Accountability includes supporting team members in learning from these moments. It means refocusing their efforts towards the goals using new knowledge and experience.

Practice self-awareness. A leader may discover she feels uncomfortable with releasing power to others.  Feelings like “what if they get it wrong?” or “I don’t feel like I’m adding any value” can be challenging for leaders who may then inadvertently act in a disempowering way.  Empowering leaders know themselves well. They keep tabs on their inner dialogue to guard against disempowering actions.

Employee empowerment in the workplace is the key to unlocking the full potential of your organization. Empowered employees are more productive, engaged, and committed to achieving their goals. In addition, they feel valued and respected, which creates a better work environment for everyone. To create a workplace empowerment culture, you need to start by clarifying roles and responsibilities, providing necessary resources, delegating authority effectively, and cultivating a flexible work environment.

The Unexpected Benefit of Celebrating Failure

Many people shy away from failure. There’s constant wonder and worry about what will happen to an individual when they fail, especially in their place of work. However, celebrating failure can and often brings unexpected success. I want to share a TedTalk by the Head of X (formerly Google X), Astro Teller, where he introduces the “Moonshot Factory” where his team works to solve the world’s biggest problems, and celebrates failure as a necessity for success.

Here are a few tips from today’s TedTalk:

• Run at the most challenging parts of the problem at hand first. Failures will often lead you to the path of success.
• Shift your perspective. Sometimes shifting your perspective is more powerful than being smart or right.
• Encourage the path of least resistance. Make it a safe space to fail and reward and celebrate failures. This can come in the form of hugs, high-fives, applause, promotions, or even bonuses.

Encouraging teams to take on only the most ambitious projects and allowing them to fail at them is what leads to profoundly amazing things. At X, that means celebrating teams that kill their good projects. These teams are applauded, literally, in front of the rest of the organization. They receive bonuses and vacations for recognizing that their project will fail to be great. And for newcomers to X, this can all seem a little odd.

But as a leader, Teller considers himself a “culture engineer” and believes strongly in the power of social norms. Creating a set of social norms that promote psychological safety is key to getting the best from your team. Teller said that most teams “don't think it's safe to tell you that the business plan that you asked them to make isn't really great. It's just good. Wouldn't that be amazing if they would actually tell you that, because you don't want them working on something that's good but not great. You want to unleash them, but you have to know first. And you're not operationally enough in the details to even know. They're the only people who really know.”

I hope that this TedTalk inspires you to celebrate your failures and to create an environment that encourages the path of least resistance. 

Establish a Culture of Trystorming

I learned from my time at Wiremold, originating from Art Byrne, the fundamentals of trystorming. This method consists of, “Rapid cycles of real-time experimentation, used to test and adjust improvement ideas before establishing standard work or implementing processes broadly.” In plain language this means – try it out! Try Storming incorporates physical actions that can engage other senses and give testers a better sense of whether an idea is viable or not.

Trystorming is different from brainstorming in that it encourages the rapid development and test of an idea rather than merely thinking about the possible solutions. It allows people to visualize, touch and further improve on an initial idea. It also models action rather than talk. Often in our desire to design the perfect Future State we forget that the best way to build a process that works is through the iterative process of trying, adjusting/correcting, and trying again.

The process is built on three basic principles:

• It is not important to create perfect solutions.
• Be action-oriented.
• Keep solutions simple.

These principles work hand-in-hand to develop effective solutions. When implemented correctly, Try-Storming can be used to continuously improve any business process.

One of the key reasons to utilize trystorming as part of any process design activity is that it models action rather than talk. By leaving the conference room and actually trying ideas during the course of the work, your team will quickly realize that your activity is more than just a meeting or an exercise in theory.

In addition, taking action typically increases the level of idea generation and team engagement exponentially. By mocking up and trying concepts the team will be able to visualize their ideas and transform plans into tangible improvements quickly. While trystorming requires much more energy than the traditional design approach, use of this methodology will significantly reduce the overall time needed to reach a workable solution.

Whether you are a business just looking for a new way to create together or are looking for a practical, yet fun way to reduce costs and optimize an existing or new process, TryStorming can be an immensely useful tool for your company or work team.

Independence at Work

On July 4, 1776, in a sweltering hall in Philadelphia, 56 men gathered to sign “the unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America.” As we celebrate independence in the US how much independence is there to celebrate in your workplace?

Too many knowledge workers — professionals with immense talent, experience, and drive to do meaningful work — are stifled by managers who misunderstand what effective management means. In misguided attempts to boost productivity and direct innovation, managers can kill both creativity and passion — the intrinsic motivation required to stay deeply engaged in work — by destroying people’s autonomy.

Researchers measured the impact that money had on performance. For basic, non-thinking tasks more money equaled more output. Interestingly, if even a moderate amount of thinking was involved, more money resulted in a decline of performance.

The three top motivators were Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose. Autonomy focuses on the freedom to act independently. Employees given this freedom to work on projects or opportunities of interest added greater value to their organization through innovation and customer focus. Mastery is about the opportunity to get really good at something and purpose is a connection to the big picture.

One of the leader’s responsibilities is to continually remind people about purpose – how their work impacts the customer and the greater mission of the organization. It is easy to forget this and work can become a boring chore.

To be truly intrinsically motivated and to gain a sense of achievement when they do make progress, people need to have some say in their own work. What’s more, when employees have freedom in how to do the work, they are more creative.