Lack of leadership will lead to a path of hardship

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This blog was written by Dennis van Scherpenzeel, Business Development Manager at Symbol.

Showing leadership means: starting the conversation and knowing what you are saying YES to

Improvement projects implemented without being linked to strategic goals. Lack of support. Improvement projects initiated without resources. There are several reasons why an improvement project can become a problem project. The solution often lies in communication. From management to employees, and/or vice versa. In both cases, this requires leadership. After all, showing leadership means daring to enter into the conversation so that you reach concrete agreements and both parties know what they are saying YES to.

Leadership by management

Many executives lack knowledge about Lean Six Sigma, and that is why the aforementioned conversation is not being had (correctly). Mortal sin. Immersing yourself in Lean Six Sigma is a good first step, as it allows you to discover what it can do for your organization and how to best utilize and support the Lean Six Sigma-trained employee. Tip: you can do that with Symbol’s Lean Six Sigma Champion training, in which you’ll take a personal look at where the organization is now and what its goals are, as well as what the success factors and pitfalls are in implementing improvement projects and realizing an improvement culture. With this background knowledge, you can provide the framework and the right focus as management so that employees excel within this framework and improvement projects are a raging success. How nice would it be to have the following conversation based on strategic goals: “These challenges we have this year. Who can and will pick this up?”

Leadership by employees

Conversely, employees who embark on continuous improvement must also show leadership, namely to enforce resources such as budget, time and capacity. Ultimately, it always starts with you as a Continuous Improvement or Lean manager. Is a failed project the management’s fault? Or haven’t you yourself created, enforced or been given the environment to be successful? Or did you allow other choices to be made at the expense of your project? Often I see employees or managers attend training without then involving management. They take the training for their personal development or for a personal goal, without then aligning how the knowledge and skills gained can contribute to the organization. I would rather see someone choose Lean Six Sigma training so they can then take on successful projects. After all, then you can go to management after the training, asking, “I took this training, I suggest that from the strategic goals, we take up this project.” This way you have a concrete conversation in which there is a much greater chance of commitment and of the resources being made available.

The goal: a general with an army

The main message of my story: it is important to have a general with an army, rather than a general without an army (without resources) or an army without a general (without leadership). Communication is essential here.

Symbol regularly acts as a lubricant to bring together management and employees, as well as organizational and training issues. That’s how you move toward success with leadership.

Lean Six Sigma Champion training

Lean Six Sigma Champions are initiators and principals of projects, so they should definitely have leadership qualities. How to select the right projects based on their contribution to departmental and corporate goals and manage them successfully. Click here for more information about this training.